with over two hundred nurses, who nurse the sick all over Rhenish Bavaria. He had responded further to a great many minor appeals for charitable and other purposes. Escorted by the Governor and a reception committee, on a special train, Mr. Villard was honored like a king in the three principal towns of the Palatinate. The streets were decorated, the authorities received him formally, and banquets, serenades, and torchlight processions awaited him. Speyer and Zweibriicken each presented him with the freedom of the city. These ovations were entirely unexpected by him, and formed a most soothing and flattering compensation for the bitter trials he had passed through.
Having decided to make his new home in Berlin, he returned to America in August, embarking again with his family two weeks later. By October, they were fully installed in commodious apartments. He had purposely selected lodgings near the home of his old friend Friedrich Kapp (who played a prominent part in the United States between 1850 and 1870), in order to enjoy his company as much as possible. To his great disappointment and sorrow, Mr. Kapp died suddenly after Mr. Villard had seen him only once. With this exception, the two years in Berlin proved to be most gratifying to the family in every respect. Mr. Villard's sister and brother-in-law had lived there for years, and they, together with other relatives and his German guests of 1883, made him acquainted with official society and with the leaders in science, art, literature, and finance, and their families. It seemed as if his misfortunes excited real sympathy, and that people were glad to have an opportunity to manifest it.
The family spent the winters in Berlin and the summers in southern Germany and Switzerland. Mr. Villard's presidency of the Oregon & California Railroad made frequent journeys to London necessary during the year 1885, and the consequent long separations from his family led him to resign the position at the end of that year. In the winter of 1885–6, two singular propositions to resume
