Year: 1875

Miss Mary Elwood was her name
she lived in tiny cottage on street
where she could afford herself small
lot /; for she preferred breath Of fresh
air all around her house, and little
piece Of ground for her chickens, and
her trowel, to block house of greater
pretensions, where she should find her.
self immured, in the literal sense Of
that word. Houses in block, she was
wont to say, would do where husbands,
brothers, or fathers brought in, every
day the sound of the great busy world
without; or where children kept people
too much occupied to look out of the
windows, or raise few flowers or vege-
tables in the garden. Miss Mary's
means we're not very ample, and it was
only by the best management that she
made the two ends meet but she
brought to this task not only good COM
mon sense, but carefully cultivated
understanding, and that mental appli-
cation which would have ensured her
certain success, with the blessing Of
God, had she been ''a man of business. "
I cannot 60 into details, but it was
wonderful how, with SO little thought,
apparently, for she never spoke Of
these things unnecessarily,-sh knew
how to make every dollar and penny
tell on her small menage eH


Now everybody but Miss Mary
would, with her limited means, have
taken up her abode in some relatives
house, where she would have sat in the
chimney corner, when youth was gone,
supernumerary, endured, perhaps, by
that relatives husband and children,
but which might be preferable, after
all, to fitting or floating" about, from
one clearinghouse to another, never
staying long enough to root anywhere,
and just here I come. in my sketch. to
first principles. "How strange!" said
everybody, and all the world, "that
Miss Mary did not marry? She is SO
lovely, and even fascinating in her ap-
pearance. taking on good looks with
every decade. Before twenty, she was
pretty; before thirty, she was hand
some; before forty, she was fine look.
ing; before fifty. she was almost glori-
Gus before sixty. that glory bad mel
lowed into softer light; before seventy,
she was altogether lovely; and after
that time. soft, angelic grace hung
over all her features, which, when she
passed through the veil, still fingered
on the beautiful clay.


Then Miss Mary was SO beloved in
her neighborhood, and by many "par-
ticulars," even to devotion; how
strange! and how strange! that Miss
Mary never married till Miss Mary
herself was almost tired with the sub.
ject. She had her own reasons, doubt
less. and this being free country. she
felt free to act upon her own judgment
in the matter; therefore we will not
enter upon explanations, which, to con-
fess the truth, We are disqualified by
ignorance from making. Suffice it to
say. Miss Mary never married, although
it was well known she had many suitors.


Somewhere little past thirty. she
bought the small lot, and planned her
own tiny cottage home, after much
thought and contrivance as to means
and ends. I wish I could describe it to
you minutely, not only because Of its
and prettiness. but because
it was the expression Of Miss Mary's
own soul; you might almost call it her
photograph, for everybody said at once
1T was just like her," 1t fronted to
the South, where the glorious sun ever