tion. "Stephen, my little man," said he, "I've lost a stocking like this," showing the mate; "and I'm so sorry. My daughter Cassy knit them," he said tenderly, "and I would not lose them for anything." "I produced the stocking, with the Spanish dollars tied up in the foot," said Stephen, "and there was no affectation about it: he really cared more about finding the stocking his daughter had knit him than he did for the money." His careless habits were proverbial; and my cousin Bennet Forbes relates the following:

"Your grandfather Robbins was not remarkable for the nicety of his dress or equipage. He for a long time drove around the country in an old yellowbodied chaise, with an aged bay mare, that he called 'the colt,' for many years. I remember very well his habit of talking to himself and to the mare, while driving along, and my amusement at this, to me, great novelty. I remember his coming to see us before we built the mansion house on Milton Hill, about 1828, in a sleigh. The weather was very cold, and he had no mittens or gloves. I bought a nice pair of fur-lined gloves and sent them to him. He came again, apparently nearly frozen, and still without gloves. I asked him if he had received the pair I sent him. He answered, 'Oh, yes, my dear, they are in the sleigh;' on examination I found them under the cushion, and it was clear they had never been worn." But cousin Bennet adds, what every one thought who knew him, that his desire to bless and serve others, and his untiring kindness, were the prominent traits of his character.

A MASSACHUSETTS POST IN 1759

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My grandfather possessed one striking characteristic, which has been handed down to more than one of his descendants, but which my mother inherited in a rare degree. It was that power of taking cognizance of the relations between persons and events which grows out of a large humanity and not from an interest in idle gossip, except as giving opportunity for service. The following little anecdote related of my grandfather not only illustrates this quality of his mind, but throws a side light on the inadequate postal facilities of that carly time.

One day two gentlemen were walking through the State House, about the year 1795, when one said to the other, "My friend, Mr. is very anxious to get a letter to his wife in Hardwick no later than Sunday (it was then Friday), and the weekly post does not go till next Wednesday. Can you tell me of any way he can send it?" "No, I can't," replied the friend; "but the Speaker of the House, Mr. Robbins, is sitting there at his desk, and, if any man in Massachusetts can tell you, he can.' They approached the desk, and asked the question. "Why, yes," said Mr. Robbins, directly: "the member from Petersham is going home to-morrow to spend Sunday with his family. Now Petersham is only six miles from Hardwick, and his hired man is courting a girl at Hardwick and goes over there to see her every Sunday, and he will carry your friend's letter."

Of Anne Jean's mother, there are many that can still recall her stately air and manner, her vigorous mind and high spirit. But she must have been a very different person from our grandfather; and I

cannot but think that her life had many trials. For she had strong family feeling, and stronger proclivities for Old-World customs and habits; and the restricted life she had to lead, with many cares and small means, must have been hard for one who had been sent to England for her education in youth, and who was not permitted by her aunt to wear a thimble lest it should injure the shape of her finger. The names of her children were Eliza, Sarah Lydia, Anne Jean, Edward, Mary, James, and Catherine. They had reason to be grateful for strong traits of character inherited from both parents.

Many interesting facts might be told about Anne Jean's ancestry to those who are curious in such lore; but, as the streams are numerous which flow into the river of human character, our arithmetic fails us when we come to trace the various lines, all more or less interesting. She herself took pleasure in thinking of the homes in the Old World from which her mother's family, the Murrays, had sprung; but the interest was purely romantic and historic, and only helped to inspire her imagination. It was as far as possible removed from that family pride that delights to claim connection with titled or wealthy ancestry. In our late war, when all New England suffered from that lack of sympathy with our cause shown by Old England, it was impossible for the English to understand our sensitiveness. They had no realization of the tenderness of our hearts towards the home we came from, nor how all descendants of the Puritans look back, as Anne Jean did to that of her ancestors, as if they have still a

ANNE HUTCHINSON'S DESCENDANTS

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belonging there; very different from any feeling we can have about any other country. I never heard her speak of a crest or a coat-of-arms in her life; but the motto on the crest of the Hutchinson family, "Non sibi, sed toti," might well have stood for the watchword of her own unselfish life.

It is a little odd, that, out of one's eight greatgreat-grandmothers, we should select one as especial ancestor, and prize the infinitesimal drop of her blood that has come down to us more than an equal amount from other good sources. But the truth is, it is impossible to know much of any one whom history has not recorded; and so it is in human nature to value the known above the unknown.

The mother of Anne Jean's father, born Elizabeth Hutchinson, was a descendant of the famous Anne Hutchinson, in the fourth generation. The history of Anne Hutchinson and her tragical career has been ably treated by many historians - Drake, Hildreth, Ellis, and Bancroft; so that it is not worth while for me to dwell on it here. In an account of the Hutchinson family, written by my cousin Sarah Howe, and in possession of my Aunt Revere, she quotes from Bancroft the following sentence: "The principles of Anne Hutchinson were a natural consequence of the progress of the Reformation. She asserted that the conscious judgment of the mind is the highest authority to itself. The true tendency of her principles is best established by examining the institutions which were founded by her followers. The spirit of the institutions founded by this band

of exiles on the soil which they owed to the benevolence of the natives (Miantonomoh) was derived from natural justice. The colony rested on the principle of intellectual liberty. The colony at Rhode Island consisted of William and Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, and John Clarke. It was ordered in their constitution, 'that none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine;' and the law of liberty of conscience was perpetuated. They were held together by the bonds of affection and freedom of opinion; benevolence was their rule; they trusted in the power of love to win the victory, and the signet for the State was a sheaf of arrows, with the motto, Amor vincit omnia."

A little tract was published in 1676, under the title of "A Glass for the People of New England," by S. Gorton, in which he says, "The next piece of wickedness I am to mind you of, is your barbarous action committed against Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, whom you first imprisoned, then banished, and exposed her to such desolate condition, that she fell into the hands of the Indians, who murdered her with her family.

"In contemplating the furious and desperate virulence of the colonists towards Anne Hutchinson, we discern a striking illustration of the destructive influences of bigotry and persecution upon all the finer and more amiable sentiments of humanity. Indeed, no excellence of nature or of principle, no strength or refinement of character, is proof against the debasing power of intolerance. To be bigoted is to be cruel; to persecute another is to barbarize