The author of this volume, having written it from time to time, from her recollections and documentary materials, which include bushels of letters—but unwilling to commit it to the press in the disjointed condition which was a natural consequence of her own want of much practice of the pen—did me the honor of requesting my aid in revising and arranging it for publication. Her honesty and sincerity of character have caused her to insist upon a preface to that effect. Though deeming this a superfluous scruple on her part, I am induced to comply with her wish for a different reason; and that is, the opportunity it affords of bearing my testimony to the remarkable accuracy of her memory and of her truthfulness, as those qualities have proved themselves throughout the intimate intercourse of many weeks, during which she has often had to repeat the same recollections of facts and incidents, under what was almost legal cross-examination, without ever the slightest variation in their details, and without ever allowing anything to pass which might be in the least degree tainted with inaccuracy or mistake. As she is so well known to so many friends, it is superfluous for me to express on this page, which will meet her eye for the first time in print, the high and affectionate esteem and respect with which that intimate intercourse, with all its opportunities for observation and judgment, have inspired the
Editor.