ne, and the farmhouse
very small. Some necessary repairs rendered it habitable for our family
of little children and ourselves. I did not desire the purchase, but I
soon became much attached to the valley, which my husband's care greatly
beautified. This was a wooded gorge, perhaps an eighth of a mile from
the house, and extending some distance between high rocky banks. We
found it a wilderness of brambles, with a brook which ran much out of
its proper course. Dr. Howe converted it into a most charming
out-of-door _salon_. A firm green sod took the place of the briers, the
brook was restrained within its proper limits, and some fine trees
replaced as many decayed stumps. An old, disused mill added to the
picturesqueness of the scene. Below it rushed a small waterfall. Here I
have passed many happy hours with my books and my babies, but it was not
in this enchanting spot that I wrote my play.

I had at this time and for many years afterward a superstition about a
north light. My eyes had given me some trouble, and I felt obliged to
follow my literary work under circumstances most favorable for their
use. The exposure of our little farmhouse was south and west, and its
only north light was derived from a window at the top of the attic
stairs. Here was a platform just large enough to give room for a table
two feet square. The stairs were shut off from the rest of the house by
a stout door. And here, through the summer heats, and in spite of many
wasps, I wrote my five-act drama, dreaming of the fine emphasis which
Mr. Booth would give to its best passages and of the beautiful
appearance he would make in classic costume. He, meanwhile, was growing
into great fame and favor with the public, and was called hither and
thither by numerous engagements. The period of his courtship and
marriage intervened, and a number of years elapsed between the
completion of the play and his first reading of it.

At last there came a time in which the production of the play seemed
possible. Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth were both in Boston
performing, as I remember, but not at the same theatre. They agreed to
act in my play. E. L. Davenport, manager of the Howard Athenaeum,
undertook to produce it, and my dream was very near becoming a reality.
But lo! on a sudden, the manager bethought him that the time was rather
late in the season; that the play would require new scenery; and, more
than all, that his wife, who was also an actress, was n