When the tragedy of last autumn was all over, the interest of the public was greater than ever, and Ida, "who had within four short weeks lost mother, lover, and father," formed the subject of many a pathetic editorial and sermon. A London journal styled Ida the "maiden widow," spoke of uncle's fond attachment to Mr. Hempstead, and announced that the loss of his prospective son-in-law was an affliction that precipitated Mr. Greeley's death. I first heard of Mr. Hempstead in the winter of 1869-70. Aunt Mary, who was then commencing to fail, went with Ida to Nassau to spend the cold months. Her state-room, engaged at the last moment, was a very uncomfortable one, and Mr. Hempstead, then purser of the _Eagle_, gave up for her use a large deck state-room with three windows--a great comfort to Aunt Mary, who was always so partial to an airy bedroom. The voyage proved, however, a very stormy one, and the waves dashed in through these three windows, quite drenching poor Ida, who suffered so much from sea-sickness as to be quite indifferent to danger or discomfort. In writing to me after reaching Nassau, Ida mentioned Mr. Hempstead in a few words: "The purser was an agreeable and gentlemanly officer, and so kind to mamma." She did not, however, mention his name, and I never knew it till last summer. After their return to New York, in the spring of 1870, Aunt Mary invited Mr. Hempstead to visit them at Chappaqua, as she felt under some obligations to him for having given her his state-room, and subsequently executed some little commissions for her, between New York and Nassau. He came out here, and made a visit of a week. In July of the same year. Aunt Mary and Ida went abroad, and from that time the acquaintance dropped. That he admired Ida know, but how any one could manufacture an engagement from such slight material, I cannot imagine. One day last summer, during the excitement of the campaign, I had taken up a rose-tinted society journal as a little respite from politics, when my eyes fell upon a paragraph announcing Ida's engagement to Mr. William Hempstead, Purser of the _Missouri_; and then I for the first time learnt the officer's name. My astonishment can be imagined; and to this day it remains an enigma who invented that little society item. If a fertile-minded reporter had desired to head his column of Engagements in High Life with Ida's name, and had announced that she would shortly be led to the hymeneal altar (I believe that is the correct phrase in newspaper parlance) by any one in our circle of acquaintances with whom she was at all intimate, it would not have been surprising; but why a person whom she had not seen or heard of for two years should have been selected, is a mystery worthy of G. P. R. James.