[3] Mrs. Antoinette Donaghe died at Staunton, Va., April 14, 1882.  Her last years were passed amid great bodily sufferings, which she bore with the patience of a saint.  She was a woman of uncommon excellence, a true Christian lady, and much endeared to a wide circle of friends in New Haven, New York, and elsewhere.  Her husband, Mr. James Donaghe, a most worthy man, for many years a prominent citizen of New Haven, died on the 1st of January, 1878.  He and Mrs. Donaghe were among the original members of the Church of the Covenant.

[4] The book alluded to is Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.  From 1800 till 1840.  Edited by Dr. Hanna, and republished by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.  The Duchess de Broglie was born in Paris, in 1797, and died in September, 1838, at the age of forty-one.  She was the only daughter of the celebrated Madame de Stael.  Some pleasant glimpses of her are given in the Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor.  Vol.  I., pp. 128-139.  Vol.  II., pp. 103-139.

[5] The portrait in this volume is from a drawing by Miss Crocker, engraved by A. H. Ritchie.  Miss C., after pursuing her studies for some time in Paris, has opened a studio in New York.

[6] In this letter she told me how much good Stepping Heavenward had done her and how sorry she felt on hearing of Mrs. P.’s death, that she had never written, as she longed to do, to thank her for it.  “Dear soul! (she added) perhaps she knows now how many hearts she has lifted up and comforted by her wonderful words.”—­From a letter of Mrs. W.

[7] Mr. Washburn died on Sunday, the 18th of September, 1881, aged 80 years.  He was born in Farmington, Conn.  His father, the Rev. Joseph Washburn, pastor of the Congregational Church in F., was cut off in the prime of a beautiful and saintly manhood.  He inherited some of his father’s most attractive traits and was a model of Christian fidelity and uprightness.  In a notice which appeared in the New York Evangelist, shortly after his death, President Porter, of Yale College, whose father succeeded the Rev. Mr. Washburn as pastor of the church in Farmington, thus refers to his life at Wildwood:  “Some twenty years since he retired for a part of eight years to the singularly beautiful house which was selected and prepared by the taste of himself and wife, near East River, a district in Madison, which he has for several years made his permanent residence.  His life was singularly even in its course and happy in its allotments; a blessing to himself and a blessing to the world.  His memory will long be cherished by the many who knew him as one whom to know was to love and honor.”

[8] Mr. Isaac Farwell, or “Uncle Isaac,” as everybody called him, was the most remarkable man in Dorset.  He died in 1881 in the 102d year of his age.  His centennial was celebrated on the 14th of July, 1879; the whole town joining in it.  He was full of interest in life, retained his mental powers unimpaired, and would relate incidents that occurred in the last century, as if they had just happened.  Mrs. Prentiss was fond of meeting him:  and after her departure he delighted to recall his talks with her and to tell where he had seen her creeping through fences, laden with rustic trophies, as she and her daughter came home from their tramps in the fields and over the hills.