“Gorham Bacon came to dinner, Mr. Burgwyn, Richard Mansfield, Porter, Munzig, and Mr. Dwight for supper. Mr. D. took me to the opera last night. The Italian tenor, Tamberlik, is wonderful. He has been singing since 1841, yet his voice is perfectly strong and clear. Dressed the flowers in both houses, made cake. Mama came home from church bringing Marion Gray. As we were crooning over the fire at twilight, the dining-room door opened and Uncle Sam walked in with a young Lord Rosebery. Later came Charlie How with Gus Gurnee.” It must have been in the early seventies that I first met Benjamin Curtis Porter, destined to have a successful career as a portrait painter. At this time he had quarters in the Studio Building on Tremont Street, opposite the Old Granary Burying Ground. It was the pleasant custom of that simpler era for artists to receive on Saturday mornings. Friends, patrons, strangers even, were free to knock at any studio door and were pretty sure to be admitted. Mr. Rowse, whose crayon portraits were “all the rage”, lived in the same building, as did also our friend George Snell, the architect, who gave pleasant luncheon parties at his rooms. I do not know that Porter actually studied with Rowse, but his early work shows the influence of this artist. Porter made a crayon drawing of my mother for the New England Woman’s Club, and I fancy that it was while he was having the sittings for this that he became a familiar visitor at our house. There is an early sketch of me at about this time in my sister Laura’s possession, for which I have no recollection of sitting. He made a charming little oil painting called the “Blessed Damosel” for Laura’s wedding present, and though taking some liberties with her coloring--he made her nutbrown hair the color of corn silk--it is the best existing likeness of my pretty sister at this time. I think it must have been in the winter of 1875-1876 that Porter painted the portrait of me that made his reputation. It was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition under the title, “Portrait of a Lady.” It is a charming composition: the lady stands by a chair on which is seated a pug dog. The contrast between the girl’s fresh face and the little dog’s pugnacious mug is very piquant. The “Portrait of a Lady” soon became one of the most popular pictures in the exhibition. While almost everybody else liked it, Porter was not satisfied and wished to paint another. This time he used a larger canvas and made a full-length seated portrait. He was better pleased with this and sent it to the Paris Exposition of 1879, where it was much noticed. The portrait with the dog is now in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, while the larger portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I am very familiar with the latter, for during my mother’s life it hung in her Boston house. It has lost nothing and gained much in richness of tone since it was painted.