It was winter -- cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and stinging wind. The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture which has given to the history of our nation -- to education, to religion, to the sciences, and to the arts -- so many illustrious names. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times, had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a passing day, had been hostess and friend.