friend of mine gave me two sealed bottles of very superb French brandy. I carried them with me through the entire campaign; and when I met my friend again, after all was over, I gave her back both her bottles of brandy, with the seals unbroken. It may have been some comfort to me to know that I had them in case of sudden emergency, but the moment never came when I needed to use them."

His skill and wisdom in managing the young men who crowded to the college after his accession as president was extraordinary. Owing to the closing of so many of the Southern schools of learning, the number of students was very large, reaching five hundred in the earlier sessions; but a case of discipline rarely occurred. He was accustomed to say to the students when they presented themselves in his office, on their entrance at college, "Now, my friends, I have a way of estimating young men which does not often fail me. I cannot note the conduct of any one, for even a brief period, without finding out what sort of a mother he had. You all honor your mothers: need I tell you that I know you will have that honor in reverent keeping?" So tender an appeal as this went straight to the heart of many a youth as no formal advice could have done. He told me that once at Arlington, when he was on a visit home from one of the frontier posts, he went out one wintry morning, after a slight fall of snow, and strolled down one of the graveled walks. Hearing some one behind him, he turned and saw his eldest son fitting his little feet into the distinct tracks he had left in the snow, and making great strides in order to do this effectually. "I learned a lesson, then and there," he said, "which I never afterwards forgot. My good man, I said to myself, you must be careful how you walk, and where you go, for there are those following you who will set their feet where you set yours." Something similar to this has been told of another, but I had this from General Lee himself. Few men were more skilled in the avoidance of everything that could wound the feelings of others. On the occasion of General Lee's being summoned to Washington to give testimony, an incident occurred which illustrates this characteristic. A connection of my own, who attended him as one of his complimentary staff, told me that when in Washington there were multitudes of persons-and among them many of the most distinguished in the land, North and South-seeking audience with General Lee; evening after evening was occupied with these interviews. Again and again had my friend been beset by a person who had no claim to be presented, and as often had he been waived aside on the plea that the number of gentlemen coming to be

But the old soldier would not be shaken off. So Colonel M— thought the best way to end the matter would be to lead him up to the General, and thus in a moment put a stop to his pertinacity. Taking him, accordingly, by the arm, he drew him forward. The large circle opened and allowed a pathway, and the man was presented in due form and received with as much courtesy as if he had been a prince of the blood. Colonel M-— was about to lead him instantly away, when he suddenly stepped into the open space where the group had made way for him, and in a rather loud voice said:

"General, I have always thought that if I ever had the honor of meeting you face to face, and there was an opportunity allowed me, I would like to ask you a question which nobody but you can answer. I seem to have that opportunity now. This is what I want to know: What was the reason that you failed to gain the victory at the battle of Gettysburg?"

To have such an ill-timed question dropped like a bomb-shell in such a presence was, to say the least of it, embarrassing, and some curt rejoinder would have been natural and to the purpose; but General Lee's kind-heartedness would not permit a rude dismissal even to so unwarrantable a questioner. Advancing and gently taking him by the hand, while all the listening group stood round amazed at the man's presumption, the General quietly said: My dear sir, that would be a long story, and would require more time than you see I can possibly command at present; so we will have to defer the matter to another occasion."

This same friend gave me an instance of a similar encounter that concerned Mrs. Lee, whose simplicity and kindliness of heart rivaled that of her husband.

The General and his wife were at the Virginia White Sulphur Springs, occupying one of the pretty cottages that had been set apart for them. The crowd of visitors was great, and everybody who had the least show for so doing was asking for introductions, for the war had not long been over.

"I encountered a good-natured but absurd man from the far South," said Colonel M————, "whose enthusiasm for the Lee family was at

fever heat. His pompous way of talking was a constant amusement to me; and when he asked that I should intrude upon the gay group that always filled the piazza of the General's cottage and introduce him, I naturally hesitated somewhat, fearing lest he should overpower them by one of his magniloquent apostrophes. He joined me one evening just as we were passing the cottage door, where a party of visitors were being entertained by the General and his wife. Now is your time,' he whispered; and he forthwith drew me to the steps, where, as in duty bound, I presented him. Withdrawing a little, he assumed a Hamletlike pose, and lifting his hand with a most dramatic air, he began:

"Do I behold the honored roof that shelters the head of him before whose name the luster of Napoleon's pales into a shadow? Do I see the walls within which sits the most adored of men? Dare I tread the floor which she who is a scion of the patriotic house of the revered Washington condescends to hallow with her presence? Is this the portico that trails its vines over the noble pair

"I stumbled back aghast," said Colonel M—, " at my own blunder, as I listened to this ridiculous speech, which I really believed was gotten up and conned for the occasion. But I was relieved in a moment when Mrs. Lee, quietly laying down her knitting and interrupting the rhetorical effort, with a kind look upon her face replied:

"Yes, this is our cabin; will you take a seat upon the bench?'"

General Lee's considerate courtesy never failed him. He used to be overpowered with letters from every part of the South, on every imaginable subject, written by the wives and mothers of his old soldiers, asking questions which it was impossible for him to answer, and seeking aid which it was impossible for him to give. Indigent women would write, begging him to find places where their boys and girls might support themselves. Crippled soldiers by scores sought for help from him; and multitudes whose only claim was that they had fought for the Confederacy entreated his counsel and petitioned for his advice in every sort of emergency.

I once said to him, "I hope you do not feel obliged to reply to all these letters."

"I certainly do," was his reply. "Think of these poor people! It is a great deal of trouble for them to write: why should I not be willing to take the trouble to answer them? And as that is all I can give most of them, I give it ungrudgingly." And yet at this time he had five hundred young men under his management, and a corps of twenty-five professors; and this in a line of work totally novel to him.

His humility was as conspicuous as anything about him. His religious character was pronounced and openly shown. But he arrogated nothing to himself as a religious man. I was present once when my husband informed him of an effort just being made to supply our county with Bibles, of which it had been stripped to meet the wants of the army during the war. The Bible Society was being reorganized, and the General was pressed to accept the post of president-" For the sake of the cause; for the sake of the testimony his name would bear; for the sake of the example it would be to his five hundred students." My husband was called out before he had finished his plea, and I was left in the library for a few moments alone with the General. I shall not easily forget the expression of profound humility on his face, as with a subdued voice he turned to me and said:

"Ah, my dear madam, I feel myself such a poor sinner in the sight of God that I cannot consent to be set up as a Christian example to any one. This is the real reason why I decline to do what the colonel urges so strongly."

He was in the act of saying grace at his own dinner-table when the fatal stroke fell which terminated his life.

It was not in General Lee's nature to entertain feelings of bitterness against any human being. As was the case with Stonewall Jackson, he never used the word "Yankee "—the term so generally applied through the South to the soldiers of the Northern army. He always spoke of them as the "Federals" or the "enemy." On the occasion of Mr. Greeley, Mr. O'Conor, and others coming to Richmond to offer bail for ex-President Davis, I heard him, with something more approaching to acrimony than I had ever been witness of, speak of some of the expressions used by Southern editors. "I condemn," he said, "such bitterness wholly. Is it any wonder the Northern journals should retort upon us as they do, when we allow ourselves to use such language as I found in some of our papers yesterday ?"

As to the immediate personality of the man, we people of the South naturally enough think that, take him for all in all, physically, intellectually, socially, and morally, we never saw his equal. He was a superb specimen of manly grace and elegance. He had escaped that preciseness of manner which a whole life spent in military service is apt to give. There was about him a stately dignity, calm poise, absolute selfpossession, entire absence of self-consciousness, and gracious consideration for all about him that made a combination of character not to be surpassed. His tall, erect figure, his bright color, his brilliant hazel eyes, his perfect white teeth (for he had never used tobacco), his at

tractive smile, his chivalry of bearing, the musical sweetness of his pure voice, were attributes never to be forgotten by those who had once met him.

His domestic life was idyllic in its beautiful simplicity. His devotion to his invalid wife, who for many years was a martyr to rheumatic gout, was pathetic to see. He had her often conveyed to our various medicinal springs in Virginia, himself riding on horseback beside her carriage. I recall one instance in which he preceded her by a few days in order that he might have an apparatus prepared, under his skillful engineering, by means of which her invalid-chair was placed upon a little platform and carefully lowered into the bath, in order that the descent and ascent of steps might be avoided. His tenderness to his children, especially his daughters, was mingled with a delicate courtesy which belonged to an older day than ours — a courtesy which recalls the preux chevalier of knightly times. He had a pretty way of addressing his daughters, in the presence of other people, with a prefix which would seem to belong to the age of lace ruffles and side-swords.

"Where is my little Miss Mildred?" he would say on coming in from his ride or walk at dusk. "She is my light-bearer; the house is never dark if she is in it."

He was passionately fond of nature, and never wearied of riding about on Traveler among our beautiful Virginia hills and mountains, with one of his daughters invariably at his side. His delight in the early flush of the spring, in the rich glow of the summer, and in the superb coloring of our autumn landscape, was wonderfully fine and keen. "No words can express," says one of his daughters, "the intense enjoyment he would get out of a brilliant sunset." He was fond of literature, and indulged all his life in a wide range of reading quite apart from the bearings of his profession. When at home he was always in the habit of reading aloud to his family. "My first and most intimate acquaintance with Sir Walter Scott's metrical romances," one of his daughters says, "came through papa. He read them to us when we were children, till we almost knew them by heart, and the best English classics were always within reach of his hand. One of the last winters of his life he read aloud to the family group the latest translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey."

General Lee possessed one quality which only those who came into close intimacy with him were much aware of - he had a delicious sense of humor. Many a student was turned aside from some perilous course by a sly shaft, feathered with his keen wit, or by some humor

ous question which conveyed a gentle reproof, of which only he for whom the reproof was intended could understand the bearings. He could be very stern when it was necessary, but somehow his sternness never embittered.

When he became president of the college he immediately had morning prayers established in the chapel; and never during his incumbency was he known to be absent from them, if he was well and at home. The only things with which he ever grew impatient were selfindulgence and failure in duty. The voice of duty was to him the voice of God. Under no circumstances was he willing to disobey it, nor could he understand how others could be. This was something he continually impressed upon his students. What is duty to God and man, and how to do that duty, were the two leading questions of his life. His persistent assiduity in giving himself up to every detail of college discipline and life was so scrupulous as sometimes to lead to the suggestion on the part of professors of a little more indulgence towards himself, but they never succeeded in getting him to relax the rigid rules by which he governed every action.

One of the last acts of his life was a filial one. Accompanied by his daughter Agnes he went to Florida to visit the grave of his father, "Light-Horse Harry Lee." This journeyhis last earthly one- was a sort of sacred pilgrimage. As he returned from Florida he sought out, in North Carolina, the final restingplace of his lovely daughter Annie, who had died in that State in the early freshness of her beautiful girlhood, just at the moment when her father was winning his most brilliant successes. Agnes told me, when she came home, of her father's extreme unwillingness to be made a hero of anywhere, and of the reluctance he manifested, which it took many pleas to overcome, to show himself to the crowds assembled at every station along his route who pressed to catch a sight of him.

"Why should they care to see me," he would say, when urged to appear on the platform of the train-"why should they care to see me? I am only a poor old Confederate." This feeling he carried with him to the latest hour of his life.

One who had been a member of his staff, and who was present in the death-chamber most of the time during his last illness, told me how impressed he was with the General's unwillingness to give any expression to his thought. "Not," he said, "that he was incapable of speaking; but a supreme reticence, that was to me very noble, held him back. He seemed averse to any utterance of the sacred secrets of his soul, lest they should afterwards be spoken aloud in the ear of the world."

Margaret J. Preston.