tramps and coasts, she is usually very muddy, and a little torn. There is
apt to be a pin in her gathers; but there is sure to be a laugh in her
eyes. Wherever there is mischief, there is Gypsy. Yet, wherever there is
fun, and health, and hope, and happiness,--and I think, wherever there is
truthfulness and generosity,--there is Gypsy, too.

And now, the publishers tell me that Gypsy is thirty years old, and that
girls who were not so much as born when I knew the little lady, are her
readers and her friends to-day.

Thirty years old? Indeed, it is more than that! For is it not thirty years
since the publication of her memoirs? And was she, at that time, possibly
sixteen? Forty-six years? Incredible! How in the world did Gypsy "grow
up?" For that was before toboggans and telephones, before bicycles and
electric cars, before bangs and puffed sleeves, before girls studied
Greek, and golf-capes came in. Did she go to college? For the Annex, and
Smith, and Wellesley were not. Did she have a career? Or take a husband?
Did she edit a Quarterly Review, or sing a baby to sleep? Did she write
poetry, or make pies? Did she practice medicine, or matrimony? Who knows?
Not even the author of her being.

Only one thing I do know: Gypsy never grew up to be "timid," or silly, or
mean, or lazy; but a sensible woman, true and strong; asking little help
of other people, but giving much; an honor to her brave and loving sex,
and a safe comrade to the girls who kept step with her into middle life;
and I trust that I may bespeak from their daughters and their scholars a
kindly welcome to an old story, told again.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.