At one time she had a large correspondence with curious young Eastern people who wished to know something of the far Northwest; to these she sent accurate and graphic descriptions of tall trees, great mountains, waterfalls, lakes and seas, beasts, birds and fishes. She possessed no mean literary talent; without her knowledge some of her letters strayed into print. A very witty one was published in a newspaper, cut out and pasted in the scrapbook of an elocutionist, and to her astonishment produced as a "funny piece" before an audience among whom she sat, the speaker evidently not knowing its author. A parody on "Poe's Raven" made another audience weep real tears in anguished mirth. Every felicitous phrase or quaint conceit she met was treasured up, and to these were added not a few of her own invention, and woe betide the wight who accompanied her to opera, concert or lecture, for her _sotto voce_ comments, murmured with a grave countenance, were disastrous to their composure and "company manners." It must be recorded of her that she gave up selfish pleasures to be her mother's helper, whose chief stay she was through many years. In her last illness she said, with much tenderness, "Mother, who will help you now?" Madge was a true _lady_ or _loaf-giver_. Every creature, within or without the domicile, partook of her generous care, from the pet canary to the housedog, all the human inhabitants and the stranger within the gates. Moreover, she was genuine, nothing she undertook was slighted or done in a slipshod manner. Her taste and judgment were accurate and sound in literature and art; her love of art led her to exclaim regretfully, "When we are dead and gone, the landscape will bristle with easels." A scant population and the exigencies of the conditions placed art expression in the far future, yet she saw the vast possibilities before those who should be so fortunate as to dwell in the midst of such native grandeur, beauty and richness of color. Like many other children, we had numerous pets, wild things from the forest or the, to us, charming juvenile members of the barnyard flocks. When any of these succumbed to the inevitable, a funeral of more or less pomp was in order, and many a hapless victim of untoward fate was thus tearfully consigned to the bosom of Mother Earth. On one occasion, at the obsequies of a beloved bird or kitten, I forget which, Madge, then perhaps six years of age, insisted upon arranging a litter, draped with white muslin and decorated with flowers, and followed it, as it was borne by two other children, singing with serious though tearless eyes, "We're traveling to the grave To lay this body down, And the last word that I heard him speak Was about Jerusalem," etc. She was so thoroughly in earnest that the older children refrained from laughing at what some might have thought unnecessary solemnity.