highly fashionable periodical. In return he received their check for
five dollars, drawn upon a National Bank of Philadelphia, and with a note
stating that while the customary price was two dollars and fifty cents
they felt constrained to send him a sum commensurate with the merits of
the fancy picture which he had kindly forwarded them, and that they would
be pleased to hear from him again, which they never did--nor their check
either; for, while he was too poor to have kept it, yet he was too proud
to cash it. I am told that it hangs in a Boston museum, framed with a rare
collection of postage stamps--one of his many gifts to that edifying
institution while yet alive.

Her final gift, the scarf-pin, with the big pearl and little diamonds, met
with some mysterious disposition. In telling me the story in the French
cafe, he hesitated, spoke vaguely, and finally refused to state just what
he had done with the pin. He may have dropped the pearl, like Cleopatra,
in a goblet of ruby wine and drained the contents with the dissolved jewel
for dredges and for luck, and he may have given the pretty little
diamonds to news boys or small negroes wandering haphazard about the
highways of his town. Anyhow, this much is sure, it was given away--that
much he made clear.

When he fell upon the letters with an idea of burning them--which I
believe is more general than the returning of them--he fortunately
bethought himself of publishing them--just as they were. And lo! then was
born his "Perfected Letter Writer," which enabled him to leave a bequest
of many thousand dollars to Harvard College, where he was educated, and
also a certain sum of money to be discreetly distributed each year among
the deserving and bashful young men of Boston, between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-three, to be used by them in making Christmas gifts to
worthy young women of their choice.

As might have been expected, that clause of his will was successfully
contested, on account of its vagueness, by his brother and sister, who
morally, if not legally, cheated the "Bashful Young Men of Boston" out of
a unique and much deserved, much needed inheritance. This cure for
heart-break must be a severe but effectual one. When I met George Addison
in Paris, then an old man, he was as rosy as a ripe apple, and just as
mellow. He was gracious, kindly, and had learned well the difficult art of
growing old with grace, and without noise. He dated his success, his
happin