For the next two months we were a good deal together.  I think it was a very happy summer to her.  You were building the house in Dorset for a summer home, and the planning for this and watching its progress was a pleasant occupation.  And she was such an enthusiastic lover of nature that the out-of-door life she led was a constant enjoyment.  She would spend hours rambling in the woods, collecting ferns, mosses, trailing vines, and every lovely bit of blossom and greenery that met her eye—­and nothing pretty escaped it—­and there was always an added freshness and brightness in her face when she came home laden with these treasures, and eager to exhibit them.  “Oh, you don’t go crazy over such things as I do,” she would say as she held them up for our admiration.  She filled her room with these woodland beauties, and pressed quantities of them to carry to her city home.

In that beautiful valley among the Green Mountains, some of whose near summits rise to the height of three thousand feet, her enthusiasm for fine scenery had full scope.  She would watch with delight the sunset glow as it spread and deepened along those mountain peaks, suffusing them with a glory which we likened to that of the New Jerusalem; and as we sat and watched this glory slowly fade, tint by tint, into the gray twilight, her talk would be of heaven and holiness and Christ.

Whatever she felt, she felt intensely, and she threw her whole heart and soul into all she said or did; this was one great secret of the power of her personal presence; she felt so keenly herself, she made others feel.

Those summer days were long and bright and beautiful, but none too long for her.  She was one of the most industrious persons I have ever known, and her writing, reading and sewing, and the care of her children, over the formation of whose characters she watched closely and wisely, occupied every moment of her time, except when she was out of doors, trying by exercise in the open air to secure a good night’s sleep; not an easy thing for her to do in those days.

Early in August we were joined by Miss Hannah Lyman, of Vassar College, a mutual friend and a most delightful addition to our little party.

We knew Mrs. Prentiss spent a part of every day in writing, but she said nothing of the nature of her work.  Do you remember coming into the parlor one morning, where Miss Lyman and I were sitting by ourselves, and telling us that she was writing a story, but had become so discouraged she threatened to throw it aside as not worth finishing?  “I like it myself,” you added, “it really seems to me one of the best things she has ever written, and I am trying to get her to read it to you and see what you think of it.”

Of course, both Miss Lyman and myself were eager to hear it, and promised to tell her frankly how we liked it.  The next morning she came to our room with a little green box in her hand, saying, with her merry laugh, “Now you’ve got to do penance for your sins, you two wicked women!” and, sitting down by the window, while we took our sewing, she began to read us in manuscript the work which was destined to touch and strengthen so many hearts—­“which,” to use the words of another, “has become a part of the soul-history of many thousands of Christian women—­young and old—­at home and abroad.”