of the frightened Minckwitz family, he fell back into a heavy sleep. In spite of the sentimentalities, in spite of the racial differences of attitude about many things, the American children owe much to the literary atmosphere that surrounded the family life of their kind German friends. In those days in Dresden the most beautiful representations of Shakespeare were given in German, and, as the hour for the theatre to begin was six o’clock in the evening, and the plays were finished by nine o’clock, many were the evenings when we enjoyed “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and many more of Shakespeare’s wonderful fanciful creations, given as they were with unusual sympathy and ability by the actors of the German Theatre. Perhaps because of our literary studies and our ever-growing interest in our own efforts in the famous Dresden Literary American Club, we decided that the volume which became so precious to us should, after all, have no commercial value, and in July I write to my aunt the news which I evidently feel will be a serious blow to her--that we have decided that we cannot sell the poems and stories gathered into that immortal volume! About the middle of the summer there was an epidemic of smallpox in Dresden and my mother hurriedly took us to the Engadine, and there, at Samaden, we lived somewhat the life of our beloved Madison and Hudson River days. Our cousin John Elliott accompanied us, and the three boys and their ardent little follower, myself, spent endless happy hours in climbing the surrounding mountains, only occasionally recalled by the lenient “Fräulein Anna” to what were already almost forgotten Teutonic studies. Later we returned to Dresden, and in spite of the longing in our patriotic young hearts to be once more in the land of the Stars and Stripes, I remember that we all parted with keen regret from the kind family who had made their little American visitors so much at home. [Illustration] [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT’S LETTER OF SEPTEMBER 21, 1873, TO HIS OLDER SISTER]