I was especially warned against the water. It was denounced and charged, in the press, with many serious offences against the public health and against nose, eye, and palate, and I did not test the truth of the accusation. The Delmonico dinner was but a preparation for a function at the Union League Club, which was giving a "Ladies' Reception" at the Club-house in Fifth Avenue, where "all New York was to be present." The boast, or threat, was scarcely an empty one. As far as the spacious premises could accommodate New York, its fathers and mothers, indeed its grandfathers and grandmothers, its uncles and its aunts, they were there; but the sisters and daughters appeared either to be kept at home, or to dislike the Union League Club, for there were in the vast crowd of well-dressed people of both sexes but few young ladies, which was a bitter disappointment to the gayer of the party; and when one of them repaired to a supper-table, at which there was a rolling fire of corks going on, and asked for a glass of champagne to keep up his spirits, the domestic whom he addressed demanded his wine-ticket, and he, being destitute of any such document, retired disconsolate and thirsty. Mr. Hamilton Fish, the President of the Club, and other members of the Committee did the honours for the Duke, and presented many ladies and gentlemen in their progress through the Club to him, and many amiable offers of service and suggestions for the disposal of our time were tendered, which the time aforesaid would not permit us to accept. It was trying to wander about long series of rooms upstairs and downstairs, and to struggle up and down staircases and along corridors in a throng of strangers; more trying still to be brought up all standing, and to be made an involuntary enemy to progress by the ill-timed but well-meant efforts of the Committee of Reception to introduce eminent citizens or citizenesses to the Duke and his friends. The walls were hung with paintings lent for the occasion by members of the Club, and the predominance of the Foreign schools in the American market was very clearly marked in the names of the painters and the choice of subjects. There were Meissoniers and Rosa Bonheurs, and pictures from Brussels, Paris, Dusseldorf, and Munich, as well as a display of native works, but there were few, if any, specimens of the divisions of the English school. Mr. Bierstadt told me subsequently that there was a growing appreciation of the works of British artists in the States, and that some valuable examples of our best modern painters had been recently acquired for their galleries by private collectors. At all events, on the present occasion the best pictures in the world would literally have gone to the wall, as there was no chance of seeing them thoroughly, although the rooms were brilliantly lighted. Mr. J. Milbank is the fortunate owner of De Neuville's "Reconnaissance," as well as of a good Bonnat and Bouguereau, and Mr.