hair, brown rather
than black, which was arranged in becoming puffs round her face; and
such eyes! large, dark, magnetic, full of sympathy, of kind, cordial
feelings and of quick appreciation of fun. She talked much and well.
If I should repeat all the good stories she told us, that happy
Saturday night, as we lingered round the table, you would be convulsed
with laughter, that is, if I could give them with her gestures,
expressions, and vivid word-pictures.

She told one story which well illustrated the almost cruel persistent
inquiries of neighbours about someone who is long in dying. An
unfortunate husband was bothered each morning by repeated calls from
children, who were sent by busy mothers to find out "Just how Miss
Blake was feeling this morning." At last this became offensive, and he
said: "Well, she's just the same--she ain't no better and she ain't no
worse--she keeps just about so--she's just about dead, you can say
she's dead."

One Sunday evening she described her talks with the men in the
prisons and penitentiaries, to whom she had been lately lecturing,
proving that these hardened sinners had much that was good in them,
and many longings for a nobler life, in spite of all their sins.

No, I was not disappointed in "G.G." She was just as natural, hearty,
and off-hand as when some thirty years ago, she was a romping,
harum-scarum, bright-eyed schoolgirl, Sara Clarke, of western New
York, who was almost a gypsy in her love for the fields and forests.
She was always ready for any out-door exercise or sport. This gave her
glorious health, which up to that time she had not lost.

Her _nom de plume_, which she says she has never been able to drop,
was only one of the many alliterative names adopted at that time. Look
over the magazines and Annuals of those years, and you will find many
such, as "Mary Maywood," "Dora Dashwood," "Ella Ellwood" "Fanny
Forrester," "Fanny Fern," "Jennie June," "Minnie Myrtle," and so on
through the alphabet, one almost expecting to find a "Ninny Noodle."
Examining one of Mrs. Lippincott's first scrapbooks of "Extracts from
Newspapers," etc., which she had labelled, "Vanity, all is Vanity," I
find many poems in her honour, much enthusiasm over her writings, and
much speculation as to who "Grace Greenwood" might really be. The
public curiosity was piqued to find out this new author who added to
forceful originality "the fascination of splendid gayety and brilliant
trifling." John