ll 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
humor. 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 recognized 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, and cannot be staved off.

Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be
dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favorite pursuits must be
balanced by action in the real world around her, she was indefatigable
in her endeavors to do some good. Naturally enthusiastic, and
conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her Christian duty to her
neighbor, she devoted herself to a variety of benevolent objects. Now it
was the visitation of the sick that had possession of her; now it was
the sheltering of the houseless; now it was the elementary teaching of
the densely ignorant; now it was the raising up of those who had
wandered and got trodden under foot; now it was the wider employment of
her own sex in the gen