k of it."

Of course, both Miss Lyman and myself were eager to hear it, and
promised to tell her frankly how we liked it. The next morning she came
to our room with a little green box in her hand, saying, with her merry
laugh, "Now you've got to do penance for your sins, you two wicked
women!" and, sitting down by the window, while we took our sewing, she
began to read us in manuscript the work which was destined to touch and
strengthen so many hearts--"which," to use the words of another, "has
become a part of the soul-history of many thousands of Christian
women--young and old--at home and abroad."

It was a rare treat to listen to it, with comments from her
interspersed; some of them droll and witty, others full of profound
religious feeling. Now and then, as we queried if something was not
improbable or unnatural, she would give us bits of history from her own
experience or that of her friends, going to show that stranger things
had occurred in real life. I need not say we insisted on its being
finished, feeling sure it would do great good; though I must confess
that I do not think either of us, much as we enjoyed it, was fully aware
of its great merits.

I was much impressed by her singleness of purpose; her one great desire
so evidently being that her writings should help others to know and to
love Christ and His truth, that she thought little or nothing of her own
reputation.

She went on with her work, occasionally reading to us what she had
added. In those days she always spoke of it as her "Katy book," no
other title having been given to it. But one morning she came to the
breakfast-table with her face all lighted up. "I've got a name for my
book," she exclaimed; "it came to me while I was lying awake last night.
You know Wordsworth's Stepping Westward? I am going to call it Stepping
Heavenward--don't you like it? I do." We all felt it was exactly the
right name, and she added, "I think I will put in Wordsworth's poem as a
preface."

Of the heart-communings on sacred things that made that summer so
memorable to me I can not speak; and yet, more than anything else, these
gave a distinctive character to our intercourse. Her faith and love were
so ardent and persuading, so much a part of herself, that no one could
be with her without recognising their power over her life. She was
interested in everything about her, without a particle of cant, full
of playful humor and bright fancies; but the love of Christ