d of alliteration. The books read to
him were discussed and the authors praised or criticized.

St. Louis was to me altogether delightful, and I still am interested
in that city, so enlarged and improved. I used to see boys riding
astride razor-back hogs in the street, where now stately limousines
glide over smooth pavements.

I have always had more cordiality towards strangers, homesick students
at Dartmouth, and the audiences at my lectures, since learning a
better habit. Frigidity and formality were driven away by the sunshine
that brightened my stay at St. Louis.

I do not wish to intrude my private woes, but I returned from the West
with a severe case of whooping-cough. I didn't get it at St. Louis,
but in the sleeping-car between that city and Chicago. I advise
children to see to it that both parents get through with all the
vastly unpleasant epidemics of childhood at an early age. It is one of
the duties of children to parents.

CHAPTER III

Happy Days with Mrs. Botta--My Busy Life in New York--President
Barnard of Columbia College--A Surprise from Bierstadt--Professor
Doremus, a Universal Genius--Charles H. Webb, a truly funny "Funny
Man"--Mrs. Esther Hermann, a Modest Giver.

I was obliged to give up my work at Packer Institute, when diphtheria
attacked me, but a wonderful joy came to me after recovery.

Mrs. Vincenzo Botta invited me to her home in West Thirty-seventh
Street for the winter and spring. Anne C. Lynch, many years before her
marriage to Mr. Botta, had taught at the Packer Institute herself, and
at that time had a few rooms on West Ninth Street. She told me she
used to take a hurried breakfast standing by the kitchen table; then
saying good-bye to the mother to whom she was devoted, walked from
Ninth Street to the Brooklyn ferry, then up Joralemon Street, as she
was required to be present at morning prayers. Her means were limited
at that time and carfare would take too much. But it was then that she
started and maintained her "Saturday Evenings," which became so
attractive and famous that N.P. Willis wrote of them that no one of
any distinction thought a visit to New York complete without spending
a Saturday evening with Miss Lynch. People went in such numbers that
many were obliged to sit on the stairs, but all were happy. Her
refreshments were of the simplest kind, lemonade and wafers or
sandwiches. It has often been said that she established the only salon
in this country, but