“Dat’s de way ’tis, ma’am; ketch um in de humor an’ eve’ybody’s good; ketch um out’n de humor an’ dey er all mean—I know dat by my own feelin’s. Ef a fly had lit on Marse Bolivar’s face dat day, Mary Ellen would ’a’ had ter face ’er trouble by ’er own ’lone self. Ef some sour-minded man had gone up town an’ told how Marse Bolivar wuz en’tainin’ nigger gals an’ a Yankee ’oman in his parlor, dey’d all been down on ’im. An’ den——” “What, then?” the lady of the house asked, as Aunt Minervy Ann paused. “Dey’d ’a’ been weepin’ an’ whailin’ in de settlement sho. Ain’t it so, suh?” It was natural, after Aunt Minervy Ann had narrated the particulars of this episode, that her statements should dwell in my memory, and sally forth and engage my mind when it should have been concerned with other duties. One of these duties was to examine each day the principal newspapers of New England in search of topics for editorial comment. An eye trained to this business, as any exchange editor can tell you, will pick out at a glance a familiar name or suggestive phrase, no matter what its surroundings nor how obscurely it may be printed. Therefore, one day, weeks after Aunt Minervy Ann’s recital, when I opened the _Boston Transcript_ at its editorial page, it was inevitable that the first thing to catch my eye was the familiar name of “Mary Ellen Tatum.” It was printed in type of the kind called nonpareil, but I would have seen it no sooner nor more certainly if it had been printed in letters reaching half across the page. Mary Ellen Tatum! The name occurred in a three-line preface to the translation of an art note from a Paris newspaper. This note described, with genuine French enthusiasm, the deep impression that had been made on artists and art circles in Paris by a portrait painted by a gifted young American artist, Mlle. Marie Helen Tatum. It is needless to transcribe the eulogy—I have it in my scrapbook. It was a glowing tribute to a piece of work that had created a sensation, and closed with the announcement that another genius had “arrived.” The comments of the Boston editor, following the sketch, declared that the friends of Miss Mary Ellen Tatum in Boston, where she spent her early years and where she was educated, were proud of her remarkable success, and predicted for her a glorious career as an artist. I had no more than cut this piece from the newspaper when the door-bell rang, and as there happened to be no one in the house to answer it at the moment, I went to the door myself, the clipping still in my hand, and there before my eyes was Colonel Bolivar Blasengame, his fine face beaming with good-nature. He had come at a moment when I most desired to see him, and I greeted him cordially.