e
cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any wish to
marry--but I would not recommend any man to act upon that threat and make
her an offer. In a couple of days we had some rolls of the bride's first
baking, which they call Madonnas. The musicians, it seems, were in the
same state as the bridegroom, for, in escorting her home, they all fell
down in the mud. My wrath against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by
finding that it is considered bad luck if he does not get tipsy at his
wedding."

* * * * *

Those readers of Miss Procter's poems who should suppose from their tone
that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, would be curiously
mistaken. She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great delight in
humour. Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was very ready at a
sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well) there was an
unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery. She was perfectly
unconstrained and unaffected: as modestly silent about her productions,
as she was generous with their pecuniary results. She was a friend who
inspired the strongest attachments; she was a finely sympathetic woman,
with a great accordant heart and a sterling noble nature. No claim can
be set up for her, thank God, to the possession of any of the
conventional poetical qualities. She never by any means held the opinion
that she was among the greatest of human beings; she never suspected the
existence of a conspiracy on the part of mankind against her; she never
recognised in her best friends, her worst enemies; she never cultivated
the luxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far rather
have died without seeing a line of her composition in print, than that I
should have maundered about her, here, as "the Poet", or "the Poetess".

With the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a woman,
fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way to the close
of this brief record, avoiding its end. But, even as the close came upon
her, so must it come here.

Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be
dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite pursuits must be
balanced by action in the real world around her, she was indefatigable in
her endeavours to do some good. Naturally enthusiastic, and
conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her Christian duty to her
neighbour, she devoted herself to a variety of benevolen