nd to hear some one of the Italian operas, with the
libretti of which, as well as the music, so far as her piano would
interpret for her, she was already familiar.

Now at last the railway had come and she was, from that day forward,
within some six days' travelling of New York; and her husband had
faithfully promised that they should go East together for at least three
or four weeks that winter. And as she sat and talked in her soft
Southern voice, there in the heart of the wilds which had been all the
world to her, she might, so far as a mere man's eyes could judge, have
been dropped down in any country house in England to be a conspicuously
charming member of any charming house-party.

Familiarity with similar instances, though I think with none more
striking, has robbed the miracle, so far as its mere outward
manifestation is concerned, of something of its wonder; but the inward
marvel of it remains as inexplicable as ever. By what power or instinct
do they do it? With nothing of inheritance, so far as can be judged, to
justify any aspirations towards the good or beautiful, among the poorest
and hardest of surroundings, with none but the most meagre of
educational facilities, by what inherent quality is it that the American
woman, not now and again only, but in her tens of thousands, rises to
such an instinctive comprehension of what is good and worth while in
life, that she becomes, not through any external influence, but by mere
process of her own development, the equal of those who have spent their
lives amid all that is most beautifying and elevating of what the world
has to afford? When she takes her place, graciously and composedly, as
the mistress of some historic home or amid the surroundings of a Court,
we say that it is her "adaptability." But adaptability can do no more
than raise one to the level of one's surroundings--not above them. Is it
ambition? But whence derived? And by what so tutored and guided that it
reaches only for what is good? How is it tempered that she remains all
pure womanly at the last?

It may be that the extent to which, especially in the Western States,
American women of wealth and position are called upon to bear their
share in public work--in the management of art societies, the building
of art buildings and public libraries, the endowment and conduct of
hospitals, and in educational work of all kinds--gives them such an
opportunity of showing the qualities which are in them, a