me was a little Channing glorification (M. will understand what I mean) that Mrs. Carr (the lady who so resembles Ellen Channing) and I held in the garden. She has never seen our Mr. Channing, but the Doctor used to visit at their house, and she described with enthusiasm a splendid sermon that she heard him deliver in Philadelphia. I replied by describing the eloquence of our Mr. C. Then she expatiated on the kindness and loveliness of the Doctor's character, to which I added a description of the goodness, purity, and the angelicalness of his nephew; whereupon she expressed a great desire to see him, and I said that I should consider it one of the greatest of blessings to have enjoyed the social intercourse of the good Doctor. The conversation was quite a treat to me—a sort of safety-valve to heterodox steam that I lacked so deplorably at Henderson.
My playing seemed to give satisfaction; the piano is a beautiful one, like ours on a more brilliant scale, and as there was no one to rival me in the instrumental way I raised the top, played the 'Pot Pourri,' and made a tremendous noise. (I do wish that minister would stop singing his nasal hymn-tunes just underneath me; he has been at it all day, and it quite puts me out.)
I also showed some tricks which puzzled the company—particularly a very tall man, with long, projecting nose and retreating forehead, who looked like a stupid fox. Miss Jane P. was seated in a corner, behind a little table, on which were draughts arranged as the nuns of the Lady Abbess, she challenging everybody to introduce the four cavaliers unknown to the blind mistress. Everybody said it was not possible, and Miss Jane turned triumphantly to me to know if I could do it. I said I could not only introduce the four knights, but their four squires also, and then suffer knights, squires, and four nuns to elope, without the blind Abbess having the
