In the autumn of 1857, Mrs. Pierce, accompanied by her husband, left the United States, on the steamer “Powhatan,” for the island of Madeira, and passed six months in that delightful place. The following eighteen months were spent in Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and England. Of her appreciation of this lengthy sojourn in the most historic and renowned countries of the old world, we have no evidence save in the supposition, how one of her fine nervous nature must have enjoyed the bygone splendors of Spain, the ever-ranging panorama of luxurious Paris, and the snow-capped mountains of Italy and Switzerland, of the Alps, of Mont Blanc, and the tamer scenery of German towns and cities! Would that it were possible to present even one of her letters to the American public who have ever evinced their regard and admiration for Mrs. Pierce, through the sympathy extended to her now desolate husband. But that repugnance to publicity, so characteristic in life, is respected now by the few of her family who have survived her, and the painful recollections of what she suffered are as yet too fresh in the minds of her friends to desire them to be recalled. From ex-President Pierce, who very kindly replied to my many inquiries, the following letter was received just previous to his death, which occurred on the 8th of October, 1869: “If your attention has been called to the obituary notice of Mrs. Pierce, published in the _Boston Recorder_, of January 8th, 1864, and reproduced in the _New York Observer_ within two or three weeks of that date, you may have been impressed with the sentences, ‘She shrank with extreme sensitiveness from public observation.’ I cannot help being influenced by that very controlling trait of her character, and this, I am sure, is true of all her relatives. Hence, and indeed, in consulting our own tastes, we were thoroughly satisfied with the sketch from the hand of one who knew her intimately, from his early manhood, and loved her well. “Mrs. Pierce’s life, as far as she could make it so, was one of retirement. She very rarely participated in gay amusements, and never enjoyed what is sometimes called fashionable society. Her natural endowments were of a high order, recognized by all persons with whom she was, to any considerable extent, associated. She inherited a judgment singularly clear and correct, and a taste almost unerring. She was carefully and thoroughly educated, and moved all her life, prior to her marriage, very quietly in a circle of relatives and intimate friends of rare culture and refinement.” * * * * * On the 2d of December, 1863, at Andover, Massachusetts, she died. Many of her kindred and all her children had gone before her, and she was ready to join them. But she was patient, and had “learned to wait, with growing confidence and love, for the revealing of her Heavenly Father’s will.” Among her last words was the familiar line,