with a church in the purlieus of a large city. I was there not long ago.
He had a choral service. The Gregorian music carried me back to old times.
He preached on the text, "I was sick, and ye visited me." It was such
a fine sermon, and he had such a large congregation, that I asked
why he did not go to a finer church. He said he was "carrying soup
to Mrs. Ronquist." By the way, his organist was a splendid musician.
She introduced herself to me. It was Scroggs's daughter. She is married,
and can walk as well as I can. She had a little girl with her that I think
she called "Fanny". I do not think that was Mrs. Scroggs's name.
Frank is now a doctor, or rather a surgeon, in the same city with Joe,
and becoming very distinguished. The other day he performed
a great operation, saving a woman's life, which was in all the papers.
He said to an interviewer that he became a surgeon from dressing a sore
on an old mare's back. I wonder what he was talking about?
He is about to start a woman's hospital for poor women.
Cousin Fanny would have been glad of that; she was always proud of Frank.
She would as likely as not have quoted that verse from Tennyson's song
about the echoes. She sleeps now under the myrtle at Scroggs's.
I have often thought of what that doctor said about her:
that she would have been a very remarkable woman, if she had not been
an old maid -- I mean, a spinster.






The Burial of the Guns