would tend to pauperize them, and that honest work and honest wages were far more helpful than charity, Mrs. Gibbons organized, on a plan of her own, a "Labor and Aid Association," hiring for a laundry a large house on Hudson street, built by the actor, Burton. The noble apartment in which that gentle genius gathered the first Shakspearean library in America, and where he wrought out those marvels of comic art which once convulsed the town with innocent mirth, became the mangling-room. One could fancy the ghosts of Touchstone and Dromio, of Bottom and Toodles, peering about in the darkness, and marvelling at the strange transformation. In another room was the day-school, where little creatures too young to work were taught simple lessons, knitting, sewing, basket-making, and other light handicrafts. The noon-meal was furnished them, and they were amused and cared for while their mothers and elder sisters earned the means to keep a home for them. A sewing-room and hospital chambers were to increase the usefulness of the establishment. But the health of the projector, seriously impaired by the strain of army life and domestic grief, at last gave way, and the plan of the association was abandoned; not, however, till the success of the self-helping system was assured, and many a woman put in the way of a comfortable livelihood.

The New York Diet Kitchen, for the relief of the sick poor, is another charity which owes its prosperity largely to Mrs. Gibbons' fostering care. The association has opened kitchens in various tenement-house regions of the city, where, on the requisition of physicians, broth, milk, fruit, meat, and other nourishments are distributed to the sick who are unable to buy them. Every case of suffering reported to the society is carefully investigated, and, in many instances, these investigations lead to employment, and other efficient mitigations of the miseries of the decent poor. The rate of mortality in the city has been much diminished since these kitchens were established, and, under the stimulus of proper food, those who recover are so improved in condition that they work

better and earn more. So that the indirect benefit of the kitchens is a greater thrift among the lower classes, as their direct benefit is a greater comfort.

In so brief a sketch there is not room even to mention efforts and experiences, merely incidental, which in a life less busy than that of Mrs. Gibbons would have seemed pivotal points. The better education of women, social reorganization, the amelioration of punishments, the establishment of ragged schools, the relief of the sufferers in Kansas, Hungarian liberty, and the victims of Austrian despotism,· every humane cause for more than half a century has appealed to this philanthropist, and none in vain.

It is not a brilliant episode - these sixty years of selfsacrificing labor in scenes and among people offending every instinct of taste or morals. Yet humanity might better lose the history of its conquerors than the record of heroic souls like these.

Such deeds are not wrought in the sudden fire of a high moment, but are the slow result of faith in human nature and long-forbearing patience. They make frivolity and selfishness seem despicable. They make luxurious worldliness appear the poor pretence it is. They enlarge belief in the reach of human virtue.

CHAPTER XV.

JULIA WARD HOWE.

BY HER DAUGHTER, MAUD HOWE.

"Little Miss Ward"- The Influences that Surrounded Her Early Life-Her Education Faculty for Acquiring Languages-"Bro. Sam" - Miss Ward's First Visit to Boston Meets Dr. Samuel G. Howe - Her Marriage Wedding Trip to the Old World-Cordial Reception by Famous People-Declining Tom Moore's Offer to Sing-Reminiscences of European Travel - Her Patriotism in the Days of the Rebellion-"Madame, You Must Speak to My Soldiers - Writing the Battle-Hymn of the Republic-The "Brain Club"-A Many-Sided Woman-The Woman Suffrage Movement - Mrs. Howe as a Public Speaker-Reminiscences of Her Life in Santo Domingo-A Woman of Genius and Intellect.

N the year 1819, in one of the stateliest homes near the Bowling Green, then the most fashionable quarter of the city of New York, there was born a little girl. The parents of the child, Samuel Ward and Julia Cutler Ward, were young people in strong and robust health. This little girl, who was christened Julia, was the fourth child which had been sent to them. The eldest, a son, bore his father's name. The second child, a daughter, named for her mother, died in infancy. Next came Henry, the second son. A miniature painted at about the time of the birth of this second daughter represents Mrs. Ward as a very beautiful young woman. The likeness was made in her twenty-first year, and portrays a graceful, rounded figure and an expressive, poetic face. The eyes are large and dark, the lips full and sensitive, the brow high and intellectual. She came of a family somewhat noted for beauty and talent, and her inheritance in both was remarkable. Dying at the age of twenty-eight, she left six children, all of whom inherited

something of the character and attraction which made Mrs. Ward one of the most interesting women of her time.

The little Julia was but five years old at the time of her mother's death. She was nevertheless distinctly aware of her loss, and still remembers with its pain the lovely face whose charm and comfort were so early taken from her life.

Mr. Ward's health had already been somewhat impaired by his assiduous attention to business. The loss of his beloved wife was a blow which laid him prostrate on a bed of sickness for many weeks. Recovering at length from the shock, he addressed himself to the task of bringing up his motherless family, feeling, as he was afterwards wont to say, that he must now be mother as well as father to his little ones. The immediate care of these was intrusted to Miss Eliza Cutler, an elder sister of Mrs. Ward, who now came to reside with her brother-in-law, and who proved a most faithful guardian to her sister's children. When little Julia was in her tenth year this aunt of hers was married to Dr. J. W. Francis, at young physician, already eminent, whose skill had on one occasion saved Mr. Ward's life, and to whom he was much attached. Dr. and Mrs. Francis continued to reside for many years with Mr. Ward, and only left his house when the youngest of his children had attained the age of fourteen years. Mrs. Francis was called the wittiest woman of her time, and the quick, sudden flashes which illuminate the conversation of the niece recall the brilliant sayings which made her aunt famous.

Mr. Ward was a man of tall and stately figure, unimpeachable in character and exceptionally strict in his views of language and deportment. No smallest neglect of decorum was ever tolerated in his presence, nor did he allow anything approaching to gossip or frivolous conversation to pass unreproved before him. He was a member of the well-known firm of Prime, Ward, and King, which at that time held a high position in the financial affairs of the city, and was the first president of the Bank of Com

merce.

From her earliest childhood the little Miss Ward, for so she was always called, showed signs of an uncommon mind. Her teachers were all struck with her remarkable memory and faculty for acquiring languages. One of her lifelong friends, in speaking of her youth, said to the writer not long since: "Mrs. Howe wrote 'leading articles' from her cradle."

The exaggeration is not so great after all when we find that at seventeen Julia Ward was an anonymous, but valued, contributor to the "New York Magazine," then a leading periodical in the United States. Her youngest sister preserves among the most precious relics of other days, a charming poem of Mrs. Howe, written when she was sixteen years old, in a careful, half-formed hand, called "The Ill-cut Mantle." The same sister, among her many tender reminiscenses of the days of their early youth, tells the following story: One day the young poet chanced upon her two younger sisters busy in some childish game. She upbraided them for their frivolous pursuit, and insisted that they should occupy themselves as she did in the composition of verses. Louisa, the elder of the two, flatly refused to make the effort, but the little Annie dutifully obeyed the elder sister, and, after a long and resolute struggle, produced some stanzas, of which the following lines have always been remembered :

"He hears the ravens when they call,

And stands them in a pleasant hall."

Since then the hand which wrote these lines has penned many graceful verses, which unfortunately have never been given to the public.

The atmosphere of Mr. Ward's house was one well calculated to develop the talents of his children. It was the resort of the most distinguished men of letters of the day. One of the most prominent of these, Joseph Greene Cogswell, was intrusted with the literary training of the strong young mind of Mr. Ward's eldest daughter. The girl's thirst for knowledge was not to be entirely satisfied by the literature of her own language, and while still very young she became familiar