Miss Willard was one of the honoured guests of the day, and was called on first. When she arose and began to speak, I felt instantly that she had something to say; something that she felt was important we should hear, and how beautifully, how simply it was said! Not a thought of self, not one instant's hesitation for a thought or a word, yet it was evidently unwritten and not committed to memory. Every eye was drawn to her earnest face; every heart was touched. As she sat down, I rose and left the room rather rapidly; and when my name was called and my fizzling fireworks expected, I was walking up Fifth Avenue, thinking about her and her life-work. The whole experience was a revelation. I had never met such a woman. No affectation, nor pedantry, nor mannishness to mar the effect. It was in part the humiliating contrast between her soul-stirring words and my silly little society effort that drove me from the place, but all petty egotism vanished before the wish to be of real use to others with which her earnestness had inspired me. One lady told me that after hearing her she felt she could go out and be a praying band all by herself. Indeed she was A noble woman, true and pure, Who in the little while she stayed, Wrought works that shall endure. She was asked who she would prefer to write a sketch of her and her work and she honoured me by giving me that great pleasure. The book appeared in 1883, entitled _Our Famous Women_. Once when Miss Willard was in Boston with Lady Henry Somerset and Anna Gordon, I was delighted by a letter from Frances saying that Lady Henry wanted to know me and could I lunch with them soon at the Abbottsford. I accepted joyously, but next morning's mail brought this depressing decision: "Dear Kate, we have decided that there will be more meat in going to you. When can we come?" I was hardly settled in my house of the Abandoned Farm. There was no furnace in the house, only two servants with me. And it would be impossible to entertain those friends properly in the dead of the winter, and I nearly ready to leave for a milder clime. So I told them the stern facts and lost a rare treat. This is the end of Miss Willard's good-bye letter to me when returning to England with Lady Henry: Hoping to see you on my return, and hereby soliciting an exchange of photographs between you and Lady Henry and me, I am ever and as ever Yours, FRANCES WILLARD.