In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. | Page 4

made everything on earth and in heaven'--you understand?" "Yes, ma'am," and repeated the phrase until aunty thought him ripe to appear at Sunday-school, which he did on the following Sunday. You may imagine aunty's consternation when Dr. Hoppin asked Joshua, "Who made you?" and Joshua looked at aunty with a broad grin, showing all his teeth, and said, "Lor', Miss Fay, I forget who you said it was." This was aunty's last effort to teach the blacks. She repeated this episode to Mr. Phillips Brooks, who, in return, told her an amusing story of a colored man who had been converted to the Catholic religion, and went one day to confession (he seems not to have been very sure about this function). The priest said to him, "Israel, what have you to confess? Have you been perfectly honest since the last time? No thefts?"
"No, sir."
"None at all? Stolen no chickens?"
"No, sir."
"No watermelons?"
"No, sir."
"No eggs?"
"No, sir."
"No turkeys?"
"No, sir; not one."
Then the priest gave absolution. Outside the church Israel found the companions whom he had left waiting for him.
"Well, how did you get on?" they asked.
"Bully!" answered Israel. "But if he'd said ducks he'd have got me."
Cousin James Lowell said: "See how a negro appreciates the advantages of the confession."
DEAR L.,--A family council was held yesterday, and it is now quite decided that mama is to take me to Europe, and that I shall study singing with the best masters. We will first go to New York for a visit of ten days with Mr. and Mrs. Cooley. I shall see New York and hear a little music; and then we start for Europe on the 17th in the Commodore Vanderbilt.
NEW YORK.
DEAR AUNT,--We have now been here a week, and I feel ashamed that I have not written to you before, but I have been doing a great deal. The Cooleys have a gorgeous house in Fifth Avenue, furnished with every luxury one can imagine. The sitting-room, dining-room, library, and a conservatory next to the billiard-room, are down-stairs; up-stairs are the drawing-rooms (first, second, and third), which open into a marble-floored Pompeian room, with a fountain. Then comes mama's and my bed-room, with bath-room attached. On the third floor the family have their apartment. We have been many times to the opera, and heard an Italian tenor, called Brignoli, whom people are crazy over. He has a lovely voice and sings in "Trovatore." Last night, when he sang "Di quella pira," people's enthusiasm knew no bounds. They stood up and shouted, and ladies waved their handkerchiefs; he had to repeat it three times, and each time people got wilder. Nina and I clapped till our gloves were in pieces and our arms actually ached.
A Frenchman by the name of Musard has brought over a French orchestra, and is playing French music at the opera-house. People are wild over him also. Madame La Grange, who they say is a fine lady in her own country, is singing in "The Huguenots." She has rather a thin voice, but vocalizes beautifully. Nina and I weep over the hard fate of Valentine, who has to be present when her husband is conspiring against the Huguenots, knowing that her lover is listening behind the curtain and can't get away. The priests come in and bless the conspiracy, all the conspirators holding their swords forward to be blessed. This music is really too splendid for words, and we enjoy it intensely.
Mr. Bancroft, the celebrated historian, invited us to dinner, and after dinner they asked me to sing. I had to accompany myself. Every one pretended that they were enchanted. Just for fun, at the end I sang, "Three Little Kittens Took Off Their Mittens, to Eat a Christmas Pie," and one lady (would you believe it?) said she wept tears of joy, and had cold shivers down her back. When I sang, "For We Have Found Our Mittens," there was, she said, such a jubilant ring in my voice that her heart leaped for joy.
Mr. Bancroft sent me the next day a volume of Bryant's poems, with the dedication, "To Miss Lillie Greenough, in souvenir of a never-forgetable evening." I made so many acquaintances, and received so many invitations, that if we should stay much longer here there would be nothing left of me to take to Europe.
I will write as soon as we arrive on the other side. On whatever side I am, I am always your loving niece, who thinks that there is no one in the wide world to compare to you, that no one is as clever as you, that no one can sing like you, and that there never was any one who can hold a candle to you. There!
BREMEN, _August, 1859._
DEAR AUNT,--At last we have arrived at our journey's end, and we