PAGE
Editors 9
My Notion of Music 16
"Budding Spring"—In the City 20
A Peep at Boston 23
Blackwell's Island 29
Shall we have Male or Female Clerks? 37
Unknown Acquaintances 40
Life and its Mysteries 44
Mrs. Washington's Eternal Knitting 47
The Woman Question 50
Two Kinds of Wives 55
Undertakers' Signs on Churches 58
A Voice from the Skating Pond 61
The Sin of being Sick 64
Are Ministers Serfs? 69
Blaming Providence for Our Own Faults 72
A Chapter on Nurses 74
Do American Women Love Nature? 78
Rainy-day Pleasures 82
Chit-Chat with Some of My Correspondents 84
My Liking for Pretty Things 92
Unsought Happiness 95
Dignity of Human Nature 100
All About Doctors 104
Letter to Henry Ward Beecher 108
The Amenities of the Table 111
Many Men of Many Minds 115
My Notion of a Walking Companion 118
Men Teachers in Girls' Schools 121
My Call on "Dexter" 125
The Poetry of Work 128
Can't Keep a Hotel 132
New Clothes 136
How I read the Morning Papers 139
Betty's Soliloquy 143
My Dreadful Bump of Order 146
"Every Family Should Have It" 153
Getting to Rights 157
Modern Martyrs 163
Writing "Compositions" 168
Nice Little Tea-Parties 173
A Sleepless Night 176
Women's Need of Recreation 180
The Good Old Hymns 185
A Stranger in Gotham 189
My Journey to Quebec and Back Again 191
Idle Hours at Our Own Emerald Isle, the Gem of the Sea 215
Some City Sights 223
Dog-days in the Mountains 229
Spring in the City 235
Waifs 238
Tact 240
The Infirmities of Genius 242
A Trip to the Caatskills 245
The Trip to Brompton 258
Lake George Revisited 264
Cookery and Tailoring 269
Up the Hudson 273
"Why Don't I Lecture" 278
In the Cars 281
Petting 284
My Grievance 287
Cemetery Musings 290
The Scrubbing-brush Mania 292
Sauce for the Gander 295
My First Convert 298
Country Housewives 300
First Morning in the Country 303
Conscience Killing 306
The Cry of a Victim 308
Stones for Bread 311