and central meeting place for its friends, was continued throughout the war.  The Mott sisters, cousins of James, lovely and cultured Quaker women, had a little home in Maiden Lane and kept a gentlemen’s furnishing store, making by hand the ruffled shirtbosoms and other fine linen.  As their home had been so long the center for the reformers of the day, the committee were glad to put Lydia in charge of this depository, at a small salary, and she conducted an extensive correspondence for them during several years.  Miss Anthony stayed with her till everything was arranged and in good running order.  In July she had received the following invitation: 

By a unanimous vote of the Union Agricultural Society of Dundee a resolution was passed to tender you an invitation to deliver the annual address at our next fair.  We know it is a departure from established usage, but your experience as one of a brave band of radical reformers will have taught you that only by gradual steps and continued efforts can the prejudices of custom be overcome and the rights of humanity maintained.  Woman’s rights are coming to be respected more and more every year, and we hope you will aid us in demonstrating that a woman can deliver as profitable an address at an agricultural fair as can a lord of creation....

    Yours respectfully, WILLIAM HOUSE, Secretary, per D. S. BRUNER.

To refuse such an opportunity was not to be thought of, so she accepted, and then wrote Mrs. Stanton, who answered:  “Come on and we will grind out the speech.  I shall expect to get the inspiration, thoughts and facts from you, and will agree to dress all the children you bring.”

She found a cordial welcome when she reached Dundee, October 17.  It rained so hard her address was deferred till the next day, as it had to be delivered out of doors, so she visited the “art” and “culinary” departments of the fair, and records in her diary:  “I have just put an extra paragraph in my speech on bedquilts and bad cooking.”  Her stage was a big lumber wagon, and her desk the melodeon of James G. Clark, the noted singer and Abolitionist, who held an umbrella over her head to keep off the rain.  The diary says:  “More than 2,000 feet were planted in the mud, but I had a grand listening to the very end.”  The speech was a great success and was published in full in the Dundee Record, occupying the entire front page.  It was a fine exposition of modern methods of farming and a strong plea for beautifying the home, giving the children books and music and making life so pleasant they would not want to leave the country for the city.  These ideas at that time were new and attracted much attention and favorable comment.  This was the first instance of a woman’s making an address on such an occasion.