In my church and congregation were two bright, attractive Southern women. In sentiment however they were politically divided; one was for secession, the other was for the Union. In January, 1861, the latter, in some way, discovered that she was a distant relative of Mr. Lincoln. Thereupon she visited Springfield, and called upon him. He heartily urged her to spend several days under his roof. She was delighted to accept this cordial invitation, and was charmed with her new-found blood relation. She returned to St. Louis full of enthusiasm for the President elect, and embraced every fitting opportunity to lavish upon him her praises. By chance she and the other woman of opposite political sentiment, of whom I have spoken above, making a social call, met, without any collusion, in my parlor. The conversation soon drifted into a discussion of the ominous events which were then agitating all minds. Very soon Mr. Lincoln was spoken of and the lady who favored secession called him a clown and a mountebank. This brought her Southern friend, who was a Unionist, to his defence. Her words had in them no tinge of bitterness, but they were positive and cordial. She said that Mr. Lincoln was a relative of hers, a warm personal friend, that she had recently spent, by his urgent invitation, ten days in his house, and that he was no clown; if she had ever met a kind, warm-hearted gentleman he was one. To hear Mr. Lincoln so warmly eulogized as a gentleman, and that by a Southern woman, was a little more than the secession lady could endure. She burst into tears, and said in broken accents, “I—can—never speak—to you again.” She rose to depart. Confounded by this unexpected explosion of spleen, and hardly knowing whether I was at home or somewhere else, I managed to help my tearful friend to the door, where, as politely as I could, I bade her good day. She did not respond. Her choking emotions forbade it. With her handkerchief to her eyes, she went sobbing down the street, because one of her own dear friends had, in the most lady-like manner, declared that Mr. Lincoln was not a clown.