"Not in the least. I just like them, and love to get acquainted with them. Each bird whose acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to me as if he were totally unknown to the world." We were sitting by a southern window that looks out on a wide-spreading and ancient elm, my glory and pride. Not one bird had I seen on it that cold, repellent middle of March. But Mrs. Miller looked up, and said: "Your robins have come!" Sure enough I could now see a pair. "And there are the woodpeckers, but they have stayed all winter. No doubt you have the hooting owls. There's an oriole's nest, badly winter-worn; but they will come back and build again. I see you feed your chickadees and sparrows, because they are so tame and fearless. I'd like to come later and make a list of the birds on your place." I wonder how many she would find. Visiting at Deerfield, Massachusetts, I said one day to my host, the artist J.W. Champney: "You don't seem to have many birds round you." "No?" he replied with a mocking rising inflection. "Mrs. Miller, who was with us last week, found thirty-nine varieties in our front yard before breakfast!" Untrained eyes are really blind. Mrs. Miller is an excellent housekeeper, although a daughter now relieves her of that care. But, speaking at table of this and that dish and vegetable, she promised to send me some splendid receipts for orange marmalade, baked canned corn, scalloped salmon, onion _a la creme_ (delicious), and did carefully copy and send them. She told me that in Denmark a woman over forty-five is considered gone. If she is poor, a retreat is ready for her without pay; if rich, she would better seek one of the homes provided for aged females who can pay well for a home. Another thing of interest was the fact that when Mrs. Miller eats no breakfast, her brain is in far better condition to write. She is a Swedenborgian, and I think that persons of that faith have usually a cheerful outlook on life. She was obliged to support herself after forty years of age. I would add to her advice about a hobby: don't wait till middle age; have one right away, now. Boys always do. I know of one young lady who makes a goodly sum out of home-made marmalade; another who makes dresses for her family and special friends; another who sells three hundred dozen "brown" eggs to one of the best groceries in Boston, and supports herself. By the way, what can you do? Mrs. Lippincott had such a splendid, magnetic presence, such a handsome face with dark poetic eyes, and accomplished so many unusual things, that, knowing her as I did, I think I should be untrue to her if I did not try to show her as she was in her brilliant prime, and not merely as a punster or a _raconteur_, or as she appeared in her dramatic recitals, for these were but a small part of the many-sided genius.