desk as diligently as she used to do upon the platform. To the end of her life, despite her infirmities, she did more public speaking than most younger women. Her sweet, motherly face, under its white cap, was dear to the eyes of audiences at suffrage gatherings, and it was said of her that she looked like "the grandmother of all the good children."
She was an excellent housekeeper, of the old New England type. She dried all the herbs, and put up all the fruits in their season. She prepared her own dried beef, made her own yeast, her own butter, even her own soap. She always thought the home-made soap was better than any she could buy. She was an accomplished cook, and her family were never better fed than during the occasional interregnums between servants.
All the purely womanly instincts were strong in her. Even in her old age her ideas about love were what most people would regard as romantic. She was as fond of a love story as any girl of sixteen, provided it were a simple and innocent love story. She was attracted by all children, dirty or clean, pretty or ugly. Her face always beamed at the sight of a baby; and on countless occasions on boat or train, during her lecture trips, she helped worried and anxious young mothers to care for and quiet a crying child. All children loved her. What she was to her own daughter no words can tell.
A friend writes:— "No one who was privileged to partake of Mrs. Stone's hospitality could fail to note her kindly concern for every one beneath her roof and for all the dumb creatures belonging to the household. But few knew how far-reaching was that spirit of kindliness, how many her motherliness brooded over. Flowers and fruits were sent from her garden, boxes of clothing went West, North, and South, a host of women who came to her in distress were helped to work or tided over hard places. She gave freely, and every gift was accompanied by thoughtful care and heart-warmth. She was never too busy to gladden the hearts of the children who came into her presence by gift of flower or fruit or picture, or by the telling of a story."
She took keen delight in all the beauties of nature. As a child, her favorite reward, when she had done well at school, was to be allowed by the teacher to sit on the floor, where she could look up through the window into the shimmering foliage of a grove of white birches.
She was the most perfectly fearless human being I ever knew. I have heard her say that in the mobs and manifold dangers of the anti-slavery times she was never conscious of a quickened heart-beat. In all the emergencies of a long life, in accidents, alarms of fire, of burglars, etc., we never saw her fluttered. "The gentlest and most heroic of women," was her husband's description of her. When, in 1893, her strength failed, and she found that she was suffering from an illness from which she could not recover, she was perfectly serene and fearless, and made all her preparations to go, as quietly as if she were only going into the next room. As long as she was able to think and plan at all, she thought for others, and planned for their comfort. As she lay in bed, too weak to move, she still tried to save everybody steps, to spare the servants, to see that guests should be made comfortable, and that a favorite dish should be prepared for the niece who had come to nurse her.
The beyond had no terrors for her. She said to her daughter, with her accent of simple and complete conviction: "I have not the smallest apprehension. I know the Eternal Order, and I believe in it." Something being said by a friend, who was a Spiritualist, about her possibly coming back to communicate with those she had left, she answered, "I expect to be too busy to come back." To another friend she said, "I look forward to the other side as the brighter side, and I expect to be busy for good things." To still another, who expressed grief that she should not live to see women vote, she answered: "Perhaps I shall know it where I am; and, if not, I shall be doing something better. I have not a fear, nor a dread, nor a doubt."
When a letter from the Women's Press Association was read to her, speaking warmly of her work, she said slowly: "I think I have done what I could: I certainly have tried. With one hand I made my family comfortable; with
