Though always pleased to hear that his children were free from pecuniary anxiety, he never desired wealth for them.  The idea of money never seemed to occur to him in connection with their marriages.  It was a cherished wish of his heart to have them united to members of the Society of Friends; yet he easily yielded, even on that point, as soon as he saw their happiness was at stake.  When one of his sons married into a family educated under influences totally foreign to Quaker principles, he was somewhat disturbed.  But he at once adopted the bride as a beloved daughter of his heart; and she ever after proved a lovely and thornless Rose in the pathway of his life.  Great was his satisfaction when he discovered that she was grandchild of Dr. William Rogers, Professor of English and Oratory in the University of Pennsylvania, who, sixty years before, had preached the first sermon to inmates of the State Prison, in Philadelphia.  That good and gifted clergyman was associated with his earliest recollections; for when he was on one of his pleasant visits to his uncle Tatem, at six years old, he went to meeting with him for the first time, and was seated on a stool between his knees.  The proceedings were a great novelty to him; for Dr. Rogers was the first minister he ever saw in a pulpit.  He never forgot the text of that sermon.  I often heard him repeat it, during the last years of his life.  The remembrance of these incidents, and the great respect he had for the character of the prison missionary, at once established in his mind a claim of old relationship between him and the new inmate of his household.

He had the custom of sitting with his wife on the front-door-step during the summer twilight, to catch the breeze, that always refreshes the city of New-York, after a sultry day.  On such occasions, the children of the neighborhood soon began to gather round him.  One of the most intelligent and interesting pupils of the Deaf and Dumb Institution had married Mr. Gallaudet, Professor in that Institution, and resided in the next house.  She had a bright lively little daughter, who very early learned to imitate her rapid and graceful way of conversing by signs.  This child was greatly attracted toward Friend Hopper.  The moment she saw him, she would clap her tiny hands with delight, and toddle toward him, exclaiming, “Opper!  Opper!” When he talked to her, she would make her little fingers fly, in the prettiest fashion, interpreting by signs to her mute mother all that “Opper” had been saying.  Her quick intelligence and animated gestures were a perpetual source of amusement to him.  When he went down to his office in the morning, all the nurses in the neighborhood were accustomed to stop in his path, that he might have some playful conversation with the little ones in their charge.  He had a pleasant nick-name for them all; such as “Blue-bird,” or “Yellow-bird,” according to their dress.  They would run up to him as he approached home, calling out, “Here’s your little Blue-bird!”