dotting the sandy sea, whence spring the "fountains of perpetual peace"
and issue the healing waters.

These loving ones surrounded me as I sat busily occupied with my bead
work, and not only delighted and entertained with their curious questions
and familiar chat, but freely bought my books and fifty dollars worth of
baskets, while they would doubtless have doubled the amount had not this
exhausted my little store.

As we steamed in sight of Montgomery a gentleman came into the cabin and
requested me to make for him eight of the handsomest bead baskets before
we landed; and, seeing an amused and incredulous smile upon my face, he
said: "You work so dexterously and so rapidly that I did not realize that
my demand was unreasonable." Explaining to him that it would require eight
hours of the closest application to accomplish that amount of work, he
apologized and left me. Nor did this specimen of the "genus homo" evince
any unusual ignorance of woman's work, whose endless routine and
diversified drudgery ofttimes require the patience of a Job and the wisdom
of a Solomon. In the labyrinth of domestic entanglement more is needed
than the silken clue of Ariadne, and the vexed question of domestic
economy requires the unerring skill of the diplomatist, the subtle tact of
the politician, and the sure strength of the statesman. The "Poet of
Poets" has shown his appreciation of the character and life of woman in
the following lines:

From woman's eyes this doctrine I derive;
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academies,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.