, that I needed a
sight of you to tone me up and restore my standard. I have
also taken advantage of enforced quiet to brace up for an
heroic two weeks of dentistry, and have therefore been in
absolute retirement and upon baby diet of the most innocuous
description...

"I am afraid this recapitulation will take away all desire
to repeat your effort in my direction. But I trust that
this may find you in a missionary humor, and that you will
see that I need 'looking after'--a far stronger motive with
most women than friendship, isn't it? Anyway, come again
soon, won't you? Afternoon is our gadding time, you know.

"Really and lovingly your friend.

"P.S.--This note will show that I truly have not command of
all my faculties and need a human tonic."

All out-of-doors was dear to her. Trees were to her as men--rooted,
and she often naively talked to them as if to friends while we
strolled in the twilight. Her love of nature even seemed to affect her
choice of diet, for she preferred simply prepared dishes and the
natural foods. This was doubtless due in part to her unmixed Old World
nationality and to her early surroundings in rural England: as she was
in girlhood, so, in spite of the complex life of this distracting New
World, she remained to the last.

My friend dwelt lovingly upon anniversaries; the true spirit of
Christmas entered her heart at every Yuletide season, and her gifts
showed generous care in selection and in the dainty wrappings in which
they were sent to us. She delighted in the Christmas and Thanksgiving
dinners, but St. Valentine's was the dearest, as it was the
anniversary of her marriage. This the Woman's Press Club of New York
has always observed as the date of its annual dinner.

She had a keen sense of humor, yet never did she forget herself either
in posing or pranks, for hers was the unerring sense of the fitness of
things. An instance of her ready wit comes to me: Soon after her
return from her last visit to England she came to us to stay for a few
days. It was in September, three months before her death. On Sunday
evening several friends dropped in, and from general conversation we
drifted into singing some of the old songs. Now and then she would add
her own low tones to our untrained vocalizing, crooning or
cantillating the tune as if she were musing aloud. We had been singing
for a full hour, she, with crutch near at