Three generations

268 MEN AND WOMEN MET BY THE WAY
She bore a resemblance to the pictures of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning in the very prominent mouth, which
in both women approached to a physical defect. When
I saw Miss Bird she was lying on a sofa, her frequent
attitude when at home, free from ceremony. It was
difficult to imagine how, under the inspiration of travel
and novelty, she could ride whole days, man's fashion,
and undertake solitary expeditions in the wilds, de-
pending for refreshment on the way on the raisins in
her saddle-bag and the springs by the road, while she
sighted grizzly bears with philosophic coolness, or
lived for days and nights with a party of — what shall
I call them ? — bravos, bandits, half-breeds, to whom
the most worthless cowboy would have been a model
of virtue and civilization, keeping house for them,
washing their clothes, etc., and in the end treated by
them with the utmost respect, according to the cue
given them by their leader, the greatest bully and
most dreaded bandit among them.
In an interval spent in Scotland Miss Bird was with
her sister in one of the far Northern Highlands and
Islands when the younger of the two was struck down
by typhoid fever in the little school-house in which
they lodged, where comforts were few and luxuries
nil, and medical aid and appliances could only be had
from a distance. Learning the strait of the ladies, a
medical friend in Edinburgh went to their assistance,
and remained with Miss Bird till the death of her
sister. Eventually the friend in need (Dr. Bishop)
married Miss Bird, but not without a compact on her
side that when the wandering fit came upon her she
should be at liberty to wander. As it was, Dr. Bishop
died a few years after the marriage and left his widow
her own mistress. But gathering years did something