and ready at recitation.  Her influence and example, added to her friendship and sympathy, were invaluable to me at this period.  One day, about this time, she told me of her engagement with Mr. Willis, to become a contributor to “The Youth’s Companion.”  This paper was one of the first, if not the first, of its class published in this country, and had a wide circulation among the children throughout New England.  Most of the pieces in “Only a Dandelion,” first appeared, I think, in the “Youth’s Companion,” among the rest several in verse.  They are written in a sprightly style, are full of bright fancies as well as sound feeling and excellent sense, and foretoken plainly the author of the ‘Susy’ books.

In 1835 Lizzy went to Ipswich and spent the summer in the school there.  It was then under the care of Miss Grant, and was the most noted institution of its kind in New England.  A year or two later, Mr. N. P. Willis returned from Europe, and with his English bride made a short visit at Mrs. Payson’s.  Miss Payson talked with him of Elizabeth’s taste for writing poetry and showed him some of her pieces.  He praised and encouraged her warmly, and this was, I think, one of the influences that strengthened her in the purpose to become an author.  Upon my telling her one day how much I liked a certain Sunday-school book I had just read, she smilingly asked, “What would you think if some day I should write a book as good as that?”

I saw a good deal of her home life at this time.  It was full of filial and sisterly love and devotion.  Amidst the household cares by which her mother was often weighed down and worried, she was an ever-near friend and sympathizer.  To her brothers, too, she endeared herself exceedingly by her helpful, cheery ways and the strong vein of fun and mirthfulness which ran through her daily life.

In the spring of 1837 Mrs. Payson sold her house on Franklin street and rented one in the upper part of the city.  Lizzy used to call it “the pumpkin house,” because it was old and ugly; but its situation and the opportunity to indulge her rural tastes made amends for all its defects.  In a letter to her friend Miss E. T. of Brooklyn, N. Y., dated May 21, 1837, she thus refers to it: 

Since your last letter arrived we have left our pleasant home for an old yellow one above John Neal’s.  Now don’t imagine it to be a delicate straw-color, neither the smiling hue of the early dandelion.  No, it once shone forth in all the glories of a deep pumpkin; but time’s “effacing fingers” have sadly marred its beauty.  Mr. Neal’s Aunt Ruth, a quiet old Quakeress, occupies a part of it and we Paysons bestow ourselves in the remainder.  This comes to you from its great garret.  Here I sit every night till after dark as merry as a grig.  “The mind is its own place.”  With all the inconveniences of the house I would not exchange it at present for any other in the city.  The situation is perfectly delightful.  Casco Bay