urage was remarkable; she would get on any horse, jump
into a boat in any sea, face a burglar--do anything, in fact, that
circumstances seemed to require. But perhaps her moral courage, that
which gave her strength to face great crises--as when Louis was near
death--with a smile on her face, was even greater. This I know came to
her as a direct inheritance from our mother, Esther Van de Grift, who
was never known to give way under the stress of great need.

In her fondness for animals she reminds one of her maternal
ancestress, Elizabeth Knodle, who used to rush out and seize horses by
the bridle when she thought they were being driven too fast by their
cruel drivers. Nothing would more surely arouse her anger than the
sight of any unkindness to one of these "little brothers." Once at
Vailima a gentleman, who ought to have known better, came riding up on
a horse that showed signs of being in pain. "That horse has a sore
back," she cried. The rider angrily denied it, but she insisted on his
dismounting, and when the saddle was removed found that her suspicions
were but too well founded. She compelled him to leave the suffering
creature in her care until its back was entirely cured.

I have been surprised sometimes to hear people speak of her as
"bohemian." Simplicity and genuineness were the foundation-stones of
her character, and she certainly dispensed with many of the useless
conventions of society, but she was a serious-minded woman for whom
the cheap affectations generally labelled as "bohemianism" could have
no attractions.

She was entirely feminine in her love of pretty clothes. In choosing
her own attire, though she followed the fashions and never tried to be
extravagant or _outre_, she had a discriminating taste that made her
always seem to be dressed more attractively than other people. All who
think of her, even in her last days, must have a picture in their
minds of the dainty, lacy, silken prettiness in which she sat
enshrined.

She was pretty as a young woman, but as she grew older she was
beautiful--with that rare type of beauty that "age cannot wither nor
custom stale." With her clear-cut profile, like an exquisite cameo,
color like old ivory, delicate oval face, eyes dark, vivid, and
youthful, her appearance was most unusual. Louis used to say of her
eyes that her glance was like that of one aiming a pistol--direct,
steady, and to some persons rather alarming. Her voice, as I think I
have said some