ANNA A. GORDON 229 they spent a year in England, much of which time they were guests of Lady Henry Somerset, who later became president of the World's W. C. T. U. For twenty-one years Miss Gordon stood by Miss Willard in the temperance work. They were the closest of friends. Concerning that friendship, Mrs. Katherine Lente Stevenson has said :
- She was a part of Miss Willard 's very self, as few daugh-
ters are parts of their mothers. Her love for the great leader seemed a composite of all loves.
- More truly than any other love I have ever known, was
it absolutely free from the faintest shadow of personal jeal- ousy. Other friends came in to that many sided life (of Miss Gordon), her interests were world wide, and many great na- tures were attracted to her winsome personality, but this early love (for Miss Willard) never wavered, never knew doubt or the shadow of turning, never put the thought of self before the interests of her friend. * I hope it will not seem irreverent, ' said Miss Gordon to me, ^but I took it as my motto long ago,
- 'I love them that love her,** and no one can love her too well
to please me. ' Is it any wonder that so great a nature should have found close kinship with the greatest woman of the century . . .?
- What Anna Gordon was to Frances Willard, eternity alone
can show. She touched her life, not alone through the chan- nel of its deep affections, but through the manifold, broad channels of her work for humanity. Not one of the great leader's plans and purposes were ever withheld from her friend, and while her fertile brain originated the seed thought, to Anna Gordon was given the privilege of preparing the soil in which that thought might come to its perfect maturity. Frances Willard was the genius, but Anna Gordon made the environment in which that genius came to its fullest develop- ment. Her capacity for detail has always been marvelous, and through all the years she was Miss Willard 's constant companion, whether in traveling, or at Rest Cottage, Evans- ton, Illinois, at home or abroad, it was upon her that the detail work devolved. She planned the trips; she cared for the
