[Illustration: =Faust Brooch Presented to Clara Louise Kellogg=]
In 1878, on a Western trip, I remember my making a point, in some place in Kansas, of singing in an institute on Sunday for the pleasure of the inmates. We had done this sort of thing frequently before, notably in Utica. So we went to the prison to sing to the prisoners. I said to the company, "I am going to sing to give _pleasure_, and not a hymn is to be in the programme!" When I was told of the desperadoes in the place I was almost intimidated. The guards were particularly imposing. I played my own accompaniments and I sang negro melodies. I never had such an audience, of all my appreciative audiences. Never, I feel sure, have I given quite so much pleasure as to those lawless prisoners out in Kansas.
I was glad to be going again to England. My farewell to my native land was, however, more like an ovation than a farewell. One long table of the ship's grand saloon was heaped with flowers sent me by friends and "admirers." The list of my fellow passengers on this occasion was a distinguished one, including Bishop Littlejohn, Bishop Scarborough, Bishop Clarkson, and other Episcopal prelates who were going over to attend the conference in London; the Rev. Dr. John Hall; Maurice Grau, Max Strakosch, Henry C. Jarrett, John McCullough, Lester Wallack, General Rathbone of Albany, Colonel Ramsay of the British army, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, and Joseph Andrede, the Cape of Good Hope millionaire. I was interviewed by a _Sun_ reporter, on deck, and assured him that I was going abroad for rest only.
"No," I said, "I shall not sing a note. How could I, after such a season--one hundred and fifty nights of constant labour. No; I shall breathe the sea air, and that of the mountains, and see Paris--delightful Paris! With such a lovely summer before me, it would be a little hard to have to work."
It was like old times to be in England once more. Yet I found many changes. One of them was in the state of my old friend James McKenzie who had been in the East Indian trade and had a delightful place in Scotland adjoining that of the Queen, through which she used to drive with the incomparable John Brown. I had been invited up there on my first visit to England, but was not able to accept. When I asked for him this time I learned that he had been knighted for loaning money to the Prince of Wales. A girl I knew quite well told me, this year, a touching little story of a half-fledged romance which had taken place at Sir James's place in Scotland. The Prince who was known in England as "Collars and Cuffs" and who died young, was with the McKenzies for the hunting season and there met my friend,--such a pretty American girl she was! They fell in love with each other and, though of course nothing could come of it, they played out their pathetic little drama like any ordinary young lovers.