good friend to whom this letter is addressed.

This young man was the husband of Ruth Baldwin, to whom Elizabeth had recently been on a visit. The only authentic Elizabeth Whitman letters in existence are those merely friendly ones addressed to the Barlows during this period of our heroine's life, between her twenty-ninth and thirty-second year. She had first met Joel Barlow and Ruth Baldwin, to whom the poet was even then engaged to be married, at a Christmas party in New Haven in 1778. At a game of forfeits, Joel and Elizabeth were ordered to play the part of man and wife for the whole evening. This game they carried out with great spirit, adopting the nine Muses as their children. Melpomene, Barlow's favourite because he was already well-known as a poet, is caricatured in the correspondence

which followed between the two friends as

Quammeny," and his wife is constantly called in the letters his "second wife," a playful allusion on Elizabeth Whitman's part to the Christmas party game.

Because of his poverty young Barlow had not been welcomed as a suitor by his bride's family, and the result of this was that he married Miss Baldwin while she was away upon a visit, an offence which remained for many years unforgiven by the Baldwins. In this unpleasantness the pair had the keenest sympathy and interest of Elizabeth Whitman, and at the very time when she was supposed to be brokenheartedly lamenting Buckminster's desertion, she was really interesting herself in the crockery and furniture of the Barlow establishment. The letters that tell us this were discovered long after both Barlow and Elizabeth had passed away,

tied together in a packet labelled "Bessie Whitman's Letters" in the handwriting of her correspondent, by Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, a distant cousin of Elizabeth Whitman, and the one writer who has interested herself in defending the fair fame of the beautiful girl.1

The Barlows never had any children, but Mrs. Barlow ultimately adopted as her own her stepsister, twenty years younger than herself, - an exquisite creature who enjoyed the distinction of being sought in marriage by General Lafayette.

It is at the next stage of the story that the real tragedy of Elizabeth Whitman's life begins to dawn. She has now reached the age of thirty-six, and, so far as her friends and family know, she is still unmarried. Yet in the background of her

See "The Romance of the Association," by Mrs. Dall.

life hovered an unknown man. That she had linked her fate to that of some one who hesitated to acknowledge her publicly is the only charitable solution of her story's mystery. Mrs. Dall believes that her life had been joined to that of a French officer -probably a man of rank-stationed at Newport, and that the records of the marriage, performed by a Catholic priest, perished long ago in fire. But of this Elizabeth's kindred and friends knew nothing. And the neighbours made unpleasant remarks. One visitor, her cousin, Jeremiah Wadsworth, was often seen about this time leaving her society at what was called "unseemly hours," and in May, 1788, she was reported to have changed at the bank a large quantity of foreign gold. To add to the murkiness of the situation her health faltered, and her spirits were often sadly depressed.

Then there came from Mrs. Henry Hill, of Boston, an invitation to visit her, which, in view of Elizabeth's debility and the comments of the gossips, was very eagerly accepted. So at midday in the spring of 1788 the still beautiful young woman left her home for what proved to be forever. But the stage-coach did not carry her to her friend's house, as her people believed it would. That she took this conveyance has always been known, but where she left it has remained a mystery. In a letter just received from Mrs. Dall I have, however, learned that Elizabeth Whitman's alighting-place was at Killingly, fortyseven miles east of her Hartford home. There she told her story to Mr. Howe, the clergyman of the place, the brother of that Reverend Joseph Howe to whom she had once been engaged and whom she had tenderly nursed until death claimed him.