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leader, though
Mrs. Howe came nearest to it; but they met as cheery companions, nearly all of whom have passed away.
One also saw at their houses some agreeable companions and foreign notabilities, as when
Mr. Bancroft entertained the
Emperor and Empress of
Brazil, passing under an assumed name, but still attended by a veteran maid, who took occasion to remind everybody that her Majesty was a Bourbon, with no amusing result except that one good lady and experienced traveler bent one knee for an instant in her salutation.
The nearest contact of this circle with the unequivocally fashionable world was perhaps when
Mrs. William B. Astor, the mother of the present representative of that name in
England, and herself a lover of all things intellectual, came among us.
It was in the midst of all this circle that the “Town and country Club” was formed, of which Mrs. Howe was president and I had the humbler functions of vice-president, and it was under its auspices that the festival indicated in the following programme took place, at the always attractive seaside house of the late Mr.Bigelow and Mrs. John W. Bigelow, of New York.
The plan was modeled after the Harvard Commencement exercises, and its Latin programme, prepared by Professor Lane, then one of the highest
