l vigor of his life. The poor wept for
him; he was good to them, and they believed that he had a kind heart.
Sometimes that heart went back to the prayers of his mother. Had time
been given him, something tender and good might have found a noble
growth in his nature. We do not yet know, and never shall know, what he
might have been.

XXVIII.

SHE WOULD GO.

Dear sisters:--I have had a glorious and a refreshing season. I have
felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me
in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before
the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary
to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man
that our State ever gave to the world.

Saturday night, February third, was Horace Greeley's birthday. A
gentleman up-town, who thinks the world of that smartest of good men,
just made a house-warming on the occasion, and invited so many artists
and poets, and editors and statesmen, and people that Providence had
labelled as something particular, that it is a wonder the roof wasn't
blown off with the yeasting of so much genius.

Of course the beauty and talent of old Vermont, wherever it could be
found, was hunted up, and invited with unusual enthusiasm. Where beauty
and talent could be found united in one person--modesty forbids me to
point out an instance--of course an especial compliment was paid. My
invitation had a picture of the man, whose birthday we went to
celebrate, in the middle of the writing--a real good likeness, that I
mean to put in a locket and wear round my neck in honor of this
self-made man and of my own native State, which may have double cause to
glorify herself when the sixty-first birthday of another person just
standing in front of the Temple of Fame, with her foot on the
threshold, shall come round. I say nothing, but in the female line
Vermont has laid up oceans of future glory for herself.

Well, the day came. Once more I drew forth my pink silk dress, and
ironed out the flounces; one of them got a little scorched, but I looped
up the spot with a bow and a bunch of roses, and found the scorch an
artistic improvement. I twisted my hair in corkscrews over night, and
slept with my eyes wide open, contented as a kitten, though the pull was
tremendous. I frizzed up the other woman's hair, for which I had paid
ten dollars in the Sixth Avenue, and made ready for the occasion over