Memoirs of Anne C.L. Botta,: written by her friends. With selections from her correspondence and from her writings in prose and poetry.

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how to describe the gentle forbearance, the unspoken
tenderness, with which she guarded, tended, and
nursed her mother through the last years of her life.
Her mother was now rarely, if ever, seen in the drawing-room; once or twice, when some old friend from
the West or from Washington happened to be present, she was, at her own request, assisted downstairs. Whenever she appeared, however, all would
cluster around her; earnestly would she listen to
the conversation, whatever it chanced to be,- of
love, adventure, or discovery,-the narrator being
always forewarned "to speak loud enough for Ma
to hear." When she was tired and wished to retire,
all would rise from their chairs, erect and still as one
stands in a church, while "the mother," smiling and
bowing, supported by her daughter, was led out and
helped up to her room.
It was on one of those memorable days, after she
began to feel that the parting was very near, that I
called to see her. I found her with her mother, who
had been washed and dressed as daintily as ever, and
seated in her large arm-chair. After the usual warm
embrace, she returned to her stool at her mother's
feet, with her interlocked hands on her mother's
knees, her strong intellectual face, full of love, turned
up to the one looking down on it; they appeared
quite absorbed, taking a certain pleasure in just gazing the one at the other. When this silent exchange
of the holiest affection was ended, the daughter laid
her head on her mother's knees, and the aged, feeble
hands stroked that massive gray head, while her
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