man full of eccentricities and naturally very shy and reserved in charHis domestic trials rendered him bitter and outwardly morose, even to his friends, sometimes even to his children. He was a philosopher of the school of Voltaire, a fine scholar, with a pungent, acrid wit, and cool sarcasm, which made him both feared and respected by those brought into collision with him. He lived to be old, and died of yellow-fever, near Galveston, Texas, where he had invested his means very extensively in lands. He was a handsome man, his features marked, his nose aquiline, his mouth small and compressed, his eyes of a bright blue, his complexion pure and fair as a young girl's, his cheeks freshly colored, his brow white as a lily, a very venerablelooking man, with long, thin, white locks falling on his neck; his forehead was very high, very prominent, and very narrow. He wrote two works on Political Economy, which made some reputation for him among the class of men who take interest in such reasonings. He was a man of mark, though not much beloved-out of his own family circle. He wrote also a "geographical" novel. His wife, who was very young when left a widow by Colonel Ellis, had borne Major Ware two daughters, Catharine and Eleanor; but at the birth of the latter, family proclivity inherited from her father declared itself, and the charming, attractive young woman never recovered her reason, from the delirium of puerperal fever. Major and Mrs. Ware were then living near Natchez. There was the loudest expression of sympathy and regret on the part of her many friends, by whom Mrs. Ware was greatly beloved, but after trying every medical suggestion that the South could afford, Major Ware was compelled to take his suffering wife to Philadelphia for better advice; her two children by her first marriage were already there. Her son was at college at Princeton, N. J.; her daughter, Mary Ellis, the wife of Dr. Rene La Roche, of Philadelphia. Now the father had to take charge of his two helpless little girls, so sadly deprived of their mother's tender care. He was passionately devoted to his little daughters, never content to have them away from him; and he did the best he could for them. They had wealth and friends, but it was lonely for the little things, wandering about from place to place, as their father's wretchedness led him to do, in his restless, weary life, - never long separated from the stern, peculiar scholar, whom they could not comprehend, except in his intense tenderness and earnest anxiety to bring them up as lovely, refined ladies should be educated. He permitted their elder sister, (a very gentle

lady,) at that time a leading belle in society in Philadelphia, to retain the children for a while. But he could not bear the separation, so he took them back to himself; their faithful Scotch nurse, Janet, guarding them with the love, truth, and jealous fidelity of her people, in all their wanderings. Janet was very strict with the children. She taught them to speak the truth, to be obedient and tidy, to fear God. Janet had a very pleasant voice in singing, and she taught them to sing old Scotch and English ballads. She taught them to sew, and was very good to them.

There was only eighteen months difference between the sisters; Catharine was the elder, but Eleanor was so bright, so clever, and so active, that she always took the lead, wherever they might happen to be. They were nearly of one size. Eleanor was a beautiful child; Catharine's face was not so regular in feature, and she had not her sister's brilliant complexion. Catharine had the Percy eye, dark-gray with black lash; she was like her mother, dark-haired and brunette. Eleanor was a picture to see; her eyes were as blue as heaven, her features statuesque, her hair black, with a purple tinge. Catharine was shy, sensitive, easily abashed, and readily provoked to tears-a sad, pensive child; Eleanor was self-reliant, gay, dancing like a sunbeam. So Catharine readily yielded the pas to her younger sister, and believed more devoutly than any one else in Eleanor's superiority, both physical and mental. She retained through life the same feeling of homage to her sister, and still believes Eleanor to have been more gifted than herself. These children had a singular training. Their father taught them a good deal himself, and he always provided them with the best masters, when he would sometimes make a prolonged halt in Philadelphia or elsewhere, for the purpose of their better instruction. They had a good many strange experiences. Their principal governess was a Mrs. Mortimer, an English lady, for whom they always expressed great affection. Some winters they spent in their native South; some summers they would be in Florida, some in the North. Then Ellen was placed at school at Madame Lygoni's, in Philadelphia. Catharine would not go to school; she ran away and returned to her sister's house, which was only a few squares from the school. Madame came soon after in great agitation, in search of the truant, but the girl hid herself in a wood-closet, and wept so unrestrainedly when discovered, that the dismayed friends had to give up the point, and Major Ware had to take her back again to himself.

He rented a suite of rooms now, and supplied her with books and masters. Then he went through a careful course of reading with her in English classics and in French; teaching her to scan English prosody, and furnishing her, thus, with most invaluable and rare learning. Eleanor came to them every Saturday. She learned everything with facility; she played delightfully on her small harp, that her father had ordered from Erard, made expressly for her use. She danced like a fairy; talked French like a native. She was a bright, beautiful, inevitable child. Catharine shrunk timidly from the world, into which, however, she was frequently forced to go. Her elder sister's house was the centre of a gay and fashionable circle; the reunions at Madame Lygoni's and Dr. La Roche's were frequented by the most distinguished persons, both native and foreign. Madame Lygoni, an emigré from St. Domingo, was a marchioness of France by birth, and at that time there was a very brilliant circle of French exiles in and near Philadelphia. All strangers brought letters to her, and to her nephew, Dr. La Roche. Mrs. La Roche was a great favorite in this circle, and so Catharine and Eleanor were obliged to see much of the fashion and gayety of Philadelphia. Eleanor liked it very much; she was always a little queen in society, kind and warm-hearted, gen: erous, but tant soit pen capricious, and rather tyrannical, perhaps, over her more timid sister. Catharine advised Eleanor. The love between these sisters was peculiar and beautiful. They absolutely seemed to have but one soul. Their intercourse was as frank and unreserved as that of a penitent and father confessor. They never had a thought or an emotion from each other in all their lives. Their hearts were absolutely bare to each other's gaze, - they hid not even weaknesses from each other. Nothing could be more perfect than the confidence and friendship between them. This endured till death severed the sisters; and Eleanor's departure to the better life has left a void in the heart and life of her sister which has never been filled. The wound has never closed in Catharine's heart. She has never had any other friend like "Eleanor,"-no love of husband, nor child, nor friend, has ever compensated her for the loss of the friend of her childhood - her sister "Ellen." The oneness of sympathy was wonderful. They did everything together. At an early age, they began to write little tales and poems together. Catharine m'arried early, and "Ellen" was necessarily separated a good deal from her; but they vowed to spend at least some months together every year, and they

wrote to each other nearly every day. We have had some of these letters in our hands some of "Ellen's" later letters to her sister. Never were penned such graphic word-pictures, descriptive of thought and every passing shade of feeling, as these letters are.

After her marriage, Mrs. Warfield went to France for a year; Major Ware went too, taking Eleanor. Dr. and Mrs. La Roche were already living there. The brother, Thomas G. Ellis, to whom the sisters were most ardently attached, had married in Natchez, and had assumed the charge of his afflicted mother, who still lived, sunk in quiet, hopeless melancholy.

After spending some time abroad, where they had every advantage of society, the families returned to America. Major Ware brought Eleanor to her brother in Natchez. The other daughters, Mrs. La Roche from Philadelphia, and Catharine Warfield from Lexington, Ky., paid occasional visits to their brother and their mother, who, alas! never was able to recognize them. Mrs. Ware retained her health, and some remains of former beauty. Her hair, though snow-white, still swept almost to the floor as she stood erect; her hands and arms were models for a sculptor; she noticed very little; sometimes would open a book, but never read any; sometimes would take down her guitar, which hung suspended by its blue riband, and would strike a few discordant notes, she once played it skilfully; or she would take a strawberry and draw admirably outlines of roses and clustering leaves, on the white walls of her apartment; but if pencils and paint were placed on her table, she never used them. She never recognized her husband, and he rarely ever saw her. She manifested a dim recognition of her son, and she was fond of her little grand-daughter, named for her, known now in the literary world as "FILIA," (author of "Recollections of Henry W. Allen," etc.,) but she did not know her as her grandchild. She would weep sometimes for her baby "Ellen," but would repulse the caresses of her weeping daughter, who would often try to make her mother understand who she was. These attempts, however, only distressed the poor lady, and so they were obliged to abandon all hope of any change in the gloom which overshadowed this beautiful nature. But although the chambers above had its suite-appointed fitly for this sad inmate, the parlors below in Mr. Ellis's house were gay, and generally full of company. Eleanor married Mr. Lee; it is not necessary here to life, except so far as it is connected with her sister's.

speak of her

The brother

died suddenly in his thirty-first year. His sisters grieved sorely. Their mother had died the year previous. A few hours before her death, her reason returned to her.

Catharine lived a quiet, domestic life, absorbed in the rearing of her family of six children, in Lexington, some years, and afterward near it, on a farm she purchased for the sake of country air. She had cause for unhappiness in many ways. She devoted herself to her children; her only recreation was in her pen. She and Eleanor had. always kept up their habit of writing poems and other matter. It was instinct with them. Their father, getting possession of some of their poems, had a volume published in 1845,-"Poems by Two Sisters of the West." These were received with some favor by the public. Then another volume was published,-"The Indian Chamber, and other Tales." The sisters were gratified by the receptions of their writings, and had planned out a number of tales and poems to be collated, when suddenly Eleanor died at Natchez, in her thirtieth year. It was very piteous! When told by her weeping niece, according to solemn promise made that she would inform her aunt "if danger was near," her first words were, "Oh, what a blow for Catharine!" Her last thoughts, after bidding farewell to her husband and her four little children, were for her sister-far away in Lexington. She charged her niece and her husband with messages of loving words and consolation for Catharine; then gave directions for her funeral, received extreme unction from the hands of Bishop Chanche, (the family were Roman Catholics,) and died tranquilly. The news of Eleanor's death prostrated Catharine, both physically and mentally. She was now alone-her elder half-sister, Mrs. La Roche, was dead after great suffering - her brother was dead and now Eleanor. She was frantic in her grief; there never has been any consolation for her save in the hope of Immortality and the restitution of those whom she still loves and longs for. Her father died! Blow after blow had stricken her into the dust. She abandoned even her pen it " minded her of Eleanor." Years after her sister's death, her niece, who had supported "Ellen's" dying head upon her bosom, - the eldest daughter of her only brother, -visited her. There was much weeping and much talking of the beloved dead; and then the niece opened the closed drawer which contained the manuscripts of the two sisters, and prevailed upon Catharine to review some of them with her. Thus the pen, so long unused, was taken up again, and shortly after, Mrs.

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