could speak to us?" Her spirit seems still to hover over them. Sidney Smith said, "There can be no handsomer furniture than books." Every room, every nook and corner of the house, is furnished with new books. The room specially devoted to library uses has a selection of books in every department of reading, sufficient for the instruction and pleasure of any man of refined taste and culture. Amid the thousands of volumes gathered, the most precious of them all to the family and their friends are two volumes written by Mrs. Rollins not long before her decease, entitled "New England Bygones" and "Old-Time Child Life." To one born in New England seventy years ago, the pictures of New England scenes are inimitable; they stir the blood of age like a trumpet. These books are the creations of true genius, and will live when all the contemporaries of this gifted woman are dead. Enough has been said to reveal the attractions of this delightful home. Every word has been dictated by a life-long friendship. The sterling qualities of the subject of this sketch constrained me to portray them, and the half has not been said. When the elders of the Jews were sent to Jesus by the Roman centurion to intercede for his sick servant, the highest commendation they could name was this: "For he loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue." He was patriotic and religious; he feared God and loved his neighbor. No higher test of moral worth can be named. Let all public men be judged by this standard; and among them our good friend whom we have sketched, we doubt not, will hold a high rank. And if at any time the President of the United States should be seeking for a man for financial secretary who is honest, capable, and experienced, a multitude of voters would cry out,--Edward Ashton Rollins is the man! VIRGIL C. GILMAN. VIRGIL CHASE GILMAN was born in Unity, Sullivan county, New Hampshire, May 5, 1827, and was the third of a family of eight children born to Emerson and Delia (Way) Gilman. Emerson Gilman was the oldest son and the first of twelve children born to Stephen and Dorothy (Clough) Gilman, who were married September 5, 1793. This was his second marriage, he having married Anna Huntoon, by whom he had nine children, some of whom died in infancy. Stephen Gilman was a native of Kingston, and served as a cavalry officer in the war of the Revolution. He was a descendant of Moses Gilman, who was one of three brothers,--Edward, John, and Moses,--who emigrated from Hingham, England, early in the sixteenth century.