"One does not go 'somewhere,'" she returned, "at the expense of missing a conversation with Mr. Greeley."

In 1873 Mrs. Moulton published a volume for young folk entitled "Bed-Time Stories." It was issued by Roberts Brothers, who from this time until the dissolution of the firm in 1898, after the death of Mr. Niles, remained her publishers. The success of the book was immediate, and so great that the title was repeated in "More Bed-Time Stories," brought out in the year following. The first volume was dedicated to her daughter in these graceful lines:

It is you that I see, my darling,
On every page of this book,
With your flowing golden tresses,
And your wistful, wondering look,
As you used to linger and listen
To the "Bed-time Stories" I told,
Till the sunset glory faded,
And your hair was the only gold.
Will another as kindly critic
So patiently hear them through?
Will the many children care for
The tales that I told to you?
You smile, sweetheart, at my question;
For answer your blue eyes shine:
"We will please the rest if it may be,
But the tales are—yours and mine."

Of the second series of "Bed-Time Stories" George H. Ripley wrote in the Tribune:

"The entire absence of all the visible signs of art in the composition of these delightful stories betrays a rare degree of artistic culture which knows how to conceal itself, or a singular natural bent to graceful and picturesque expression. Perhaps both of these conditions best explain the secret of their felicitous construction, and their fidelity to nature. The best fruits of sweet womanly wisdom she deems not too good for the entertainment of the young souls with whom she cherishes such a cordial sympathy, and whom she so graciously attracts by the silvery music of her song, which lacks no quality of poetry but the external form.... They inculcate no high-flown moral, but inspire the noblest sentiments. There is no preaching in their appeals, but they offer a perpetual incentive to all that is lovely and good in character."

An equal success attended the collection of stories for older readers which Mrs. Moulton brought out a year later under the title, "Some Women's Hearts." This contained all the stories written since the appearance of "My Third Book" which she thought worthy of preservation, and may be said to represent her best in this order of fiction. Professor Moses Coit Tyler said of them: "Mrs. Moulton has the incommunicable tact of the story-teller"; commented on their freedom from all padding, and commended their complete unity. The instinct for literary form which was so strikingly conspicuous in her verse showed itself in these stories by the excellence of arrangement and proportion, the sincerity and earnestness which made the tales vital. She had by this time outgrown the rather sentimental fashions of the gift-book period of American letters, and her conscientious and careful criticism of the work of others had resulted in a power of self-criticism which was admirable in its results. "My best reward," she said in after years, "has been the friendships that my slight work has won for me"; but by the time she was forty she had won a place in American letters such as had been held by only two or three other women, and before her was the reputation which she was to win abroad, such as no woman of her country had ever attained before.

[CHAPTER IV]
1876-1880

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
Tennyson.