We found our hospitable and kindly host, Edwin Booth, little changed from the old days when we had so devoutly admired him. There were the same charm and simplicity of manner, the same sense of humor. His eyes still had the old fire, while the cheerful serenity of middle life replaced the buoyant happiness of his younger days. He spoke very simply of the time when he was a young man. I did not like to think that Edwin Booth ever could grow old. He was still in the prime of life, handsome and vigorous. Of his profession, of the stage and of Shakespeare, he liked to talk, and we liked only too well to listen. He had recently brought home from Germany some of the tokens of intense admiration that were showered upon him there—wreaths of silver, and perhaps of gold, also. What to do with these he did not know. Mantel lambrequins then afflicted the world. I fear it was I who suggested that the classic garlands might be sewn on these with decorative effect! Edwin Booth was too reserved and too kind-hearted to play the habitual mimic, yet he could, upon occasion, imitate to the life the person described. Once, when telling us of an experience in the far West while he was traveling with his father, he suddenly became a knock-kneed, shambling man. In a moment he was again Edwin Booth, grave and dignified. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XVIII OUR CHILDREN AT HOME, SCHOOL AND COLLEGE _An Attic Fairy.—Our Child Artist Grinds Her Own Paints.—Scholarships and Athletics at Harvard University.—Our Youngest Wins an “H.”—American Girls’ Club in Paris.—Caroline’s Pictures Exhibited in the New Salon._ OUR children received their early education at home and at the house of our good friend, Mrs. Sykes. When the boys were well started in their lessons we sent them to the neighboring public school. Here their proficiency in reading was resented by their contemporaries. An aristocracy of learning is quite as offensive to boy nature as any other form of superiority. The school was coeducational, but in spite of this some of the boys were pretty rough. It was a good thing for our sons, however, to learn young to take their own part and to rub elbows with all sorts and conditions of children. The public-school system of America is an indispensable feature of our democracy.