“All the visitors have gone; Mount Rorke and I are quite alone. He is kindness itself, and does not bother me about his memoirs; but from what I hear that book will make one of the biggest sensations ever made in the literary world. I want him to publish it now, but he only smiles and shakes his head. He says: 'What is the use of setting the world talking about you when you are alive; as long as I am alive I can see those I want to see, and be with them far more personally than I could by placing in their hands three volumes in 8vo; the 8vos are only useful when you have passed into darkness, and are not yet reconciled to dying quite out of the minds of men. I do not desire to be remembered by those who will live three hundred years hence, but I confess that I should like to modulate the pace of forgetfulness according to my fancy, and be remembered, let us say, for the next sixty or seventy years. I find no fault with death but its abruptness, and that I hope to be able to correct. The vulgar and most usual plan is children, but children are no anodyne to oblivion, whereas a good book in a certain measure is.' “These are almost the words Mount Rorke used, and I quote them as exactly as possible, so that you may see what kind of man he is. We pulled our chairs round to the fire and had a real good talk. I know no better company than Mount Rorke. He has seen everything, read everything, and known everybody worth knowing; he is a mine of information, and, what is far better, he is a complete man of the world; and long contact with the world has left him a little cynical, otherwise he is perfect. I told him the story about Berkins, and he laughed; I never saw him laugh so before; and when I told him that I had told Berkins, as he was tying up his leg, that so far as the incident with the dog was concerned, I regretted deeply what had occurred, he could not contain himself. He rang the bell, and we had old Triss up. He asked a great deal about you; I leave you to imagine what I said. How did he expect me to describe my darling? I told him of your subtle, fascinating ways, of your picturesque attitudes, and your exquisite little black eyes. 'I think I see her,' he said; 'little eyes that light up are infinitely more interesting than those big, limpid, silly eyes that everybody admires.' I am now doing a water-colour sketch from the photograph--the one in which you stand with your hands behind your back and your head on one side--for him. I am getting on with it pretty well. Ah! if only I had you here for an hour (I should like to have you here for ever, of course; but now I am speaking artistically, not humanly), I think I could get it really like you; there are one or two things that the photo does not give me. I shall send the sketch to Dublin to be framed; it will be a nice present for Mount Rorke.