Once furnished with a subject, her pen, as has been said before, always moved with the utmost ease and rapidity.  But while she wrote very easily, she did not write without reflection.  ’She had a keen sense of character in all its phases, and her individual portraits, like those of Katy, Mrs. Grey and Margaret, Aunt Avery and Kezia Millet, were worked out with the utmost care, the result of years of observation and study being embodied in them.

And here, in passing, it may not be out of place to dwell for an instant upon her motives and experience as an author.  From first to last she wrote, not to get gain or to win applause, but to do good; and herein she had her reward, good measure, pressed down and running over.  But of that kind of reward which gratifies literary taste and ambition, she had almost none.  Her books, even those most admired by the best judges, and which had the widest circulation, both at home and abroad, attracted but little attention from the press.  The organs of literary intelligence and criticism scarcely noticed them at all.  Nor is it known that any attempt was ever made to analyse any of her more striking characters, or to point out the secret of her power and success as a writer.  To be sure, she had never sought or counted upon this sort of recognition; and yet that she was keenly alive to a word of discriminating praise, will appear from a letter to Mrs. Condict, dated Jan. 20th: 

The burglary was on this wise, as far as we know.  One man stood on the front steps, and another slipped the hasp to one of the parlor windows, stepped in, took a very valuable French clock, given me on my silver-wedding day, and all the hats and overcoats from the hall.  This was all they had time to do before our night-watchman came round; they left the window wide open, and at 4 A.M.  Pat rang the bell and informed Mr. Prentiss that such was the case.  We feel it a great mercy that we were not attacked and maltreated.  Poor A. was sitting up in bed, hearing what was going on, but being alone on the third floor, did not dare to move.

I have just finished a short story called Gentleman Jim, which I am going to send to Scribner’s; very likely it will get overlooked and lost.  I received, not long ago, a letter from Mr. Cady [2] about Greylock, which he had just read.  It was a gratification to both my husband and myself, as the most discriminating letter I ever received; and after the first rush of pleasure, the Evil One troubled me, off and on, for two or three hours, but at last I reminded him that I long ago chose to cast in my lot with the people of God, and so be off the line of human notice or applause, and that I was glad I had been enabled to do it, since literary ambition is unbecoming a Christian woman.  There are 500 other things I should say, if you were here!