al. There was a prolonged discussion which
resulted at last, on the advice of friends, in obtaining her consent.
The chief surgeon entering the room approached the bedside rubbing his
hands and, grasping at something to say to reassure the patient,
remarked in silken tones, "Well, Miss Cooper, I'm glad to hear that you
prefer to have the amputation." The situation seemed desperate, and
nerves were at a high tension among Miss Cooper's friends. "Well,
doctor," was her tart rejoinder, "I must say that 'prefer' is hardly the
word that I should use!" With this she gave a chuckle that proved her
spirit undaunted, and relieved the strain.

Miss Cooper had great respect for the clergy, and for a bishop her
reverence was unbounded. When Bishop Potter dedicated the monument at
the grave of Leslie Pell-Clarke, in Lakewood Cemetery, a terrific
thunderstorm arose during the ceremonies, and Miss Cooper was taken home
in the carriage with the distinguished prelate to escape the deluge. The
various conveyances plunged down the hillside post-haste, with
lightning crashing on every side. Some of the ladies in the party became
hysterical. Miss Cooper alone was perfectly calm. "With a bishop by my
side," she exclaimed, "I am not in the least afraid to die!"

[Illustration: THE CLARK ESTATE OFFICE]

In the summer of 1904 Bishop Potter unwittingly acted as the accomplice
of a burglar who robbed the safe of the Clark Estate office in
Cooperstown, and escaped with a quantity of jewels. The newspapers
estimated the value of the stolen jewels at from $20,000 to $100,000,
and the robbery became a celebrated case in police annals. The burglary
was unusual in having taken place in broad daylight, with Bishop Potter
calmly at work at his desk on the second floor of the small building.
When the clerks left the office for luncheon at noon they locked the
outside door, but did not close the vault in which the papers and
valuables were kept. It was a brilliant summer day, the seventh of July;
villagers and tourists were passing and repassing through the adjacent
Cooper Grounds; the clerks were to return within an hour, and in the
mean time the Bishop was there. Nobody dreamed of the possibility of a
burglary, but it was the unexpected that happened. When the vault was to
be closed and locked at the end of the day, a tin box containing a
casket of jewels was missing. In the basement of the building the tin
box which had contained the jewel-case was fo