"No?" he replied with a mocking rising inflection. "Mrs. Miller, who was with us last week, found thirty-nine varieties in our front yard before breakfast!" Untrained eyes are really blind.
Mrs. Miller is an excellent housekeeper, although a daughter now relieves her of that care. But, speaking at table of this and that dish and vegetable, she promised to send me some splendid receipts for orange marmalade, baked canned corn, scalloped salmon, onion à la crème (delicious), and did carefully copy and send them.
She told me that in Denmark a woman over forty-five is considered gone. If she is poor, a retreat is ready for her without pay; if rich, she would better seek one of the homes provided for aged females who can pay well for a home.
Another thing of interest was the fact that when Mrs. Miller eats no breakfast, her brain is in far better condition to write. She is a Swedenborgian, and I think that persons of that faith have usually a cheerful outlook on life. She was obliged to support herself after forty years of age.
I would add to her advice about a hobby: don't wait till middle age; have one right away, now. Boys always do. I know of one young lady who makes a goodly sum out of home-made marmalade; another who makes dresses for her family and special friends; another who sells three hundred dozen "brown" eggs to one of the best groceries in Boston, and supports herself. By the way, what can you do?
Mrs. Lippincott had such a splendid, magnetic presence, such a handsome face with dark poetic eyes, and accomplished so many unusual things, that, knowing her as I did, I think I should be untrue to her if I did not try to show her as she was in her brilliant prime, and not merely as a punster or a raconteur, or as she appeared in her dramatic recitals, for these were but a small part of the many-sided genius.
When my friend, Mrs. Botta, said one evening to her husband: "Grace writes me that she will be here tomorrow, to spend the Sabbath," and then said to me, "Grace Greenwood, I mean; have you ever met her?" my heart beat very quickly in pleasant anticipation of her coming. Grace Greenwood! Why, I had known her and loved her, at least her writings, ever since I was ten years old.
Those dear books, bound in red, with such pretty pictures—History of My Pets and Recollections of My Childhood, were the most precious volumes in my little library. Anyone who has had pets and lost them (and the one follows the other, for pets always come to some tragic end) will delight in these stories.
And then the Little Pilgrim, which I used to like next best to the Youth's Companion; and in later years her spirited, graceful poetry; her racy magazine stories; her Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe; her sparkling letters to the Tribune, full of reliable news from Washington, graphic descriptions of prominent men and women, capital anecdotes and atrocious puns;—O how glad I should be to look in her face and to shake hands with the author who had given me so much pleasure!
Well, she came, I heard the bell ring, just when she was expected, with a vigorous pull, and, as the door opened, heard her say, in a jolly, soothing way: "Don't get into a passion," to the man who was swearing at her big trunk. And then I ran away, not wishing to intrude, and waited impatiently for dinner and an introduction to my well-beloved heroine.