rnment. Some shy wildflower
or fern, or brilliant-tinted leaf, a bit of moss, a curious lichen, a
deserted bird's-nest, a strange fragment of rock, a shining pebble,
would catch her passing glance and reveal to her quick artistic sense
possibilities of use which were quaint, original, characteristic. One
saw from afar that hers was a poet's home; and, if permitted to enter
its gracious portals, the first impression deepened into certainty.
There was as strong an individuality about her home, and especially
about her own little study, as there was about herself and her writings.
A cheerful, sunny, hospitable Christian home! Far and wide its potent
influences reached, and it was a beautiful thing to see how many
another home, humble or stately, grew emulous and blossomed into a new
loveliness.

Mrs. Prentiss was naturally a shy and reserved woman, and necessarily a
pre-occupied one. Therefore she was sometimes misunderstood. But those
who--knew her best, and were blest with her rare intimacy, knew her as
"a perfect woman nobly planned." Her conversation was charming.
Her close study of nature taught her a thousand happy symbols and
illustrations, which made both what she said and wrote a mosaic of
exquisite comparisons. Her studies of character were equally constant
and penetrating. Nothing escaped her; no peculiarity of mind or manner
failed of her quick observation, but it was always a kindly interest.
She did not ridicule that which was simply ignorance or weakness, and
she saw with keen pleasure all that was quaint, original, or strong,
even when it was hidden beneath the homeliest garb. She had the true
artist's liking for that which was simple and _genre_. The common
things of common life appealed to her sympathies and called out all her
attention. It was a real, hearty interest, too--not feigned, even in a
sense generally thought praiseworthy. Indeed, no one ever had a more
intense scorn of every sort of _feigning_. She was honest, truthful,
_genuine_ to the highest degree. It may have sometimes led her into
seeming lack of courtesy, but even this was a failing which "leaned to
virtue's side." I chanced to know of her once calling with a friend on a
country neighbor, and finding the good housewife busy over a rag-carpet.
Mrs. Prentiss, who had never chanced to see one of these bits of rural
manufacture in its elementary processes, was full of questions and
interest, thereby quite evidently pleasing the unassuming a