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hill-side, with an orchard around it and a pine-wood on the hill-top
behind. Two aged trees stand in front of the house, and in the rear is
the studio of Miss May Alcott ("Amy"), who has become an artist of
renown, and had a painting exhibited last spring in the great
exhibition of pictures at Paris. Close by is another house, under the
same hill-side, where Mr. Hawthorne lived and wrote several of his
famous books, and it was along the old Lexington road in front of
these ancient houses that the British Grenadiers marched and retreated
on the day of the battle of Concord in April, 1775. Instead of soldiers
marching with their plumed hats, you might have seen there last summer
great plumes of asparagus waving in the field; instead of bayonets, the
poles of grape-vines in ranks upon the hill; while loads of hay, of
strawberries, pears and apples went jolting along the highway between
hill and meadow.

The engraving shows you how Miss Alcott looks,--only you must recollect
that it does not flatter her; and if you should see her, you would like
her face much better than the picture of it. She has large, dark-blue
eyes, brown clustering hair, a firm but smiling mouth, a noble head,
and a tall and stately presence, as becomes one who is descended from
the Mays, Quincys and Sewalls, of Massachusetts, and the Alcotts and
Bronsons of Connecticut. From them she has inherited the best New
England traits,--courage and independence without pride, a just and
compassionate spirit, strongly domestic habits, good sense, and a warm
heart. In her books you perceive these qualities, do you not? and
notice, too, the vigor of her fancy, the flowing humor that makes her
stories now droll and now pathetic, a keen eye for character, and the
most cheerful tone of mind. From the hard experiences of life she has
drawn lessons of patience and love, and now with her, as the apostle
says, "abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of
these is charity." There have been men, and some women too, who could
practice well the heavenly virtue of charity toward the world at large,
and with a general atmospheric effect, but could not always bring it
down to earth, and train it in the homely, crooked paths of household
care. But those who have seen Miss Alcott at home know that such is not
her practice. In the last summer, as for years before, the citizen or
the visitor who walked the Concord streets might have seen this admired
woman do