d to sit side by side in the pew of a Philadelphia church,
but he left without recognizing her, and she was too shy to speak to
him. I had the story from a lady who as a little girl sat in the pew
with them, and knew them both. Miss Bray married an Englishman named
Downey, and in a romantic way[5] Mr. Whittier discovered her address.
Mr. Downey was an evangelist making a crusade in the great cities
against Romanism, and met his death from wounds received in facing a
New York mob. Whittier, supposing he was poor, and that his schoolmate
was having a hard time, sent Downey money without her knowledge. She
accidentally discovered this and returned the money. In her widowhood
she occasionally corresponded with Mr. Whittier, who induced her to
come to the reunion of his schoolmates in 1885, more than fifty years
after their parting at Marblehead, and more than forty years after the
chance meeting in Philadelphia. At this reunion she gave him the
miniature reproduced in our engraving, which was returned to her after
Whittier's death. When she died it went to another schoolmate, the wife
of Rev. Dr. S. F. Smith, author of our national hymn. From her it came
to Whittier's niece, and is now kept in the drawer where the poet
originally placed it. With it is the first portrait ever taken of
Whittier--it being painted by the same artist (J. S. Porter) two or
three years after the girl's miniature, while he was editing the
"Manufacturer."

[Illustration: EVELINA BRAY DOWNEY]

Here is an extract from a note Whittier sent Mrs. Downey soon after the
reunion: "Let me thank thee for the picture thee so kindly left with
me. The sweet, lovely girl face takes me back to the dear old days, as
I look at it. I wish I could give thee something half as valuable in
return." The portrait of Mrs. Downey at the age of eighty, here given,
is from a photograph she contributed to an album presented to Whittier
by his schoolmates of 1827, after the reunion of 1885. Rev. Dr. S. F.
Smith attended this reunion in place of his wife, who was then an
invalid, and he wrote to his wife this account of the appearance of her
old schoolmate at that meeting: "She looked, O so _distingue_, in black
silk, with a white muslin veil, reaching over the silver head and down
below the shoulders. Just as if she were a Romish Madonna, who had
stepped out from an old church painting to hold an hour's communion
with earth."

I was in correspondence with Mrs. Downey during t