The gentleman said that he had not noticed my name on the picture particularly, nor on the receipt given by the merchant for the money, which gave the title and painter of the work, until he had gotten back to the hotel, when his wife recognized it and remembered having been in my studio--a fine name for a small concern--in New York, and that we had many friends in common there. The upshot of the matter was that the gentleman gave me an invitation to call at the Spottswood. I went the next day. They were immensely amused and interested with any particulars about her. The father--the names are immaterial, the young lady's was Elaine--asked me jocularly at what sum I estimated my fifth in Mammy. I had previously convinced him that we never had the remotest idea of parting with the old lady. Consequently we had never estimated her value, but that I thought my fifth at the time of the settling of the estate would have been about one hundred dollars. After I had made several visits, the three came to see my other picture. The day after their departure Mammy called. She was in fine spirits over a visit that she had made to my new friends, at their earnest request. All the time that she was speaking she was working at a knot in the corner of her handkerchief. I knew that she kept her small valuables there, but was thunderstruck when she extracted two fifty-dollar bills. “Why, Mammy! Where--” “Dat's all right, honey. The Bureau gent'man fix it all, jess like I tole you. He said dat he done 'nquired, an' yo' fif' was wuth dat--two fifties, one hundred--an' I let him off de res.” “But what gentleman?” “Dat gent'man whar was at de Spottswood Hotel. He tole me he wuz agent for de Bureau. An' I tell you, Mahs William, dey's quality, dem folks. You kain' fool Becky.” Of course I did not enlighten Mammy. What would have been the use? Not many days thereafter I got a request to ship my “Dead Hopes,” at my price, to the address of a frame-maker in New York. Elaine's father said that he had a purchaser for it. I discovered later that he was a master of pleasant fiction. When I wondered, long after, to him that he should have bought a Confederate picture, he convinced me that my picture had nothing confederate in it; that he had inferred that I had painted it in a catholic spirit. The lady was in mourning, the flowers faded, the letters too small for postmark, the picture on the wall a colorless photograph, and the sword a regulation pattern common to both armies. He thought it very skilfully planned, and complimented me on it. I was silent. All the Confederate part and point had been in my mind. About a year after this--I had been located in New York some months--Elaine and I came on a visit to Richmond. I might just as well say that it was our bridal trip.