family assembled in the dining-room and awaited their guest. Ten, twenty minutes, half an hour elapsed; the bell again sounded but the distinguished guest did not answer the summons and the now thoroughly alarmed hostesses hurried to her room. There was no answer to their gentle knocking, and they hastily entered. There stood Mrs. Stowe in the center of the room, without even her bonnet strings untied, deeply absorbed in a book. "O, do forgive me, my dears!" she cried contritely, glancing at each alarmed face. "I hope I have not kept you waiting! I found this dear little book here; I have not seen a copy for years, and I couldn't resist looking into it for a moment!"

Mrs. Stowe was a devoted mother. She once wrote to a friend: "Indeed, my dear, I am but a mere drudge, with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping. As for thoughts, reflections and sentiments, good lack! good lack! yet for all this, my children I would not change for all the ease, leisure and pleasure that I could have without them!" Mrs. Stowe would hardly have been able to accomplish what she did in the way of literary work, during her children's early years, if she had not had a devoted helper to share her cares and responsibilities. This helper was Anna Smith, who was a member of the family for many years, taking the position of governess and almost of second mother to the children, and of whom Mrs. Stowe wrote: "Had it not been for my inseparable friend, Anna, a noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores in destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials which the uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed upon both." Though the children.

learned to go to Miss Anna with their little wants and cares, they ever found a delightful companion in their mother, who frequently laid aside her work to go for a romp with them, to make some warm garment for one of the little people, or to help in replenishing the dolls' wardrobe. Her daughters carefully preserved a little straw bonnet which the busy mother had found time to plait, and a gay little scarf which she had crocheted for their respective dollies. Mrs. Stowe was a great favorite with the young people, and counted her girl friends by the score.

After the war, the Stowes lived in Hartford in summer, and spent their winters in Florida, where Mrs. Stowe purchased a luxurious home. Mrs. Stowe's mental and physical faculties failed in 1888, and she continued in very poor health until her death occurred at her home in Hartford, July 1, 1896. By her bedside at the time were her son, Rev. Chas. E. Stowe, her two daughters, Eliza and Harriet; her sister, Isabella Beecher Hooker; John Hooker; Doctor Edward B. Hooker, her nephew and medical attendant, and other relatives. "The whole reading world was moved at the news of her death, and many a chord vibrated at the remembrance of her powerful advocacy of the cause of the slave. The good which she achieved by Uncle Tom's Cabin can never be estimated, and her noble efforts have been interwoven into the work of the world."

A PARTIAL LIST OF H. B. STOWE'S WRITINGS.

Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Key to Uncle

Cabin.

Tom's

Little Foxes.

Agnes of Sorrento.
Old Town Folks.

My Wife and I.

Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.

The Minister's Wooing.

House and Home Papers.

Dred, a Tale of the Dismal

Swamp.

The Pearl of Orr's Island.

Pink and White Tyranny.

REFERENCES.

Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Fields.

Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles E. Stowe. At the Summit, and The World's Homage, O. W. Holmes.

Authors and Friends, Mrs. Fields.

QUESTIONS ON HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

1. Write a biography of Mrs. Stowe.

3. Which is her best known work? theme? Tell of its immense popularity.

4. Name five of Mrs. Stowe's Books.

THE LITTLE EVANGELIST.

(From "Uncle Tom's Cabin.")

What is the

T WAS Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched I was bamboo affee in the veranda, solacing himself

on a bamboo lounge in the veranda, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the veranda, closely secluded under an awning of transparent gauze from the outrages of the mosquitoes, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly-bound prayer-book. She was holding it because. it was Sunday, and she imagined she had been reading

it-though, in fact, she had been only taking a succession of short naps with it open in her hand.

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as driver, to attend it, and Eva accompanied them.

"I say, Augustine," said Marie, after dozing awhile, "I must send to the city after my old doctor, Posey; I'm sure I've got the complaint of the heart."

"Well, why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems skillful."

"I would not trust him in a critical case," said Marie, "and I think I may say mine is becoming so! I've been thinking of it these two or three nights past; I have such distressing pains and such strange feelings."

"Oh, Marie, you are blue! I don't believe it's heart complaint."

"I daresay you don't," said Marie; I was prepared to expect that. You can be alarmed enough if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the matter with her, but you never think of me."

"If it's particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, I'll try and maintain you have it," said St. Clare; "I didn't know it was."

"Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this when it's too late!" said Marie. "But, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear child have developed what I have long suspected."

What the exertions were which Marie referred to it would have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a

hard-hearted wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the veranda and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted.

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came at St. Clare's call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an account of the services they had heard.

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia's room (which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened to the veranda), and violent reproof addressed to somebody.

"What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?" asked St. Clare. "That commotion is of her raising, I'll be bound!"

And in a moment after Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came dragging the culprit along.

"Come out here, now!" she said. "I will tell your master."

"What's the case now?" asked Augustine.

"The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child any longer! It's past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! Here, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study and what does she do but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to my bureau and got a bonnet-trimming and cut it all to pieces to make dolls' jackets! I never saw anything like it in my life."

"I told you, cousin," said Marie, "that you'd find out that these creatures can't be brought up without severity. If I had my way, now," she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, "I'd send that child out and