"When we returned to New York, we stopped for a short visit at Turtle Bay. Pickie was then eight months old, and as sweet and poetic-looking as one of Correggio's cherubs. Your mamma was then in the first flush of her maternal enthusiasm. She and your papa were desirous that mother should remain in New York and spend the winter with them; but fondly as she loved your papa, and dear as her daughter-in-law and her little grandson were to her, she felt that her duty and her strongest love recalled her to her husband and her home in the woods. She returned to Pennsylvania, and took up again her life of daily care, but she brought back little joy with her, although no word of discontent escaped her. Her favorite seat was by the window looking east, and there we often surprised her gazing with an intent look down the road. When we would ask her if she was expecting any one, or for whom she was looking, she would say with a startled expression, 'Oh, no one;' but we always fancied that she was thinking of her early home that she had now left forever. "A year or two later, slowly, silently, and peacefully she passed away." "I thought, auntie," said Gabrielle, "that you lived with mamma when Pickie was a baby. I am sure I have heard her say that you helped her to take care of him." "That is true, dear," replied mamma, "but I did not remain in New York at the time of which we are now speaking. I accompanied mother home to Pennsylvania, and the following spring, when Pickie was a year old, your mamma wrote to ask me to come back, and assist her in the care of her beautiful boy. I remained with her until my marriage, consequently Pickie became very near to me, and his death was almost as great a shock to me as it was to his parents." "Do tell us, mamma," said Marguerite, "about Pickie's childhood. I have always heard that he was brought up in a very remarkable way, but beyond the fact of Aunt Mary's great devotion to him, I know very little concerning him." "Your Aunt Mary," mamma replied, "looked upon Pickie's birth as much in the light of a miracle as if no other child had ever before been born. He was Heaven-sent to her, and she sacrificed herself completely for the better development of Pickie's individuality, or, to use the language of the reformers of those days, in 'illustrating the independence of the child's self-hood.' Nothing could have been more boundless than her enthusiasm for her baby; and it was night and day her study to guard his health, and to watch and cherish his opening intellect. No child prince could have been more tenderly and daintily nurtured than he was; as his father often said, 'Pickie is a dear boy in every sense of the word;' for nothing was too rare or too costly for him.