I still hesitate to approach the end. It is the memory of a pleasant passage in my life, the happiest memory, and the saddest of all the past. For ten years of professional labor I had the constant joy of loving and being loved by her, and then she died. as from the ring in the handkerchief we had found, we had always argued at least the wealth of her relatives. But in this ring we found legibly engraved, "Clara Rocheford." So died the last descendant of the Rocheford family, heiress to her grandfather's forgiveness and his vastly accumulated possessions, though she never knew either the need of the one or the value of the other. To us it mattered nothing whose descendant she was, nor what her rights of possession. She had been our child-our idol-our possession-and she was dead now. It was a cold winter night, yet much such a night as that when she came to us, and as she came so she went, in a tempest. It was no slow consumption or fading away, but a short fierce fever that burned and wasted her young, glad, glorious life. In one week all was over; and when she lay before us that last night in We have never, since her death, been on the the delirium of her fever, she called us one by beach, and our cabin was doubtless long ago one, and constantly joined our names with such swept away by the Atlantic storms, which have terms of endearment as proved all her deep, rich | obliterated forever all memorials of her mother's love for us. Sometimes she spoke in Spanish, and called the names of companions of her childhood, and again she called on her mother and Robert. grave. MR. DANIEL WEBSTER'S SOCIAL HOURS. R. WEBSTER when, the cares of State laid aside, he was alone with his own familiar friends, liked to go back to his early training, and to the scenes and events of his childhood in New Hampshire. His memory was richly stored, too, with the romantic adventures and picturesque narratives which distin Toward midnight she grew more wild, and it was with difficulty she could be kept in her bed. Her eyes roved around the room, and rested for a moment on each face, for we were all there; but she did not recognize us. Plimpton was leaning over the foot of the bed, his whole face expressive of his anguish. Ben sat by his sis-guished the settlement of his native State more ter, who constantly endeavored to soothe her. than that of any other State of the old Thirteen. I walked restlessly up and down the room, with The incursions and massacres of the Indians, aching, breaking heart. Her wild cries pierced the jealousy and almost constant hostilities of my brain. At length she sang in a clear, full the French, as well as, later, the stirring characvoice part of that brilliant passage from Massa-ter of the Revolutionary war, he often dwelt niello, which every one knows; and then she upon, and always with eloquent animation. paused suddenly, and moaned aloud. We sprang toward her. Her eyes were closed, and she lay calm and still, breathing heavily. She opened her eyes and looked at us, as we bent over her, with a strange, startled expression of countenance, as if she did not know where she was, or why we were there. At that moment we could see the shadow of death falling on her countenance. The look changed, and now deep, earnest, overflowing love filled her gaze. It rested on my face, on each face for a long time, and we returned it silently, breathlessly. Then she closed her eyes again, breathed once or twice a long, deep breath, and all was still. The wind wailed around the house. The snow dashed madly against the closed shutters. All without was furious, but within all was calm, and deepest calm of all in that beloved breast which had never heaved to a sigh, which should know no pain now forever. We had lifted her to our arms from a dark ocean. She was lost to our embraces again in that unknown, unfathomed sea, whose billows break unseen, unheard at our very feet. As she lay dead before us robed for the burial, Mrs. Stevens removed from her hand a ring which she had worn from childhood as her mother's gift, and which, though loose in former years and liable to fall off, with a superstitious fear she had never removed for a moment from the finger on which her mother placed it. It was a diamond ring of large value, from which, as well "New Hampshire," he was wont to say, "needs but a Scott to outshine Scotland. There is more romance in the foray of the Indians than in a creagh of the Gael, and richer material for the novelist in the adventures of Lovewell or Stark than in any of the exploits of the Black Douglas." His own residence was the scene of the last Indian massacre within the borders of the State; the house in which he was born was on its most exposed frontier; and he was wont to converse with men who had had as many desperate encounters with, and hair-breadth escapes from the Indian savage, or the Canadian marauders, as Sir Walter Scott with those who had been "out in the Forty-Five," so that he could throw over his recollections the warm and vivid coloring of a personal narrative. Besides, New Hampshire, previous to the Revolution, was a royal province. Its governor was appointed by the King in Council, and had some of the appendages of royalty. While the Governor of Massachusetts Bay rode to church on horseback with his wife behind him on a pillion, his Excellency of New Hampshire rode in his carriage and four. An old manuscript thus describes a visit of the then Governor (1737) to Boston: "The next day he set out for Boston, with a vast train of attendants. The form of the cavalcade was as follows: Captain Downing's troop were in front, preceded by the officers of the foot and private gentlemen, by twos; next to them went the under sheriffs; after them the high sheriffs with their wands; then went his Excel- | pation of delight did we await its promised lency with the Hon. Colonel and Lieutenant-coming! A page was devoted to each month, Colonel of the 1st regiment at his right and left and on the top of each page were four lines of hand; next went the members of his Majesty's poetry, some moral, some ludicrous, and some Council, and Captain Roby's troop brought up sentimental. The almanac came one mornthe rear. His Excellency's first stop was at the sign of the Horse, in Hampton, where he was graciously pleased to regale his attendants, and then moving forward, was met on the Province line by sundry gentlemen of the Massachusetts and Salisbury troop." This was all very fine and grand, and reads pretty much as the Court Circular of the London Morning Herald of the present day. The principal families in Portsmouth, too, among whom were the Atkinsons and Wentworths, connected by intermarriage, lived in great profusion, and endeavored through their influence at home (as the mother-country was always affectionately called) to obtain titles of nobility; two natives of New Hampshire, Sir William Pepperell and Sir John Wentworth, were created baronets. Ridiculous as such state and titles appear to us now, absurd as they are to the eye of reason, they serve to illustrate the manners of the times, and in contrast with those of the present, to give variety and the interest of novelty to the descriptions by our grandfathers of their childish days, and of the old times that were before them. It was while sojourning at his place in Franklin, New Hampshire, a beautiful country residence on the Merrimac River, near the confluence of the Pemigewasset and Winnipiseogee, that Mr. Webster mostly indulged in reminiscences of his youth, the genius loci inspiring him. He lived his early life over again, and never felt happier. "As far back as I can recollect," he said on one occasion, "I had a great passion for poetry, and devoured all I could command. At ten or twelve years old I could repeat word for word a greater part of Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and no other poetry has since appeared to me so affecting. I have forgotten much that I have acquired since, but to this day I can repeat, almost literally, the devotional lines I was then so fond of. "I remember that my father one day brought home a pamphlet copy of Pope's Essay on Man. I need not say I read with avidity. I read, reread, and then commenced again; nor did I give up the book till I could recite every word of it from beginning to end. We had so few books that to read them once or twice was nothing. We thought, as a matter of course, they were all to be got by heart. Many a time since I have thought of this when I have heard that sagacious advice quoted of one of the ancient writers (Pliny, was it not?), Legere multum, non multa. "I recollect one occurrence that shows the great value we attached to books. The close of the year had brought along the next year's almanac-an encyclopedia to us then of useful and entertaining knowledge; with what antici ing, and before night my brother and myself were masters of its contents, or at least of its poetry and anecdotes. We discussed and laughed over it during a long December evening, and then went to bed upon it; awaking some time before the morning light, we renewed our conversation and recitations. It so happened that we had a difference of recollection about one word in the third line of April's poetry. A variation of so much importance was not lightly to be passed over. We could not settle it by | argument; each was positive in his own recollection, and there was no umpire. But the fact could easily be ascertained by inspection of the book. I arose, groped my way to the kitchen, lighted a candle from the embers on the hearth, and proceeded to a room in another part of the house in search of the almanac; found it, and carried it to our room. The disputed passage was examined, and I believe I was found to be in the wrong. I blew out the candle and returned to bed. The consequences of my nocturnal exploration came nigh being serious. It was about two o'clock in the morning, and just as I was again going to sleep, I thought I saw signs of light in the room I had visited. I sprang out of bed, ran to the room, and opening the door, found it was all on fire. I had let fall a spark. or touched the light to something that had communicated fire to a parcel of cotton clothes; they had communicated it to the furniture and to the sides of the room, and the flames had already began to show themselves through the ceiling in the chamber above. A pretty earnest cry soon brought the household together. By great good-luck we escaped. Two or three minutes more and we should have been in danger of burning together. As it was, I think the house was saved by my father's presence of mind. While others went for water, he seized every thing movable which was on fire, and wrapped them up in woolen blankets. My maternal grandmother, eighty years of age, was sleeping in the room. "My college life," said Mr. Webster, "was not an idle one. Besides the regular attendance on prescribed studies and duties, I read some little of English history and English literature. Perhaps my reading was too miscellaneous-a habit into which we too easily fall-for nothing is more dangerous to the mind than indiscriminate indulgence in books. I even paid my board for a year or more by superintending a little weekly newspaper, and making selections for it from books of literature and from contemporary publications. I suppose I sometimes wrote a foolish paragraph myself. While in college I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which were published. I trust they are forgotten. They were boyish indiscretions, and One day, as we were driving along the banks of the Merrimac, we passed a small bridge in Salisbury, which Mr. Webster told us was called Indian Bridge, from an event that took place in the vicinity nearly a hundred years previously, and in the evening, he said, he would tell us the story. 6 may be pardoned. They were in very bad taste. | trade with him, and advised them to go home. I had not then learned that all true power in 'There were others of the tribe about,' he said, writing is in the idea, not in the style; an error who would support Sabatis in any hostile deminto which the ars rhetorica, as it is usually onstration.' As they were departing, Sabatis taught, may easily lead stronger heads than cried out to them, 'We want no more of you mine." English here! I have evil in my heart, and if you do not leave our territories, and abandon them forever, we will take land and life from you. We will drive the pale faces into the big water!' One of the men replied, "There is no fighting now between us. English and Indians are all brothers.' They had not gone far on their homeward road before they met Peter Bowen, and telling him of the threats of Sabatis, endeavored to persuade him to accompany them home. Bowen laughed: "Threatened men,' he said, 'lived long. I would not prize a life held at the mercy of these savages. I will meet them in friendship or fight, as best suits them.' The Indians had got into their canoe before he overtook them, and were going up the river. Bowen hailed them, and urged them to So, after dinner, with a clear hickory fire in the open chimney (for it was a chilly evening in September), and with daylight fast fading into dusk-the moments when, of all others, one feels most disposed to listen or narrate, Mr. Webster sat down and told us the following story: "Once upon a time there lived a man in Contoocook by the name of Bowen-Peter Bowen-not a man of large substance, but still what we would call in New Hampshire a 'fore-hand-go to his house, where they would have a frolic, ed man.' Living on the frontiers, he necessarily came much in contact with the Indians sometimes in hostile contact. Fearless, and abounding in resources, he had gained a name among them, and there were few of their braves who would have cared to meet him single-handed. Not naturally quarrelsome, he had avoided unnecessary hostilities with the savages, and, indeed, had gained no little of their good-will by many acts of generosity, for with no people more than with them were bravery and liberality held in high estimation. "Sabatis and Plausawa were the two principal chiefs of the tribe, the smoke of whose wigwams arose nearest the settlements of the English colonists. The first was of a sullen and vindictive disposition, and, when excited by drink, intractable and savage. Plausawa was of a milder temperament, and felt better disposed toward the English. He had interchanged kind offices with them, and warned them more than once of plots against their safety. "At this time there was a truce between the Indians and the colonists, and both parties had engaged to punish any violation of it. If an Indian should be killed by an Englishman, the colonists promised to treat it as a capital crime, and the Indians, on their part, made a corresponding stipulation. There was peace between the crowns of France and England, and their respective colonies affected to keep it, at least in name. "Relying upon this present good understanding, Sabatis and Plausawa one day made a hunting excursion upon the shores of the Merrimac, in which they were very successful. They were encountered, late in the afternoon, loaded with the skins of the animals they had killed, by two Englishmen, somewhere near Boscawen. Sabatis had procured drink from the settlers, always too eager to barter it for furs, and was in a quarrelsome humor. Plausawa, therefore, cautioned these men against any attempt to and pass the night. After some reluctance on the On the Whereupon Sabatis proposed a second race, and | ticipation of Indian revenge had become a mothat Bowen should unload the horse, and start nomania. He heard their voices in the sough a little before him, 'because,' he said, 'the horse of the pale face could not run so fast as Sabatis.' This Bowen refused to do, but consented to start at the same time. They started; but the horse had not got far ahead of the Indian before Bowen heard a gun snap, and looking round, saw the smoke, and the gun still pointed at him. He turned, and buried his tomahawk in the Indian's head. He then went back to meet Plausawa, who, seeing the fate of his friend, took aim at Bowen and fired; his gun flashed. Then he begged Bowen to spare his life; pleaded his innocence of Sabatis's intent, and called to mind the many kind acts he had done to Englishmen, the lives of many of whom his intercession had saved; but all in vain. Bowen knew full well there never would be safety for him so long as the friend of Sabatis lived. One must die, and to secure himself it was necessary to put Plausawa to death, and as the latter turned to fly he struck his tomahawk into his skull. The dead bodies he hid under a small bridge, ever since called Indian Bridge, where they were discovered the next spring. "The colonists at this time were desirous of being on good terms with the Indians, for whenever war broke out between them, the latter were always aided by the French in Canada. The sudden disappearance of men of such note in the tribe as Sabatis and Plausawa occasioned the borderers no little alarm; for some time their death was undiscovered, and when the manner of it became known, serious apprehensions were felt of Indian retaliation. Bowen was arrested and placed in Exeter jail; and the Indians were assured that proper punishment should be inflicted upon him, according to the terms of the treaty. But the people of the vicinage assembled hastily and in large force, broke into the jail, and released the prisoner. In those days killing Indians was no murder; and, in this case, Bowen's friends maintained that the act was committed in self-defense: so, perhaps, it might be considered, upon Bowen's account, without rebutting circumstances. The fact that the Indians had large quantities of furs in their canoes, which Bowen appropriated as opima spolia, threw some suspicion upon his proceedings. However, he returned quietly to his home; and as the French war, called in Europe the Seven Years' War, soon after broke out, no farther notice was taken of the act; and Bowen died at a good old age. "But the most extraordinary circumstance attending the transaction was its effect upon Bowen's son-a youth at the time of some dozen years. Either remorse at his father's deed, or apprehensions of Indian revenge, kept his mind in continual agitation, and he grew up a reserved, wayward, incomprehensible person. He shunned intercourse with his fellow-men, guarded his house with redoubled bolts, and slept with his gun beside him. Soon after he had arrived at man's estate, his anVOL. XIII.-No. 77.-S s of the winds, the rustling of the leaf announced their stealthy tread, and he saw their dusky faces in the waving grain. He dared not leave his house for fear of an ambush, nor look out of the window lest a bullet of the lurking foe should hit him. Mortal fear sat at his table, pursued him like a phantom through the day, and in the deep watches of the night startled him from his unwholesome slumbers. This became, after a while, unendurable; and he at last determined upon an act of seeming desperation. Consulting or informing none of his friends, he left his home, journeyed into Canada, and surrendered himself to the tribe of the murdered men as an expiatory sacrifice. The Indians, barbarous often in the treatment of their captives, seldom maltreated a voluntary prisoner. They took Bowen into their tribe, and the mother of the slaughtered Plausawa adopted him as her son. He became acquainted with their customs, joined their expeditions, participated in their fortunes, and, indeed, became one of them. In his old age, however, a desire to revisit the scenes of his childhood. overtook him, and the Indians interposing no obstacles to his wishes, he left them, his Indian. mother being dead, returned to Contoocook,. and died in peace among his kinsfolk and neighbors, to whom his adventurous life furnished a never-failing theme of interesting con-versation." "Previous to the year 1763," said Mr. Webster, on one occasion, as he was dwelling upon incidents of his own and his father's life, "the settlements in New Hampshire had made little or no progress inward into the country for sixty or seventy years, owing to the persevering hostility of the French in Canada and of the bordering Indians, who were under French influence. People in our days can not understand the constant anxieties of our fathers arising from such a source. They were obliged always to be in arms and on the alert, and many an interesting story I have heard from these old frontiersmen of such stirring times. But this potent cause of repression having been effectually removed by the cession of Canada to England by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, companies were got up in various parts of New England to settle the wilderness between the inhabited portion of the Eastern States and Canada. Colonel Stevens, who distinguished himself in the preceding French war, associating himself with some other persons about Kingston, in New Hampshire, obtained from Benning Wentworth, Governor of the Province, the township of Salisbury, called at first Stevenstown. It is situated at the head of the Merrimac River, and very near the centre of the State. My father joined this enterprise, and about 1764 pushed into the wilderness. He had the discretion to take an ally, the best of allies, along with him, a wife; intending, whatever else he might want, not to lack at least good company. The party | honors of his native State, disdained the Vicetraveled out the road or path (for it was no bet- Presidency, and the still higher office of which ter), and then were obliged to make their way (not finding one) to their destined places of habitation. My father camped a little beyond the other comers, and when he had built his log-cabin and lighted his fire, his smoke asscended nearer to the North Star than that of any other of his Majesty's New England subjects. "His story of this early settlement was deeply interesting, at least to me. The settlers doubtless suffered much. The mountainous nature of the country, the very long winters, with prodigious depth of snow, and the want of all roads to communicate with the country below, often induced great hardships. But the settlement increased, and when the war of the Revolution broke out, ten or eleven years after, the place contained nearly two hundred men capable of bearing arms. War on their own soil, and even at their own doors, was no strange sight to these hardy pioneers; and the arms which they had laid aside on the conclusion of peace with the French were easily resumed, and became as effective, in their practiced hands, against a still harsher foe. My father was their Captain, and he led them forth, with other New Hampshire troops, almost every campaign. He commanded his company at Bennington, at White Plains, at West Point, and at the time of Arnold's defection. There were not braver nor better troops in Washington's army. I have some little articles, the spolia prælii of Bennington, which I keep in honor of my father. The last time I ever saw General Stark, under whom my father fought at Bennington, he · did me the compliment of saying that my complexion was like that of my father, and that his was of that color so convenient to a soldier, that burnt gunpowder did not change it!" "One day," said Mr. Webster, as we were walking over his farm, "as my father and myself were hoeing in this field, the Hon. Mr. Thompson was passing on his horse, and seeing my father, stopped and had a talk with him. After he had left, my father said: "My son, Mr. Thompson is a member of Congress, having had opportunities of learning in his boyhood, as I should have been but from want of such learning; as you certainly will be, if you make the most of the schooling I can afford to give you." The words, and more the tone in which they were said, sunk deep into my heart; and to such exhortations, with my great desire to gratify so excellent a parent, do I attribute, in a great measure, my early devotion to my studies." Mr. Webster's father strained, indeed, every nerve to get his sons what they called then in New Hampshire "larning." When he had exhausted his own little resources, he looked to others for temporary assistance. The writer has seen a letter of his addressed to Governor Langdon-the man who, satisfied with the chief it was then the step-stone-begging for a little "Of all the legacies the dying leave, Remembrance of their virtues is the best." A legacy always inciting to good deeds, and never exhausted. The ever-vivid recollection of his father's devotion, single heartedness, and many acts of silent yet fruitful charity, preserved Mr. Webster himself from that hardness of the heart which success and consequent isolation from the mass so frequently engender. We were talking on one occasion while at this place, of the charge of diverting the secret service fund, while Secretary of State, to his own purposes, which Ingersoll of Philadelphia, emulous to rival the fame of him who fired the Ephesian dome, had recently preferred against him in Congress. Mr. Webster spoke with much feeling on the subject. "I inherited an honest name," he said; "it was all I inherited, and it is all I shall transmit to my children. For this reason, this man's accusation, as groundless as it is malignant, has troubled me. But my countrymen will not believe, and posterity will not believe him. I could have been a rich man, had I so chosen, without being a dishonest one." I related an anecdote to him in relation to the matter which gratified him much. The character of the accusation, as well as the eminence of the individual against whom it was preferred, created no little excitement in Congress. It was canvassed and vehemently discussed without as well as within the halls of legislation, and though no doubt of Mr. Webster's innocence from the charge existed in the mind of any intelligent and candid person, friend or foe, many feared that his perfect freedom from it could hardly be established, as the disbursement of that fund is a confidential matter, and sometimes could not be traced with safety to the public interests. However, a committee of the House appointed to investigate the matter, of whom Mr. Jefferson Davis, the present Secretary of War, was one, entirely exculpated Mr. Webster, and proved the specific appropriation of the whole fund. The evening of the day the report was made, some two dozen gentlemen met at supper at one of the luxurious tables of our political metropo |