[10] "After the Ball", which was sometimes printed under the title of "Madge and Maud", was afterwards incorporated in a book with other poems, published in Boston in 1874, but the many verses that Perry wrote since that time, never faded from the memory of her readers the picture of the two maidens, who,—[4] "Sat and combed their beautiful hair After the revel was done."

At intervals, she was in the habit of collecting her magazine contributions and issuing them in book form, such as are often classed as "summer reading".

[4] In 1881 followed a Book of Love Stories, the very title of which endeared it to all the youthful readers wanting "something new" that did not require too much thought.

In New Songs and Ballads (1886), there were several poems of high literary merit, though none held the sympathies of its readers as completely as "After the Ball"; among the best of these were "Her Lover's Friend", "Lady Wentworth", and a piece entitled "The Maid of Honor".

Her eulogy on Vasco Nunez de Balboa, first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the isthmus of what is today Panama, exemplifies her poetic style.

[11] Her works of fiction were "briskly told" and, like her verses, appealed to the sentiment of the broader reading public.