“Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing and laughing till I finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and the next day sent to the editor.” Some writer of to-day has complained that this tale of Mrs. Stowe’s habit of writing with the bread board in her lap had a great influence for harm on later writers in that it seems to furnish proof that a woman who is compelled to combine housekeeping and writing can do the writing any time and anywhere, right amid the business of the kitchen. This, of course, Mrs. Stowe would have been the first to deny. In fact, when it was found that she could write acceptably, and her husband said she was born for that work and must fulfill her destiny, she sent this appeal to him: “If I am to write I must have a room to myself which shall be my room. I have, in my own mind, pitched on Mrs. W.’s room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought a cheap carpet for it ... and I only beg in addition that you will let me change the glass door from the nursery into that room and keep my plants there, and then I shall be quite happy. All last winter I felt the need of some place where I could go and be quiet and satisfied.... We can eat by our cooking-stove and the children can be washed and dressed and keep their playthings in the room above.... You can study by the parlor fire, and I and my plants, etc., will take the other room. I shall take my work and all my things there, and feel settled and quiet.” That she should feel so was absolutely necessary if she was to do any real work in writing. Her husband was most responsive. He wrote in reply: “And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can. The fact is that I cannot live without you, and if we were not so prodigious poor I would come for you at once. There is no woman like you in this wide world. Who else has so much talent with so little self-conceit; so much reputation with so little affectation; so much literature with so little nonsense; so much enterprise with so little extravagance; so much tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness with so little softness; so much of so many things and so little of so many other things?” In answer to this beautiful love-making Mrs. Stowe could say: “If you were not already my dearly-loved husband I should certainly fall in love with you.” And we do not wonder!