Professor Stuart’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, married Austin Phelps in 1842; who was then pastor of Pine Street Church in Boston.  Their daughter was born in Boston in 1844, and named Mary Gray Phelps.  They moved to Andover in 1848, where two sons were born.  Mrs. Phelps, who died when Mary was seven years old, was bright, interesting, unusual.  She wrote Tales of New England, chiefly stories of clerical life; also Sunnyside Sketches, remarkably popular at the time.  Her nom de plume was “Trusta.”  Professor Phelps married her sister Mary, for his second wife.  She lived only a year, and it was after her death that Mary changed her name to that of her mother, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.  Professor Phelps had a most nervous temperament, so much so that he could not sleep if a cricket chirped in his bedroom, and the stamping of a horse in a nearby stable destroyed all hope of slumber.

Miss Phelps inherited her mother’s talent for writing stories, also her humour and her sensitive, loving nature, as is seen by her works on Temperance Reforms, Abuses of Factory Operators, and her arraignment of the vivisectionist.  Later, when I was living at the “Abandoned Farm,” she had a liking for the farm I now own, about half a mile farther on from my first agricultural experiment.  She called on me, and begged me as woman for woman in case she bought the neighbouring farm, to seclude all my animals and fowls from 5 P.M. till 10 A.M. each morning, as she must get her sleep, for, like her father, she was a life-long sufferer from insomnia.  I would have done this if it were possible to repress the daybreak cries natural to a small menagerie which included chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, besides two peacocks and four guinea fowls.

But to return to the Youth’s Companion.  When I found it impossible to write regularly for Mr. Ford, he made a change for the better, securing Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth, a poet, historian, and author of the Zigzag Series, which had such large sales.  Happening to be in Boston, I called at the office and said to Mr. Ford:  “It grieves me a bit to see my column taken by someone else, and what a strange pen name—­’Hezekiah Butterworth.’”

“But that is his own name,” said the editor.

“Indeed; I am afraid I shall hate that Hezzy.”

“Well, just try it; come with me to his work-room.”

When we had gone up one flight, Mr. Ford opened a door, where a gentle, sweet-faced young man of slender build was sitting at a table, the floor all around him literally strewn with at least three hundred manuscripts, each one to be examined as a possible winner in a contest for a five-hundred-dollar prize story.  Both English and American authors had competed.  He was, as De Quincey put it, “snowed up.”  Then my friend said with a laugh, “Miss Sanborn has come to see Hezzy whom she fancies she shall hate.”  A painfully awkward introduction, but Mr. Butterworth laughed heartily, and made me very welcome, and from that time was ever one of my most faithful friends, honouring my large Thanksgiving parties by his presence for many years.