By this time I was trying to write plays, but it was not for some years that Vaughan took seriously to writing. When he was nineteen our mother resigned from her school and we went to Florida, where we spent six months camping and cruising on the gulf coast, a delectable time for Vaughan, who especially loved salt water and boats. We camped for many weeks on Sea Horse Key six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico from Cedar Keys. Here Parsons Lathrop, and had been breakfasted by our mother's cousin, William Dean Howells, who then and thenceforth showed us both the utmost kindness. I think meeting Mr. Howells had much to do with firing Vaughan's ambitions. From that time on Mr. Howells was our guide, philosopher and friend, our sponsor and our supporter. We hoarded our funny stories in the hope—generally successful, for his good nature is unfailing—of making him laugh, and he lent an equally willing ear to all our troubles. Two young men never had a kinder friend, nor a wiser. From the first Mr. Howells had faith in Vaughan, and Mrs. Howells, whose rare discrimination we learned to value so highly, and whose generous interest was so unfailing and so helpful, at once saw qualities in him. Her appreciation of him was immediate and intuitive. She sensed at once not only what he was, but what he might become, and I think to her he was always of the stature which he was just consciously attaining when he died. During one of Vaughan's long visits to his grandmother in Mount Vernon, Ohio, he heard a vague report that Dan Emmett, the composer of Dixie, was living north of the town. He hunted up the famous minstrel, and found him, nearly eighty years old, chopping wood for a living. Mr. Emmett had been a man of some means, and was well connected, but he had drifted away from his people and was living a hermit's life in a little house he had built, unknown for the most part to his townspeople. This meeting with Emmett was important to both my brother and to the old composer. They became great friends, and the result was that Vaughan wrote several articles for the papers—accounts of Emmett's career as a composer and as one of the Christy Minstrels. Kate Field's Washington printed the first of these articles. These sketches marked the beginning of Vaughan's career as a writer. It was his first real appearance in print. The money he received for this work he gave to Mr. Emmett, who had furnished him with the facts the articles embodied. I remember very well how distressed Vaughan was at the thought of leaving Emmett when he should return to Virginia.