ods with the
children, all of whom are as brown as Indians. My room is all aflame
with two great trees of maple; I never saw such a beautiful velvety
color as they have. We have just had a very pleasant excursion to a
mountain called Haystack, and ate our dinner sitting round in the grass
in view of a splendid prospect.... I have thus given you the history of
our summer, as far as its history can be written. Its ecstatic joys have
not been wanting, nor its hours of shame and confusion of face; but
these are things that can not be described. What a mystery life is, and
how we go up and down, glad to-day and sorrowful to-morrow! I took real
solid comfort thinking of you and praying for you this morning. I love
you dearly and always shall. Good-bye, dear child.

The "four little books" afford a good illustration of the ease and
rapidity with which she composed. When once she had fixed upon a
subject, her pen almost flew over the paper. Scarcely ever did she
hesitate for a thought or for the right words to express it. Her
manuscript rarely showed an erasure or any change whatever. She
generally wrote on a portfolio, holding it upon her knees. Her pen
seemed to be a veritable part of herself; and the instant it began to
move, her face glowed with eager and pleasurable feeling. "A kitten
(she wrote to a maiden friend) a kitten without a tail to play with,
a mariner without a compass, a bird without wings, a woman without a
husband (and fifty-five at that!) furnish faint images of the desolation
of my heart without a pen." But although she wrote very fast, she never
began to write without careful study and premeditation when her subject
required it.

About this time _The Little Preacher_ appeared. The scene of the story
is laid in the Black Forest. Before writing it she spent a good deal of
time in the Astor Library, reading about peasant life in Germany. In a
letter from a literary friend this little work is thus referred to:

I want to tell you what a German gentleman said to me the other day
about your "Little Preacher." He was talking with me of German peasant
life, and inquired if I had read your charming story. He was delighted
to find I knew you, and exclaimed enthusiastically: "I wish I knew her!
I would so like to thank her for her perfect picture. It is a miracle of
genius," he added, "to be able thus to portray the life of a _foreign_
people." He is very intelligent, and so I know you will be pleased with
his app