nt gatherings of friends that we have had
this summer, and Minna has brought down from the store-room large
chests to contain the heavy linen sheets with Aunt Mary's initials
beautifully embroidered in scarlet.

The guest-room and the parlors commence to wear a dismantled look, for
one by one the pretty trifles that ornamented them are being removed,
and although many of the pictures still hang upon the walls, dear
little Pickie's portrait stands in an unoccupied bedroom swathed in
linen, and ready to journey to the city when we do, for Ida prizes it
so highly that she will not box it up and send it by express, but
intends to have one of the servants carry it under her supervision,
lest some harm may befall it. I do not wonder that it is priceless to
her; I also think it of inestimable value, for not only is it a
portrait of the beautiful little cousin whom I never saw, but even one
uninterested in Pickie would, I am sure, be attracted by it as a rare
work of art. It is a full-length picture: the child holds in his hands
a cluster of lilies--a fit emblem of his spotless purity, and his
undraped limbs are perfectly moulded as those of an infant St. John.
His hair, of the line that Titian and Tintoretto loved to paint, falls
upon his shoulders like a shower of ruddy gold, and for depth of tone
and richness of color the picture more resembles the work of one of the
old Venetian Masters than a painting by modern hands.

Whilst in town the other day, I called in the Tenth Street Studio
Buildings to ask Mr. Page when he could give a few days of his time to
restoring Pickie's portrait, as it has been somewhat affected by the
dampness during the years that it has stood in the house in the woods.
Mr. Page gave me a very amusing account of the difficulty he
experienced in obtaining sittings from Pickie.

"Young children," he said, "are always averse to having their portraits
painted, and there is usually a struggle to induce them to submit to
the confinement of posing for me; but in Master Pickie's case, the
child was so full of life that I might almost as well have tried to
obtain sittings from a butterfly as from him."

Pickie's rapid illness and sudden death occurred before the picture was
completed, and although Mr. Page worked upon it for some time from
memory and from daguerrotypes of the child, a few finishing touches
remain to be added.

_October 3_.

This morning I at last realized what I have been endeavoring