face they framed into an almost spiritual sweetness. From an affliction in
her childhood she had almost ever since been unable to walk, and indeed
none of the beautiful limbs were available for voluntary motion. Thus
deprived of more than half of life's joy, its sweet activity, many would
have lapsed into a morbid, nervous condition, over which we might justly
have thrown the mantle of charity, but this dear friend was so lovely and
chastened in her affliction, that she seemed almost a Deity in her
attributes of tender love and patient self-abnegation, united to a heroic
endurance of pain with which she was daily, hourly and momently tortured.
Surely

"The good are better made by ill,
As odors crushed are sweeter still."

Going to Washington I accompanied an excursion down the Potomac to Mount
Vernon, that sacred spot whose mention sends a thrill of patriotic pride
through every American heart, hallowed as it is by memories of George
Washington. So I became one of the zealous pilgrim throng who wended their
way to this our Mecca, dear to us as that sacred place in the old world to
the most devout worshiper of the Prophet Mahomet.

Reaching our destination we first repaired to the tomb, and with bowed and
uncovered heads all reverently gazed upon the mausoleum of departed
greatness, and turned to the mansion, each department of which had its own
peculiar charm.

Prominent among other relics were his war-equipments, the paraphernalia of
Revolutionary times; and as we ever associate him with his character as
general, these were especially significant from the sword so often wielded
with masterly power, to the little canteen, from which, after long and