Amyot was also peripatetic it was
inevitable that sooner or later we should cross each other's path. It was
therefore without surprise that, one snowy afternoon in Boston, I learned
from the lady with whom I chanced to be lunching that, as soon as the meal
was over, I was to be taken to hear Mrs. Amyot lecture.
"On Greek art?" I suggested.
"Oh, you've heard her then? No, this is one of the series called 'Homes
and Haunts of the Poets.' Last week we had Wordsworth and the Lake Poets,
to-day we are to have Goethe and Weimar. She is a wonderful creature--all
the women of her family are geniuses. You know, of course, that her mother
was Irene Astarte Pratt, who wrote a poem on 'The Fall of Man'; N.P.
Willis called her the female Milton of America. One of Mrs. Amyot's aunts
has translated Eurip--"
"And is she as pretty as ever?" I irrelevantly interposed.
My hostess looked shocked. "She is excessively modest and retiring. She
says it is actual suffering for her to speak in public. You know she only
does it for the baby."
Punctually at the hour appointed, we took our seats in a lecture-hall full
of strenuous females in ulsters. Mrs. Amyot was evidently a favorite with
these austere sisters, for every corner was crowded, and as we entered a
pale usher with an educated mispronunciation was setting forth to several
dejected applicants the impossibility of supplying them with seats.
Our own were happily so near the front that when the curtains at the back
of the platform parted, and Mrs.
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