and Verses,” already mentioned, these complete a list of seven books which Mrs. Dodge has published during her editorial career—truly a remarkable showing, considering the pressure and exactions of her extremely busy life. And, in addition, she compiled from the volumes of the magazine, with most conscientious care and skill, two famous nursery-books for very little folk, entitled “Baby Days" and “Baby World,” which in their special field never have been equaled in merit or popularity.
The “Hans Brinker” occurrence in the Holland book-store was matched by several 
Mrs. Dodge at about the time when she became editor of “St. Nicholas.” like incidents. During a conversation which had turned upon the many varieties of dialect in the British Isles, Mrs. Dodge once asked a distinguished general of the Civil War—a courtly, well-read gentleman of Irish ancestry—where she could find a piece of genuine and accurate Irish dialect. He replied: “Why, I happen to have one in my pocket. It is simply perfect”; and, to her astonishment, he drew forth her own “Miss Maloney on the Chinese Question.”
“But you are jesting,” she said. “You know who wrote that.”
“No,” he answered. “I clipped it from a newspaper, as you see, and the author's name is not given.”
“But—I wrote it,” said Mrs. Dodge.
“You wrote it!” exclaimed the general, in amazement. “Surely you are jesting!”
When she took down a copy of “Theophilus and Others” and turned to the page containing “Miss Maloney,” he laughed heartily and said, with a touch of blarney: “Well, even if you did write it, it is just what you asked me for—a bit of perfect Irish dialect.”
Again at a certain evening reception at Mrs. Dodge’s home it chanced that a well-known singer gave as an encore a musical setting of the little poem “Snow-Flakes.” After the applause had subsided, another guest said to the singer, “Your choice of ‘Snow-Flakes’ was a pretty compliment to Mrs. Dodge.”
“In what way, please?—I don’t understand.”
“Why, you know she wrote the words,” was the reply.
“Oh, pardon me,” said the singer; “the verses were written by Longfellow. See, here it is, in print, upon the music: ‘Words by Henry W. Longfellow.’”
“But Mrs. Dodge wrote it, nevertheless; it is the music-publisher who is mistaken. I will show you the verses themselves in “Along the Way.”
Without waiting for this, the singer hurried to her hostess, and asked eagerly, “Oh, Mrs. Dodge, did you really write ‘Snow-Flakes’?”
“For poor Mr. Longfellow’s sake, I must confess that I did!” was the answer. “But in the latest edition of the song, I am glad to say, justice has been done to Mr. Longfellow and my name appears in place of his.”
On another and a sadder occasion, Mrs. Dodge called upon a dear friend who had recently suffered a sore bereavement, and who said to her visitor, in response to a word of earnest sympathy, “I have received, to-day, a little poem which has brought me more comfort than anything else. A friend cut it from a newspaper and sent it to me”; and, to Mrs. Dodge's surprise, she began to read “The Two Mysteries.” It must have been a still dearer solace for the mourner when she learned that the tender hand which was then resting upon hers had penned the poem.
