I took the first course of dinner with him, Avhcn I was compelled to leave to be in time

THE HUDSON. 345

for the next train of cars that would convey me home. He arose from the table, and passed into the little drawing-room with me. At the door he took my hand in both of his, and with a pleasant smile said, " I wish you success in all your undertakings. God bless you."

It was the last day of the "Indian summer," in 1859, a soft, balmy, glorious day in the middle of Kovember. The setting sun was sending a blaze of red light across the bosom of Tappan Bay, when I left the porch and followed the winding path down the bank to the railway. There was peacefulness in the aspect of all nature at that hour, and I left Sunny side, feeling sensibly the influence of a good man's blessing. Only a fortnight afterwards, on a dark, stormy evening, I took up a newspaper at an inn in a small village of the Valley of the Upper Hudson, and read the startling announcement, ^^ Death of Washington In-ing." I felt as it a near and dear friend had been snatched away for ever. I was too far from home to be at the funeral, but oue of my family, very dear to me, was in the crowd of sincere mourners at his grave, on the borders of Sleepy Hollow. The day was a lovely one on the verge of winter, and thousands stood reverently around, on that sunny slope, while the earth Avas cast upon the coffin and the preacher uttered the solemn words, " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Few men ever went to the tomb lamented by more sincere friends.