What pleasant things we had to dress up in! There was our father’s wedding-coat, bright blue, with brass buttons; and the waistcoat he had worn with it, white satin with raised velvet flowers,--such a fine waistcoat! There were two embroidered crape gowns which had been our grandmother’s, with waists a few inches long, and long, skimp skirts; and the striped blue and yellow moiré, which our mother had worn in some private theatricals,--that was beyond description! And the white gauze with gold flounces--oh! and the peach-blossom silk with flowers all over it--ah! But this is a digression, and has nothing whatever to do with our guests, who never played “dressing up,” that I can remember. One of our most frequent visitors at Green Peace was the great statesman and patriot, Charles Sumner. He was a very dear friend of our father, and they loved to be together whenever the strenuous business of their lives would permit. We children used to call Mr. Sumner “the Harmless Giant;” and indeed he was very kind to us, and had always a pleasant word for us in that deep, melodious voice which no one, once hearing it, could ever forget. He towered above us to what seemed an enormous height; yet we were told that he stood six feet in his stockings,--no more. This impression being made on Laura’s mind, she was used to employ the great senator as an imaginary foot-rule (six-foot rule, I should say), and, until she was almost a woman grown, would measure a thing in her own mind by saying “two feet higher than Mr. Sumner,” or “twice as high as Mr. Summer,” as the case might be. I can remember him carrying the baby Maud on his shoulder, and bowing his lofty crest to pass through the doorway. Sometimes his mother, Madam Sumner, came with him, a gracious and charming old lady. I am told that on a day when she was spending an hour at Green Peace, and sitting in the parlor window with our mother, Laura felt it incumbent upon her to entertain the distinguished visitor; so, being arrayed in her best white frock, she took up her station on the gravel path below the window, and filling a little basket with gravel, proceeded to pour it over her head, exclaiming, “Mit Humner! hee my ektibiton!” This meant “exhibition.” Laura could not pronounce the letter S in childhood’s happy hour. “Mamma,” she would say, if she saw our mother look grave, “Id you had? Why id you had?” and then she would bring a doll’s dish, or it might be a saucepan, and give it to her mother and say, with infinite satisfaction, “Dere! ’mooge you’helf wid dat!”