"I found my sister-in-law's tastes," she said, "quite different from those of the majority of young ladies. In literature her preference was for the solid and philosophic, rather than the romantic class of reading; indeed, I may say that she never read, she _studied_; going over a paragraph several times, until she had fully comprehended its subtleties of thought, and stored them away in her retentive memory for future use. During that year, I never knew her to read a work of fiction; but philosophy or science formed her daily nourishment; whilst brother, whenever he had a free evening, read aloud to Mary and I from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, sweetened now and then with a selection from Lord Byron or Mrs. Hemans--the two poets that at that time he preferred. "But although your Aunt Mary had such severe literary tastes, she was by no means gloomy in her disposition, as you might perhaps infer. Your uncle being at that time editor of a weekly journal, he was comparatively a man of leisure, and he and Mary went frequently to the theatre, and to hear lectures--a source of great enjoyment to both of them. They also mingled considerably in general society, for Mary was then very fond of dancing, although there was rarely or never any at her Friday evenings, for literary people then, as now, eschewed the goddess Terpsichore. "I told you that I arrived in New York upon brother's reception-night. Those Friday evenings wore a great source of pleasure to me, introducing me as they did to the literary coterie of the metropolis. Nearly all the men and women of note at that time met in our parlors on Greenwich Street, and many of them were regular or occasional contributors to brother's journal. Among the names that I can recall, were Gen. Morris, then editing the _New York Mirror_; the two Clark brothers, editors of the _Knickerbocker_, one of whom, Willis Gaylord Clark, was at that time writing his clever 'Ollapodiana;' Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet; George M. Snow, who later in life became financial editor of _The Tribune_, and is now deceased; Professor A. C. Kendrick, of Hamilton College, the translator of Schiller's 'Victor's Triumph,' which subsequently appeared in _The New Yorker_, and which, you will remember, your uncle has occasionally read for us at our own Tuesday evening receptions; Mrs. O. M. Sawyer, the accomplished wife of brother's pastor, then making her _debut_ in the literary world with poems and occasional translations from the German; Elizabeth Jessup Eames, who was writing stories and poems for _The New Yorker_, under the signature of 'Stella;' Mrs. E. F. Ellet, in 1836 a handsome young bride, who had come up from the South, and was contributing translations from the French and German to the same journal; Anne Cora Lynch, now Madame Botta; and many others.