eet; and the eager, expectant face and the warm hand
clasp of the occupant, Mrs. Cornelia M. Stockton, assures the visitor of
a hearty welcome.

Greatly enfeebled by long illness and with impaired sight, this bright,
little woman's keen interest in current events and the latest "best
seller" puts to shame the half-hearted zeal of the average woman.

For four years, Mrs. Stockton has lived at St. Margaret's, depending
upon the visits of friends and the memory of an eventful life to pass
the days. Prominence in club work in her earlier years has brought
reward. The History Club of Kansas City, Kansas, of which she was once a
member, each week sends a member to read to her and these are red letter
days to this brave, patient, little woman.

Mrs. Stockton began writing very young. When a little girl, back in the
village of Walden, New York, she stole up to the pulpit of the church
and wrote in her pastor's Bible:

"I have not seen the minister's eyes,
And cannot describe his glance divine,
For when he prays he shuts them up
And when he preaches he shuts mine."

She was born in 1833 in Shawangunk, New York, and came to Kansas City in
1859, living in Missouri some years but most of the time in Kansas City,
Kansas.

In 1892, she published a limited edition of poems, "The Shanar Dancing
Girl and Other Poems." dedicated to Mrs. Bertha M. Honore Palmer, her
ideal of the perfect type of gracious and lovely womanhood. "The Shanar
Dancing Girl" was first written for the Friends in Council, a literary
club of Kansas City, Mo. It has received the encomiums of Thomas Bailey
Aldrich, John J. Ingalls and others for its beauty of expression and
dramatic qualities. "Invocation," an April idyl; "The Sea-shell;" and
"Mountain Born" sing of the love of nature. "In the Conservatory;" "My
Summer Heart;" and "Tired of the Storm" hint of sorrow and unrest and
longing. Then in 1886, "Compensation" was written. "Irma's Love For
The King" is a favorite; also, "'Sold'--A Picture," written for her
daughter, "yes, but she never came.

"The Sorrowful Stone" Mrs. Stockton considers her best.

"The story without a suspicion of rhyme,
And dim with the mists of the morning of Time,
Is told of a goddess, who, wandering alone,
Did go and sit down on the Sorrowful Stone.

We find our Gethsemane somewhere,
though late;
The Angel of Shadows
throws open the gate.
We cree