ictive men I ever met, if he fancied that he was in any way too
familiarly treated.

Kossuth came to America, and I was almost squeezed to death--right
against a pretty German girl--in the crowd at his reception in
Philadelphia. At the dinner in New York I met at Kimball's house Franz
Pulszky, and sat by his wife. I have since seen him many times in Buda-
Pest.

There lived in Philadelphia a gentleman named Rodney Fisher. He had been
for many years a partner in an English house in Canton, and also lived in
England. He had long been an intimate friend of Russel Sturgis,
subsequently of "Baring Brothers." He was a grand-nephew of Caesar
Rodney, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a son
of Judge Fisher, of Delaware. He was a man of refined and agreeable
manners and an admirable relater of his innumerable experiences in Europe
and the East. His wife had been celebrated for her beauty. When I first
met her in her own house she seemed to me to be hardly thirty years of
age, and I believed at first she was one of her own daughters. She was
without exception the most amiable, I may say lovable person whom I ever
met, and I never had a _nuance_ or shade of difference of opinion with
her, or know an instant during which I was not devoted to her. I visited
his house and fell in love with his daughter Belle, to whom I became,
after about a year, engaged. We were not, however, married till five
years after. Thackeray, whom I knew well, said to a Mr. Curtis Raymond,
of Boston, not long before leaving for England, that she was the most
beautiful woman whom he had seen in America. I cannot help recording
this.

I need not say that, notwithstanding my terrible anxiety as to my future,
from this time I led a very happy life. There was in Philadelphia a very
wealthy lady called its Queen. This was Mrs. James Rush. She had built
the finest house in our city, and placed in it sixty thousand dollars'
worth of furniture. "_E un bel palazzo_!" said an Italian tenor one
evening to me at a reception there. This lady, who had read much, had
lived long in Europe and "knew cities and men." To say that she was kind
to me would feebly express her kindness. It is true that we were by much
mutual knowledge rendered congenial. She invited me to attend her weekly
receptions, &c., with Miss Fisher. There we met and were introduced to
all the celebrated people who passed through Philadelphia. One evening I
h