iterary
tastes, and it was as if he had inquired at the door if that was the
residence of the author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, and, upon being assured
that it was, had decided to dwell there. This is, of course, fanciful,
for his antecedents were wholly unknown, but in his time he could hardly
have been in any household where he would not have heard _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_ talked about. When he came to Mrs. Stowe, he was as large as he
ever was, and apparently as old as he ever became. Yet there was in him
no appearance of age; he was in the happy maturity of all his powers,
and you would rather have said in that maturity he had found the secret
of perpetual youth. And it was as difficult to believe that he would
ever be aged as it was to imagine that he had ever been in immature
youth. There was in him a mysterious perpetuity.

After some years, when Mrs. Stowe made her winter home in Florida,
Calvin came to live with us. From the first moment, he fell into the
ways of the house and assumed a recognized position in the family,--I
say recognized, because after he became known he was always inquired for
by visitors, and in the letters to the other members of the family he
always received a message. Although the least obtrusive of beings, his
individuality always made itself felt.

His personal appearance had much to do with this, for he was of royal
mould, and had an air of high breeding. He was large, but he had nothing
of the fat grossness of the celebrated Angora family; though powerful,
he was exquisitely proportioned, and as graceful in every movement as a
young leopard. When he stood up to open a door--he opened all the doors
with old-fashioned latches--he was portentously tall, and when stretched
on the rug before the fire he seemed too long for this world--as indeed
he was. His coat was the finest and softest I have ever seen, a shade of
quiet Maltese; and from his throat downward, underneath, to the white
tips of his feet, he wore the whitest and most delicate ermine; and no
person was ever more fastidiously neat. In his finely formed head you
saw something of his aristocratic character; the ears were small and
cleanly cut, there was a tinge of pink in the nostrils, his face was
handsome, and the expression of his countenance exceedingly
intelligent--I should call it even a sweet expression if the term were
not inconsistent with his look of alertness and sagacity.

It is difficult to convey a just idea of his gaiety