An extract from a letter by Mrs. Robert E. Lee to Miss Mason, from Derwent, September 10, 1865, may interest my readers: "I have just received, dear Miss Em, a long letter from Mrs. Davis in reply to one of mine. She was in Augusta, Ga.; says she is confined to that State. She has sent her children to kindred in Canada. Says she knows nothing whatever of her husband, except what she has seen in the papers. Says any letter sent her under care of Mr. Schley will reach her safely. She writes very sadly, as she well may, for I know of no one so much to be pitied.... She represents a most uncomfortable state of affairs in Augusta. No one, white or black, can be out after ten o'clock at night without a pass.... We must wait God's time to raise us up again. That will be the best time." In a later letter, Mrs. Lee said: "I cannot help feeling uneasy about Mr. Davis. May God protect him, and grant him deliverance!" The whole South was anxious about Mr. Davis. Those who had come in close touch with him felt a peculiar sympathy for him inspired by a side of his character not generally recognized, as his manner often conveyed an impression of coldness and sternness. Under his reserve, was an almost feminine tenderness revealed in many stories his close friends tell. Thus: One night, Judge Minor, to see the President on business of state, sat with him in the room of the "White House" where the telegraph wire came in at the window (now, Alabama Room in the Confederate Museum), when in stumbles little Joe, in night-gown, saying: "Papa, I want to say my prayers." The President, caressing his child, despatched a message, answered Judge Minor's immediate question, and saying, "Excuse me a moment," led his little one's devotions. He was of wide reading and wonderful memory, yet was ignorant of "Mother Goose" until he heard his children babbling the jingles. Mrs. Davis brought "Babes in the Wood" to his notice. He suffered from insomnia after visits to the hospitals; his wife would try to read him to sleep. One night she picked up the "Babes" as the one thing at hand, and was astonished to find the poem unknown to him; at the children's desertion he rose, exclaiming: "Was there no one to help those poor tender babies? The thought is agonizing!" A part of his childhood was spent in a Kentucky monastery, where the good monks did not bethink themselves to teach him nursery rhymes.