portrait.

Personally, I confess to a lingering liking for the old ambrotype, the
likeness taken on a glazed plate, on which the lights are represented in
silver, and the shades are produced by a dark background. I like, too,
the respectful privacy of the little inclosing case which you opened to
gaze on the face of your friend. Best of all, I like its great
durability and fadelessness. The name itself is a passport to favor in a
picture, from _ambrotos_, immortal, and _tupos_, type, or impression:
the immortal-type. Your pasteboard photograph so soon grows yellowed,
dog-eared and stale! For certain purposes I would be glad to see the
dear old ambrotype revived and coming back in fashion. True, you had to
squint at it at a certain angle to see what it was; but when you
obtained the right view, it was wonderfully lifelike and comforting.

One obstacle and another had delayed the trip for several weeks, but on
that sunny June day the word to go was given. With much care and
attention to clean faces, and hair, our best clothes were donned, for to
have one's picture taken was then one of the great occasions of a
youngster's life. There was earnest advice given on all sides in regard
to "smiling expressions." Little Wealthy, especially, was exhorted so
much in this respect, that she actually shed tears before we started. A
"smiling expression" sometimes comes hard. Nor was she alone in her
anxiety. I remember being a good deal worried about it, and that I had
secretly resolved--since the sitting was said to occupy less than a
minute--to draw a long breath, set my teeth together hard, and hold on
to my "smiling expression" for that one minute, at least, if I died for
it afterwards.

Indeed, the young folks of this later generation will hardly be able to
understand what an ordeal it was to sit for an ambrotype, in 1866.

Ambrotypes were the kind of pictures which Gram had in view. Moreover,
she had no notion of investing in more than one likeness apiece for each
of us. This ambrotype was to be kept in the family archives, for the
benefit of generations to come; the idea of having a dozen taken, or
even half a dozen, to give away to one's friends, had not at that time
entered the minds of country people in that portion of New England.

We had at first intended to start by nine in the morning and arrive by
ten or eleven, so as to have the benefit of the midday sun--an important
requisite for an ambrotype. But it was eleven o