up her substance, and depart hence for the rest of her natural or artistic life. She is very little changed in appearance, and only a little in manner. She seemed very glad to see me, and so was I to see her, for she represented to my memory a whole world of things and places and people that I am fond of. I have not seen Lord Lyon, and do not expect to do so, as I understand he does not mean to stir from Washington all the summer, and thither I shall assuredly not go, though I would go a good way to see him. I'm told he lives in dread of being married by some fair American, and it is not always a thing that a man can escape; but he is too good for that, and I trust will not succumb to these intrepid little flirts. Good-bye, dear Mr. Leighton; I have a settled nostalgia, which is the saddest thing in the world. Your sketch of Westbury is always before me, and your letters are the most kindly return you could possibly make, for any service that you could require of me. I wish with all my heart I might have the great pleasure of writing you, now that one of your pictures was sold. Addio. LENOX, _Friday, June 7_. Thank you, dear Frederic Leighton, for your letter and the photographs, by means of which, and your description, I have a sort of vision (not quite what the Yankees call a "realising sense") of your pictures. The girl at the fountain is charming,[20] the other beautiful and terrible, as it should be.[21] I can well imagine the beautiful effect the sentiment of the picture must receive from that regretful return, as it were, of the daylight that has set upon the poor people for ever. In the English newspapers that are sent to me I looked eagerly among the notices of the Exhibition for your name, and read the meagre little bit allotted to each picture. I was especially delighted with the critic who thinks your "Paolo and Francesca" too _earthly_ in the intensity of their passions. The gentleman apparently forgets that it was not in Heaven that Dante met these poor things. With regard to your other pictures, dear Mr. Leighton, I think you are right to withdraw them from America. I wish with all my heart that I could have presented myself with one of those pictures; however, that is one of the vainest of all human desires. My income is already docked of two hundred pounds this year by the disastrous state of public affairs; but, of course, if one is in the midst of a falling house, one can hardly hope to avoid bruises and broken bones. The attitude of England is highly unsatisfactory to the North, who now choose to consider the whole action of the Government a crusade against slavery--which it is not, and was not, and will not be except in the New England state where the Abolitionist party has always