The old Earl of -- -- is miserably poor--not able to buy a bottle of seltzer--with an estate worth millions in the hands of his creditors, and sure to be sold one of these days to some enterprising Yankee or British Buttonmaker.

I wish you or Carnegie would buy it.

I would visit you frequently." (Thayer, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol.II, p.

74.)] We took our piper with us when we returned to New York, and also our housekeeper and some of the servants.

Mrs.Nicoll remains with us still and is now, after twenty years' faithful service, as a member of the family.