grave importance.  The trinkets he used to keep in a little box on his dressing-table we children always used to speak of as “treasures.”  The word, and some of the trinkets themselves, passed on to the next generation.  My own children, when small, used to troop into my room while I was dressing, and the gradually accumulating trinkets in the “ditty-box”—­the gift of an enlisted man in the navy—­always excited rapturous joy.  On occasions of solemn festivity each child would receive a trinket for his or her “very own.”  My children, by the way, enjoyed one pleasure I do not remember enjoying myself.  When I came back from riding, the child who brought the bootjack would itself promptly get into the boots, and clump up and down the room with a delightful feeling of kinship with Jack of the seven-league strides.

The punishing incident I have referred to happened when I was four years old.  I bit my elder sister’s arm.  I do not remember biting her arm, but I do remember running down to the yard, perfectly conscious that I had committed a crime.  From the yard I went into the kitchen, got some dough from the cook, and crawled under the kitchen table.  In a minute or two my father entered from the yard and asked where I was.  The warm-hearted Irish cook had a characteristic contempt for “informers,” but although she said nothing she compromised between informing and her conscience by casting a look under the table.  My father immediately dropped on all fours and darted for me.  I feebly heaved the dough at him, and, having the advantage of him because I could stand up under the table, got a fair start for the stairs, but was caught halfway up them.  The punishment that ensued fitted the crime, and I hope—­and believe—­that it did me good.

I never knew any one who got greater joy out of living than did my father, or any one who more whole-heartedly performed every duty; and no one whom I have ever met approached his combination of enjoyment of life and performance of duty.  He and my mother were given to a hospitality that at that time was associated more commonly with southern than northern households; and, especially in their later years when they had moved up town, in the neighborhood of Central Park, they kept a charming, open house.

My father worked hard at his business, for he died when he was forty-six, too early to have retired.  He was interested in every social reform movement, and he did an immense amount of practical charitable work himself.  He was a big, powerful man, with a leonine face, and his heart filled with gentleness for those who needed help or protection, and with the possibility of much wrath against a bully or an oppressor.  He was very fond of riding both on the road and across the country, and was also a great whip.  He usually drove four-in-hand, or else a spike team, that is, a pair with a third horse in the lead.  I do not suppose that such a team exists now.  The trap that he drove we always called the