Accompanying this letter was a slip from one of the large New York dailies confirming his story, and reporting the resolutions passed at a great public meeting, of which A. Sarony was President and Chairman, John Bratish, Vice-President, and George Sonne, Secretary. "The call of the meeting was read and adopted," says the report, "when General Bratish addressed the assemblage in the English, French, and German languages, in the most patriotic and eloquent manner. His speech was received with enthusiastic and repeated applause." And here for a long season we lost sight of the General, though two or three circumstances occurred, each trivial in itself, but all tending to give a new aspect to the affair, just before he left us, we had a small party at our house, where, among other amusements, a game called "The Four Elements" was introduced. When it was all over, and our visitors were gone, a costly handkerchief, with a lace border, was not to be found. It had been last seen in the hands of General Bratish. Having no idea that, if he had pocketed it by mistake, it would not be returned, we waited patiently,--very patiently,--supposing he might have thrown aside his company dress-coat without examining the pockets, and that when he put it on again the handkerchief would be forthcoming, of course. But no,--nothing was heard of it, until one evening at a lecture my wife suddenly caught my arm, and, pointing to a white handkerchief the General was flourishing within reach, said, "There's Aunt Mary's handkerchief, now!"--"Nonsense, my dear!"--"It is, I tell you; I can see where he has ripped off the lace." I thought her beside herself; but still--why the sudden substitution of a large red Spitalfields for the white handkerchief? "Perhaps," said I to my wife,--"perhaps the handkerchief was not marked, and he did not know where to find the owner."--"But it was marked, and he knows the owner as well as you do," was the reply. Of course, I had nothing more to say; and so I laughed the exhibition off, as a sort of _pas de mouchoir_, like that which brought Forrest into a controversy with Macready. And then something else happened. I missed the only copy I had in the world of "Niagara and Goldau," which he had borrowed of me and returned, with emphasis; and many months after he had disappeared, I received a volume of poems from the heart of Germany, entitled, "Der Heimathgruss, Eine Pfingstgabe von Mathilde von Tabouillot, geborene Giester," published at Wesel, 1840, with a letter from the lady herself, thanking me with great warmth and earnestness for my pamphlet in defence of General Bratish. Putting that and that together, I began to have a suspicion that my copy of "Niagara and Goldau" had been presented to the authoress by my friend, the General,--perhaps in the name of the author.