REVERSING the wheel of Time by a turn or two, we are in the thick of preparations for the Christmas of 1855. It is less than a year since I read and re-read a letter that had lain among the leaves of my journal for a long term of years. It was never read by any eyes except my own, and those of him who wrote it. In the solemn conviction that for any other—no matter how near of kin and dear of heart—to look upon the lines, would be profanation, I burned the old letter. Life is short and uncertain. I would take no risks. And what need of keeping what I can never lose while memory remains faithful to her trust? I require no written or printed record to remind me what set that Yule-tide apart from all the anniversaries that had preceded it, and distinguished it from all that were to follow in its train. We had had a guest in the house for three weeks. A Musical Convention—the first ever held in Richmond—was in session under the conduct of Lowell Mason and George Francis Root. My father, my sister, my brother Herbert, and myself were members of a flourishing Sacred Music Society, composed principally of amateurs, and we had engaged the distinguished leaders in the profession to preside over the Conference, by which it was hoped public taste in the matter of choir and congregational singing might be improved. Classes were formed for the study of methods and for drill in vocalization. The course would be closed by a grand concert, in which no professional artists would take part. The thought that the imported leaders in the programme should be allowed to put up at a hotel was opposed to the genius of Southern hospitality. Doctor and Mrs. Lowell Mason were the honored guests of Mr. Williams, the President of the Society. My father invited Mr. Root “to make our house his home while he was in our city.”