Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

266 APPENVDIY.
favors; a pride of independence that never left her. To
one who strove to do for her unpaid, she invented ways of
remuneration until the balance of obligation was often on
his side.
It was like her to refuse a gift of several thousand dollars, and, again when I suggested that the large-hearted
friend who offered it had more than she could do to wisely
distribute her income, and that Mrs. Child could and should
help her in that, it was like her also to change her mind,
accept the trust, portion out every dollar of income while
she lived, and devise it, at her death, to the ideas and
movements she loved.
And yet this princely giver kept till death the cheap,
plain fashion of dress which early narrow means had enforced,- used an envelope twice, and never wrote on a
whole sheet when half a one would suffice. " I do not think,
Mrs. Child, you can afford to give so much just now," I
said to her once, when, in some exigency of the freedmen's
cause, she told me to send them from her a hundred dollars.
" Well," she answered, "I will think it over, and send you
word to-morrow." To-morrow word came, " Please send
them two hunclred."
Her means were never large: never so large that a woman
of her class would think she had anything to give away.
But her spirit was Spartan. W7hen she had nothing for
others, she worked to get it. She wrote me once, " I have
four hlndred dollars to my credit at my publishers for my
book on'Looking towards Sunset.' Please get it and give
it to the freedmen."
" I want a dictionary," one said to her whom she was always importuning to allow her to give him something, "if
you will insist on giving it to me; it will cost ten dollars."
She sent the most valuable, costing double. But we who
knew her cannot forget that this was not a hard life nor a
harsh one. It bubbled up with joy. Threescore years and
ten had still the freshness of girlhood, the spirits nothing
could dull or quench; the ready wit, quick retort, mirthful