Eleanor H. Porter

“ Livingstone's husband was only an ordinary being who knew nothing whatever of Art; and it was a relief to her—and perhaps to him, poor man—when he departed this life, and left her to an artistic widowhood with anything but an artistic income—if size counts in Art. But one must eat, and one must wear clothes (in chilly, civilized Boston, at least) , and Mrs. Livingstone suddenly realized that something must be done toward supplying these necessities of life for herself and her young daughter, Mabel. ”

“ Livingstone conducted about the house with reverent impressiveness, displaying its various charms much as a young mother would "show off" her baby.
"It is something to buy a house owned by so famous a man," she insinuated gently one day, after vainly trying to awaken a proper enthusiasm in a prim little woman who was talking of purchasing. ”

“ A Patron of Art
Mrs. Livingstone adored art—Art with a capital A, not the kind whose sign-manual is a milking-stool or a beribboned picture frame. The family had lived for some time in a shabby-genteel house on Beacon Hill, ever since, indeed, Mrs. Livingstone had insisted on her husband's leaving the town of his birth and moving to Boston—the center of Art (according to Mrs. Livingstone) . ”