My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelming fertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the conception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not, such local color--it is all as if I had really been there to see! I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from spreading beyond the walls of the asylum. My modesty is as great as my talent! No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered just yet. It must all go to help and illustrate and adorn the work of a much greater genius, from which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had. It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me: to unravel and translate and put in order these voluminous and hastily-penned reminiscences of Mary's, all of them written in the cipher we invented together in our dream--a very transparent cipher when once you have got the key! It will take five years at least, and I think that, without presumption, I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far from the age of the Psalmist. First of all, I intend * * * * * _Note_.--Here ends my poor cousin's memoir. He was found dead from effusion of blood on the brain, with his pen still in his hand, and his head bowed down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which he had just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full of stones from one open door to another. One door is labelled _Passe_, the other _Avenir_. I arrived in England, after a long life spent abroad, at the time his death occurred, but too late to see him alive. I heard much about him and his latter days. All those whose duties brought them into contact with him seemed to have regarded him with a respect that bordered on veneration. I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing him in his coffin. I had not seen him since he was twelve years old. As he lay there, in his still length and breadth, he appeared gigantic--the most magnificent human being I ever beheld; and the splendor of his dead face will haunt my memory till I die. MADGE PLUNKET.