THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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with which our friends in Rome enriched us. As soon as I arrived in Rome and selected my studio, I had my model of Lincoln placed at the proper height, and, draping the wall behind with two large national flags, invited the artists in Rome to see it. Among the visitors who came were Sig. Luigi Majoli, the most gifted of the Italian sculptors, and Sig. Pietro Regnoli, his friend, a brilliant man of letters. They became my warm friends, and were really brothers to me in that far off land. The gentle Emelie Regnoli became my sister, and my parents loved them all. All the artists, American and for­eign, received me kindly, among them Randolph Rogers and Mr. Storey. Harriet Hos- mer, who was the pioneer among women sculptors, was most generous. The painter, Healey, was my neighbor and my friend, and as the golden days passed by, and the shadows lengthened, when it became too dark in my studio to work I would leave my modeling and go to his studio, and after helping him wash his brushes and put away his things, we would wend our way homeward together through the Italian twilight. Rossetti and Tadoline, the Italian sculptors, were my good friends, and Buchanan Reed the poet-painter, kindly dedicated some verses to me.

Through some letters of introduction given me by Mrs. Cleveland (the sister of Horace Greeley) I met many young priests, among them one who was a favorite pupil of Liszt. When I told him I envied him his opportunity of knowing so inti­mately such a man of genius, he exclaimed: “You, too, shall know him. Come with me—your parents and yourself. He plays this afternoon at the old convent place where he now lives. Come! ” We were soon ready, and when we reached the convent grounds found the street in front crowded with'carriages. As we entered the vast saloon every available place seemed filled with people who had gathered there to hear him play. At the far end of the room Liszt was seating himself at the piano—a picture he was indeed, with his fine features and slender figure, long black robe and snowy locks. Tiptoeing softly, we followed Don Zeferino, our young guide, and disappearing for a moment, he returned, bringing from some hidden recess seats for my parents, and then, motioning me to follow him he placed a chair almost immediately back of the piano at Liszt’s right hand. The wonderful magician swept his slender hands over the keys, fascinating all who heard, and with tremulous vibrations touched some tender chords with such a spell that I was deeply affected. The tears which I could not repress rose to my eyes, and being so near, and fearful of making the slightest inter­ruption, I dared not raise my hand to brush them away. The great artist had felt the spell he was exercising over me. He noticed my emotion, and playing softly with the left hand, he reached his right hand over and laid it for an instant tenderly on mine. We needed no introduction. We understood each other, and when he had finished playing and all rushed up to congratulate him and thank him, I waited silently by to try and speak; but he offered me his arm, and as we promenaded with the rest down the old convent’s halls, he said, “You need not speak. I understand you and you understand me,” and during all my stay in Rome this great master was a constant visitor at my studio, and my warm and devoted friend.

All the while my work went on, and several ideal pieces, among them “ The West” and “America,” were under way. The day from early morning was given to work, hard work, and at 4 o’clock sometimes my Italian friends—the sculptor Majoli, and the scholar Regnoli, with the ladies of Signor Regnoli’s family, would come, and gathering up my parents and myself, take us with them to the open-air theater or to some one or other of the numberless places of interest in and about the great city whose every inch is filled with monuments and memoirs of the illustrious dead.

These memorable days flew by on golden wings, and the time came for us to tear these new ties apart and sail for home. When the Lincoln statue in marble arrived in Washington, the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by Judge David Davis, Senator Trumbull, and other old friends of President Lincoln, inspected and accepted the sta'tue on behalf of the United States Government. The day was then set for its formal unveiling in the rotunda of the Capitol. The ceremony took place at night and the whole Capitol was brilliantly illuminated, the rotunda gayly decor-