Porter made in all four portraits of me. The one my mother liked best is a crayon profile, of which she used to say: “It is as if my Maud had passed and left her shadow on the wall!” Porter was a witty man, with a keen sense of humor. He talked well and was much in demand in society, which now took him up vigorously. He was overwhelmed with orders and drew or painted many of the belles of the day. A painting of Mrs. Moses Williams with her young son at her side was, I think, his favorite portrait of this early period. He had now moved to a larger studio in Boylston Street, which he fitted up in picturesque style. Here he gave receptions and musicales to the ever-increasing circle of his friends. I have forgotten, if I ever knew, why he gave up Boston and moved to New York, where he lived all the rest of his life, painting a great number of portraits of well-known society men and women. He was at his best with children or young girls. He often introduced dogs in his larger compositions with excellent effect. Loup, his white Russian deerhound, appears in several of his pictures. When he walked abroad Loup always followed closely at his heel. They made a good-looking pair, and when they left Boston, we missed the picturesque figures of the artist and his white deerhound from our streets. Young writers, especially poets, often came to talk with my mother about their work and the great things they meant to accomplish. I took these visits as a matter of course and did not half appreciate the privilege of being present when some ardent young neophyte came, breathless, to kindle his torch at the flame that she, like some priestess of the Delphic oracle, kept alight from her earliest childhood until the very end of her life. I do distinctly remember, however, two of these visitors, who came within a few days of each other, John Hay and Francis Bret Harte. The younger poets acclaimed her as their muse and looked up to her with loving understanding. I recall perfectly John Hay’s first visit to our house. She had met him in Washington, and not long after, when he was in Boston, he called upon her. He had already made a name for himself as a writer, and when he was announced, I was surprised to see so young a man. He was small, slender, smartly--even foppishly--dressed, with a splendidly shaped head and expressive, nearsighted eyes. They talked much of Lincoln; this was before the great emancipator had become the popular idol of a later day. What remains clearest with me is the almost reverent attitude and expression of John Hay, as he took my mother’s hand in parting and stood for a moment, looking silently into her eyes. A small, orange-brown volume of verse, “Pike County Ballads” by John Hay, always stood in the bookcase near her desk. I still treasure this book along with his “Castilian Days.” Colonel Hay is best remembered as a diplomat and a statesman; but for me he is, first of all, the author of “Little Breeches” and “The Prairie Belle.”