Sometimes when my hands were filled with work and I could not stop to write, beautiful couplets would come to me, and after a time stanzas which I thought enough of to copy. In this way I "wrote myself down," as Louis termed it, and occasionally he handed me a paper with my verses printed, saying always:
"Another piece of my Emily."
May, 1853, brought Southern Mary and her husband to us. We met them with our own carriage, and within her arms there nestled a dainty parcel called "our baby," of whose coming we had not been apprised. What a beautiful picture she was, this little lady, nine months old, the perfect image of her mother, with little flaxen rings that covered her head like a crown. I heeded not the introduction to her father, but, reaching my hands to her, said:
"Let me have her, Mary, let me take her. I cannot wait a minute."
Louis gently reminded me that Mr. Waterman was speaking to me, and I apologized hastily, as I gathered the blossom to my heart, where she sat just as quiet as a kitten all the way home. Clara was delighted with the "little bud," as she called her.
"Tell me her name," I said.
"Oh! guess it," said Mary.
"Your own?"
"No, no, you can never guess, for we called her Althea, after kind Mrs. Goodwin, who nursed me so tenderly, and Emily, for another lady we know"—and she looked at me with her bright eyes, while an arch smile played over her face. I only kissed the face of the beautiful child, and Louis said:
"My Emily's name is fit for the daughter of a king. God bless the little namesake," and Althea Emily gave utterance to a protracted "goo," which meant, of course, yes.