'* Let us have cooks; but let us leave it a matter of
choice, as we leave the dressmaking and the shoe-
making, the millinery and the carpentry, — free to be
chosen !

" There are cultivated and educated women who
enjoy cooking; so there are cultivated men who enjoy
Kensington embroidery. Who objects? But take care
that some rousing of the intellect comes first, — that it
may be an enlightened choice, — and do not so fill the



RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 253

day with bread and butter and stitches that no time is
left for the appreciation of Whittier, letting at least the
simple songs of daily life and the influence of rhythm
beautify the dreary round of the three meals a day."

Miss Mitchell had a stock of conundrums on hand,
and was a good guesser. She told her stories at all
times when they happened to come into her mind. She
would arrive at her sister's house, just from Poughkeepsie
on a vacation, and after the threshold was crossed and
she had said " Good morning," in a clear voice to be
heard by all within her sight, she would, perhaps, say,
" Well, I have a capital story which I must tell before I
take my bonnet off, or I shall forget it ! " And there
went with her telling an action, voice, and manner which
added greater point to the story, but which cannot be
described. One of her associates at Vassar, in recalling
some of her anecdotes, writes : " Professor Mitchell was
quite likely to stand and deliver herself of a bright little
speech before taking her seat at breakfast. It was as
though the short walk from the observatory had been
an inspiration to thought."

She was quick at repartee. On one occasion Char-
lotte Cushman and her friend Miss Stebbins were visiting
Miss Mitchell at Vassar. Miss Mitchell took them out
for a drive, and pointed out the different objects of
interest as they drove along the banks of the Hudson.
