MY DEAR BOSWELL,--I have asked my family for some incidents of my childhood, as you bade me,--soliciting any "anecdotes," "characteristics," or "early tendencies" that may have been, as you suggest, "foreshadowings" of later things. I have been much chagrined at the result. My younger sister states that I was a nice, well-mannered, capable child, nothing more; and that I never did anything nor said anything in any way remarkable. She affirms that, so far from spending my childhood days in composition, her principal recollection of me is that of a practical stirring little person, clad in a linsey woolsey gown, eternally dragging a red and brown sled called "The Artful Dodger." She adds that when called upon to part with this sled, or commanded to stop sliding, I showed certain characteristics that may perhaps have been "foreshadowings," but that certainly were not engaging ones. My mother was a good deal embarrassed when questioned, and finally confessed that I never said anything worthy of mention until I was quite "grown up;" a statement that is cheerfully corroborated by all the authorities consulted. . . . Do not seek, then, to pierce my happy obscurity. . . . Believe me, dear Bozzy, Sincerely your Johnson, (K. D. W.) Postscript by Johnson's Sister,-- The above report is substantially correct, though a few touches of local color were added which we see Johnson's modesty has moved her to omit. My sister was certainly a capable little person at a tender age, concocting delectable milk toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, and generally making a very good Parent's Assistant. I have also visions of her toiling at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a nice old-fashioned little girl in a story book; and in connection with the linsey woolsey frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a blue and white hood with a mass of shining fair hair escaping below it, and a pair of very pink cheeks. Further to illustrate her personality, I think no one much in her company at any age could have failed to note an exceedingly lively tongue and a general air of executive ability. If I am to be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of budding authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months only), and a devotion to reading. Her "literary passions" were the _Arabian Nights_, _Scottish Chiefs_, _Don Quixote_, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, _Irving's Mahomet_, _Thackeray's Snobs_, _Undine_, and the _Martyrs of Spain_. These volumes, joined to an old green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were the chief of her diet. But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"--not so called because it _took_ the prize, alas! but because it competed for it.