fame to the Woman's Rights movement were trying to secure 'the floor,' and gaunt fanatics of my own sex were contending with them for that 'privilege,' and the mob were hissing or shouting, and the tact with which Mrs. Stanton managed that whole assembly was a marvel. Except Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and Edward Stanly, formerly of North Carolina and now of California, she is the best presiding officer I have

ever seen.

"And that nice little person with short curls, so admirably dressed, and self-sufficient, and handsome, not beautiful; her tout ensemble a combination of author, artist, actor strong as a young man and sensitive as a young woman is Anna Dickinson. And there, with so thoughtful a face, sits Mary L. Booth, industrious and accurate translator of huge volumes of French history and science, and now editor of 'Harper's Bazar.' Her conversation is an intellectual treat. And there is Madame Le Vert, of Mobile, who in English and American society has so long held the place of 'the most charming woman,' without arousing the envy of any other woman, and who, therefore, must have an exceptional temperament; a lady who never says a very wise, or witty, or weak, or foolish thing, but whom you cannot speak with ten minutes without - weåkly and foolishly it may be, but delightfully-feeling yourself to be both wise and witty. 'It is not always May,' even with Madame Le Vert. She has had losses and disappointments, and physical pain, and is no longer young, but she does marvelously draw the summer of her soul through the autumn months of her years. But space would fail if each lady were particularly described, from Kate

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Field, the brilliant journalist and lecturer, and 'Jennie June' (Mrs. Croly of Demorest's Magazine'), and Mary E. Dodge, of 'Hearth and Home,' who wrote Hans Brinker's Silver Skates,' to the sallow, self-denying missionary sister from Cavalla, clad in the costume of ten years ago, now a stranger in her own land.

“Of the spiritual teachers, all are welcome at any time, from the Roman Catholic, John Jerome Hughes, and the eloquent Universalist, Chapin, to the adjective-yet-to-be-discovered Frothingham. The house. of the Cary sisters is a Pantheon, a Polytechnic Institute, a room of the Committee on Reconstruction, a gathering place for the ecclesiastical and political Happy Family. Original abolitionists and ab-original secessionists meet pleasantly in a circle where everybody thinks, but nobody is tabooed for what he thinks.

"A great city is generally a mass of cold, but there are always 'warm places' even in a huge metropolis; and strangers are peculiarly endowed with the instinct for detecting them. It is genuine goodness that does the warming. And this house is never cold!

"Thus is shown that these sisters are authors of more than books. Their influence in their home is beautiful, and conservative, and preservative. "May they live forever!"

YEARS ago, in an old academy in Massachusetts, its preceptor gave to a young girl a poem to learn for a Wednesday exercise. It began, —

"Of all the beautiful pictures

That hang on Memory's wall,

Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all."

After the girl had recited the poem to her teacher, he told her that Edgar Poe had said, and that he himself concurred in the opinion, that in rhythm it was one of the most perfect lyrics in the English language. He then proceeded to tell the story of the one who wrote it — of her life in her Western home, of the fact that she and her sister Phoebe had come to New York to seek their fortune, and to make a place for themselves in literature. It fell like a tale of romance on the girl's heart; and from that hour she saved every utterance that she could find of Alice Cary's, and spent much time thinking about her, till in a dim way she came to seem like a much-loved friend.

In 1857 the school-girl, then a woman, whom actual life had already overtaken, sat for the first time in a New York drawing-room, and looked with attentive but by no means dazzled eyes upon a gathering assembly.

It does not follow, because a person has done something remarkable, that he is, therefore, remarkable or even pleasant to look upon. Thus it happened that the young woman had numerous disappointments that evening, as one by one names famous in literature and art were pronounced, and their owners for the first time took on the semblance of flesh and blood before her. Presently came into the room, and sat down beside her, a lady, whose eyes, in their first glance, and whose voice, in its first low tone, won her heart. Soft, sad, tender eyes they were, and the face from which they shone was lovely. Its features were fine, its complexion a colorless olive, lit with the lustrous brown eyes, softened still more by masses of waving dark hair, then untouched of gray, and, save by its own wealth, wholly unadorned. Her dress was as harmonious as her face. It was of pale gray satin, trimmed with folds of ruby velvet; a dress like herself and her life-soft and sad in the background, bordered with brightness. This was Alice Cary. Even then her face was a history, not a prophecy. Even then it bore the record of past suffering, and in the tender eyes there still lingered the shadow of many vanished dreams. Thus the story of the old academy was made real and doubly beautiful to the stranger. The Alice Cary whom she had imagined had never been quite so lovely as the Alice Cary whom she that moment saw. That evening began a friendship between two women on which, till its earthly close, no shadow ever fell.

As I sit here thinking of her, I realize how futile will be any effort of mine to make a memorial worthy of my friend. The woman in herself so far transcended

any work of art that she ever wrought, any song (sweet as her songs were) that she ever sung, that even to attempt to put into words what she was seems hopeless. Yet it is an act of justice, no less than of love, that one who knew her in the sanctuary of her life should, at least partly, lift the veil which ever hung between the lovely soul and the world; that the women of this land may see more clearly the sister whom they have lost, who, in what she was herself, was so much more than in what she in mortal weakness was able to do— at once an example and glory to American womanhood. It must ever remain a grief to those who knew her and loved her best, that such a soul as hers should have missed its highest earthly reward; but, if she can still live on as an incentive and a friend to those who remain, she at least is comforted now for all she suffered and all she missed here.

The life of one woman who has conquered her own spirit, who, alone and unassisted, through the mastery of her own will, has wrought out from the hardest and most adverse conditions a pure, sweet, and noble life, placed herself among the world's workers, made her heart and thought felt in ten thousand unknown homes the life of one such woman is worth more to all living women, proves more for the possibilities of womanhood, for its final and finest advancement, its ultimate recognition and highest success, than ten thousand theories or eloquent orations on the theme. Such a woman was Alice Cary. Mentally and spiritually she was especially endowed with the rarest gifts; but no less, the lowliest of all her sisters may take on new faith and courage from her life. It may not be for you to sing till the whole land listens, but it is in