The gods were ever wont, however, to make brief visits among the children of men—and if Charles Sumner stayed only fifteen minutes and said only a dozen words, at a wedding or a class-day, we rejoiced that he had been there, and his smile brightened the feast as much as the sun. His smile was one of rare sweetness and beauty; beneath the reserved exterior which distinguished him there beat a warm and true heart. He had, be it said, beautiful white teeth, and my mother remembered with amusement a certain dinner in his younger days when he resolutely refused, for obvious reasons, to eat huckleberry pie. The reserve and apparent coldness which we New Englanders have inherited from our English forefathers—and, owing to the severity of the climate, have been unable to modify—are often a misfortune to their possessor and cause him to be considered as unsympathetic, when he is not so in reality. The great Massachusetts Senator was a man without guile and of an almost childlike simplicity of nature. His pocket was constantly picked, literally as well as figuratively. He would go to the station to start for Washington, and, presto! his pocketbook would be gone. At fairs, he was an easy victim—and at the great fair held in Boston, for the benefit of the sailors of the navy, I should be afraid to say in how many raffles he was induced to invest. My contemporaries will remember that we had not then discovered the wickedness of raffles. To have them prohibited by law is a great protection to the modern purse. While no one could attack a political enemy with greater vigor than Charles Sumner, he seldom bore personal malice or ill-will. He met in the street, one day, a gentleman, Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, whose political opinions he had, in the discharge of his public duty, vigorously denounced. He held out his hand, and was surprised and pained to have it refused. It may be said in Mr. Winthrop’s excuse that Mr. Sumner’s action contributed to his being politely shelved! Charles Sumner’s conversation was very interesting and instructive, and he would sometimes pour out very freely the treasures of his well-stored mind. But while one felt that he was a man of learning, he was almost wholly destitute of the sense of humor. This is very evident in the correspondence of the “Five of Clubs,” the other members occasionally making merry at his expense. Who can blame them when dear Mr. Sumner, in the innocence of his heart, advised his office-boy, a young fellow from the country, to visit Mount Auburn, Boston’s principal cemetery, on the Fourth of July? I had the pleasure of hearing him speak in public, two hours at a time, after the political fashion of that day. That as a young girl I was able to listen so long proves that the speech must have been interesting. The following sketch of him as a public speaker was given me by my mother: