School-days in 1800

"Come, child, sit down," said Sarah. "What are you waiting for?"

"For the blessing," said I, simply.

Malvina and Sarah first stared and then burst out laughing. Melinda coloured up to her eyes.

"Do stop your fool's laughing," said she, angrily, to the others; then, turning to me, "Come, child, sit down, and never mind them. 'You' have been brought up with Christian folks, but we ain't of that kind here. We don't have any religion in this house."

"Religion!" said Malvina, with a sneer. "What good has religion done us, I should like to know?"

"What good has the other thing done us? Perhaps you can tell," retorted Melinda, turning upon her sharply. "There, child! Eat your supper if you can find anything to eat. Here! I'll get you some maple sugar. I expect you ain't used to such butter as ours."

I felt that Melinda meant to be kind, and I tried to eat, but every morsel seemed to choke me. None of the men of the family were present, and I heard Malvina tell the old woman that "dad" had gone "over the mountain."

Every moment increased my home-sickness and added to the stings of my conscience. I pictured to myself Rose's alarm at my absence and her sending the boys out to look for me. I thought of my mother and Jeanne, and how they would suppose me safe in my own bed. I remembered how I had promised my mother to be good and mind Rose and say my prayers the same as if she were at home. To add to my distress, the wind began to rise and the thunder to growl among the hills.

Malvina went to the door and looked out.

"There's going to be an awful storm," she said, in an under-tone, to Sarah, adding, not so low but what I heard her, "You had better go to bed before it comes on. The young one will be scared to death, especially if dad comes home."

This dark hint was the drop which made the cup overflow. I burst into a flood of tears and cried with all my might.

"Oh, I want to go home, I want to go home!" I sobbed, and almost screamed. "I won't stay here! I want to go home to Rose! Oh, mother, mother!"

"Hush your noise, you little fool!" said Malvina, sharply. "Sarah, what did you bring her for? You might have known how it would be."

"Well, there! You needn't scold her," said Melinda. "Hush, hush, Olly! Nobody sha'n't hurt you. Go to bed, and you shall go home first thing in the morning. I would take you to-night, only it's going to rain in a minute."

"Take her to-night, indeed!" said Malvina. "Hush up, Olly, or I'll set the dog on you!"

"Set the dog on you, set the dog on you!" cried the old woman, in a cracked, croaking voice. "That's the way: set the dogs on 'em."

I do not think the poor thing meant me any harm—it was only a way she had in her dotage of repeating any word which happened to strike her ear—but I had not the sense to understand the matter then. I hushed my sobs and allowed Sarah to lead me to the loft where we had been before, and to unfasten my dress. When I was ready for bed, I knelt down to say my prayers—an action which produced a new burst of laughter from Sarah:

"Oh what a nice little girl! Oh what a nice little mammy-girl! Now run home and tell mummy how good she is, do!"

Timid and yielding as I was, I could fight when pushed to the wall, and Sarah's contemptuous allusion to my mother gave me the needed push. My pride and my love for my mother were both aroused at once.

"Sarah Millar, I shall say my prayers for all you," said I, looking up. "You are an awful wicked, bad girl; and if you say another word, I'll run all the way home, storm or no storm. I might just as well be caught by painters as stay with such a girl as you are. I won't speak to you again to-night—so!"

With that I put my head down and finished my prayers, certainly in no very Christian frame of mind, nor, though Sarah changed her tone and began to coax me, would I open my lips again. Tired at last, she turned over and went to sleep, but I could not sleep. The storm was in full force by this time. The lightning flashed brightly into the uncurtained window and gave me momentary glimpses of the tossing trees on the other side of the ravine. The thunder sounded louder than any I had ever heard, and the wind groaned among the trees in an appalling manner, while the brook, swelled by the pouring rain, presently added its hoarse voice to the other noises. The old house rocked and creaked, and in one of the flashes of lightning I distinctly saw a great rat run along the floor. I was almost as much afraid of rats as of panthers, and was about to spring out of bed, when I remembered that I might step on the monster, which would, I thought, kill me entirely.

But by degrees my thoughts took another turn, and from considering my danger I began to reflect how very naughty I had been, how ungrateful to Rose, who had done so much for me all my life long, how disobedient to mother, whom I had promised to be good, and to Miss Tempy, who had expressly enjoined me to go straight home from school. And I had answered, "Yes, ma'am," as if I meant to do it, when all the time I meant no such thing. Oh how mean and little and wicked did I appear in my own eyes! And all for the sake of a girl whom I did not even like.

I had been well instructed in religion, and I knew that I had disobeyed not only my earthly parents, but also my heavenly Father. Only for that, I thought, I would ask him to take care of me and bring me safe home. And then I remembered a verse I had read at prayers that very morning—that morning which now seemed so long ago:

   "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

I was not quite certain that those were the very words, but that was the sense, I was sure. He could hear me as much in one place as in another—as much in this miserable garret as if I were in my own neat, pretty little room at home.

A kind of solemn and quieting awe seemed to fill upon me as I remembered, and for the first time in my little life "realized," the presence of my heavenly Father. My sobs ceased, and in such words as I could command I confessed what I had done and asked for forgiveness; and then, quieted by my devotions and feeling quite sure that my prayer was heard—for did not mother and the Bible both say so?—I lay down and fell asleep, but not before I had made two resolutions—one that I would never run away again, the other that I would set out for home the minute I waked in the morning instead of waiting and going to school with Sarah, as we had planned the night before.

My bed was far from comfortable, and I waked with the first gleam of daylight. Rising softly without waking Sarah, I dressed myself with all speed, and stepped quietly down the stairs, not without some misgiving lest I should be unable to get out or should encounter the men of the family; for from some gruff voices which I had heard once in the night, I concluded that "dad," as the girls called him, had returned. But timid as I was, I sometimes had spasms, as it were, of courage and resolution, in which I think I would have faced a lion, or even a rat, without the slightest hesitation. When I reached the kitchen, however, there was no one to be seen, and the door—oh joyful sight!—was half open.

Never did I pass over any ground so quickly as over that first mile of the road that led to the village. Then my strength began to flag, and I sat down to rest. I knew where I was now, and calculated that by skirting the edge of John Schneider's wood-lot and crossing his and our pasture I should save a long distance and reach home without meeting any one. So I climbed the rough stone wall without any trouble, and struck into a path that I knew right well, for I had often passed over it on berrying and flower-hunting excursions.

I had not gone far before I found I had underrated the difficulties of my way. The wood-path was narrow and almost overgrown with blackberry and raspberry bushes, which caught my clothes at every step, and were, besides, dripping with wet. The rain had swollen two or three little brooks which could usually be crossed by a jump, so that there was nothing for it but to take off my shoes and stockings and pass over more than ankle deep in water, and the grass was so drenched that my whole progress was more like wading than walking. In the state in which I then found myself, however, I think I should have been almost as ready to face fire as I was to encounter water; and though I was ready to drop from fatigue and hunger—for I had really eaten hardly a mouthful since noon the day before—I travelled on without halting a moment till I entered our back yard and walked directly up to Rose, who was just preparing to set out in search of me.

"Oh, Rose," I exclaimed, clasping my arms round her from behind—"oh, Rose, I've been the worst girl that ever was!" And here I broke down and fell into a fit of hysterical crying.

Rose wasted no words. She first caught me up in her arms and kissed me. Being made aware by this act how wet I was, she carried me into my own bed-room, and in less time, I believe, than the operation ever was performed before or since she had stripped me of my clothes, endued me with a warm flannel night-gown, and deposited me in bed. Then at last her feelings found expression.

"Bless de Lord!" she exclaimed. "You naughty, wicked, blessed child! I never was so glad to see anybody! I'se a great mind to give you a good whipping as ever I had to eat; and I don't s'pose you've had a mouthful of breakfast, either."

"I don't want any breakfast," said I; and I really thought so.

"Don't talk to me, child," was the reply.

And Rose bustled out, to return presently with a great cup of hot tea—a luxury usually allowed only on great occasions—and a piece of toasted bread.

"There! Drink your tea hot. I 'spect you've got your very death of cold. Such a night as I've had—all alone in the house, with the dreadfullest storm I ever did see, and not a soul to send anywhere."

"Why, where were the boys?" I asked.

"Oh, they went over to their cousin Lem's after school about the hogs, and it rained so I 'spect Lem would have 'em stay. I asked Symantha Hedges, and she said she see you a-going home with Sally Millar, and that Sally said she meant to get you away down there just to spite me, for she hates me like poison because I told Miss Tempy of some of her pranks. So I knew pretty well where you was. But how did I know what would happen? None of them Millars is any better than they should be—I guess Melindy is the best of the lot—and every one says the old man was a Tory in the war and helped murder the folks at Wyoming, besides being a regular sheep-stealer, and worse."

"Melinda was real good to me," said I; "but I'll never speak to Sarah again as long as I live. It was all her fault."

"I don't see that," answered Rose. "If you hadn't been so silly as to go with her, I don't see what she could have done to you. But what do you think your ma will say?"

"Oh, Rose, don't tell her—please don't tell her, will you?" I pleaded. "I won't do another single naughty thing while she is gone if only you won't tell her about this. Now, promise you won't."

"I sha'n't promise that I won't, nor that I will," said Rose; "but just tell me one thing, Olly: what do you mean to say when your ma asks you whether you have been a good girl?"

I had no answer ready for this question, and I remained silent. Rose had unusual tact for a person in her position. She did not press me for a reply, but left me to work out the problem by myself; bidding me go to sleep, for I must not think of going to school that day. This of itself was no small punishment, for I never willingly missed a day at school; but I was too tired to argue the matter, and I soon fell asleep, to awake with aching limbs and with a sore throat and every indication of a violent cold, which grew worse so rapidly that Rose thought it necessary to send for the doctor.

Doctor Partrige was a tall, large man who always wore knee-breeches and buckles, a dignified wig, and a pair of large silver-framed glasses. My mind was somewhat divided at the prospect of seeing him; for though I felt it was a dignified distinction to have the doctor all to myself; I did not know what he might do, especially if he should hear that my illness had been brought on by my own naughtiness. The doctor was very lenient, however. He told Rose to rub my throat well with oil and hartshorn, give me a bowl of hot catnip tea, and keep me in bed for two or three days; and he presented me at parting with a large piece of liquorice—a confection which he always carried in his pockets for the benefit of his small patients.

Rose was rather affronted.

"Worth while sending for the doctor!" she said, after Doctor Partrige had gone. "Guess I could have give you a bowl of catnip without any of his help. He might at least have left you some powders."

The catnip tea and the other applications seemed to answer the purpose, however, and in two or three days I was up and about, though teased with a hard cough which Rose prophesied would turn out to be whooping-cough.

My mother went away on Thursday and returned on Monday, and all that time the question was never out of my mind, "What shall I say when she asks me whether I have been a good girl?" But the problem was solved in an unexpected way. She did not ask me. Calling me into her bed-room, she said, with more than her usual kindness, if that were possible,—

"I am sure my little Olive has tried to be good and to please mother, and so I have brought her something very pretty."

So saying, she opened her basket and put into my hands a long blue paper box, in itself a treasure in those days. With trembling fingers I raised the lid. Oh, wonder of wonders! There lay a most beautiful doll—no home manufacture, but a real Boston doll, with blue eyes and black hair and a gilt comb, dressed, too, in the height of the fashion, in a narrow-skirted, short-waisted gown, and with a string of real beads round her neck.

The sight of this inestimable treasure, such as I had hardly dared hope ever to possess, answered my mental questions at once. I dropped the box on the bed; and falling on my knees and burying my head in mother's lap, I burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed out my confession without making any attempt to extenuate my fault by blaming Sarah.

Much as I had always loved my mother, I do not think I ever felt such a kind of adoration for her as I did that afternoon. She was so kind and forgiving, while she pointed out to me the greatness of my fault and the seriousness of its consequences, that I am sure I felt twenty times more penitent than I should have done if she had punished me ever so severely; and when she told me at the end that she should not take the doll away from me—that I might keep it to help me remember all she had said to me—I was overwhelmed with shame and confusion. I took my treasure to my room. I examined its beautiful clothes, which mother told me she had made herself on the very evening that I was running away with Sarah Millar, and I resolved, with new tears and a prayer which I am sure was quite sincere, that I would never grieve or disobey mother again. That doll always possessed a peculiar sacredness to me above all my other toys, and was destined to play a somewhat, important part in my history. I kept it for many years, and lost it in a way which I shall describe hereafter.

Rose's prediction concerning the whooping-cough turned out to be correct. Ruth and I both had it—Ruth lightly and I severely, probably from the cold I had taken at the beginning of the disorder. Be that as it may, I was very unwell all winter, so that going to school was out of the question.

In the course of this winter the Millars vanished from their house on Beartown Mountain, nobody knew how or where. Probably they moved westward, as so many were doing at that time. I used to think of them many a time, and wonder whether they had found the treasure and gone to some distant city to enjoy it, and I used to try to imagine how Sarah and Malvina would look dressed in satin, with rings on their fingers, and riding in a fine coach like that of old Madam Childs in Pittsfield. I now think it more likely that some of the doings of the old man had brought him within the grasp of the law, and that he found it convenient to disappear. I suppose such characters are even now to be found in New England, and in my time it was not uncommon for persons even of considerable education to waste all their substance in the pursuit of hidden treasures supposed to have been buried by Captain Kidd or some other noted pirate.

CHAPTER V.

SUNDAY.

THE rest of the winter passed quietly, and pleasantly also, in spite of the whooping-cough, which ran through all our neighbourhood and almost broke up the school. Among the chief sufferers was poor Elnathan Crum, who died just as the spring flowers were beginning to come out in the woods and fields. Elnathan was very fond of flowers, and had them about him just as long as any could be found; and I well remember how Miss Tempy surprised and rather shocked some of the neighbours by filling the dead boy's cold hands with violets and trailing arbutus. I believe they thought the action savoured of superstition.

Emily Hyde, Jenny's sister, also died this spring. I specially recollect the fact from hearing Rose say that she thought Emmy must be glad to go where there were no lessons and no sewing.

"She was a wonderful smart girl," said Mrs. Edwards, who had dropped in on her way home to tell us the news. "Her father told Mr. Edwards that Emmy could read her Greek Testament at sixteen as well as he could, and was quite prepared to enter the Junior class at college. Only that the poor thing died so young, there is no knowing what she might have turned out."

"Yes; 'only,'" said Rose, who, as I have remarked before, would have her say on all occasions—"only that the poor thing died, the mare might have learned to live on nothing."

My own education did not suffer at all from the fact of my staying at home. I had begun arithmetic before I was taken sick, and liked it very much, and I made such progress in the science with the help of my mother and Jeanne that when I returned to school Miss Tempy placed me in a class of girls and boys two or three years older than myself. I also achieved one object of my literary ambition by being allowed to begin grammar. The manual I studied was Webster's little grammar arranged with questions and answers. The elder classes studied Murray with the exercises, than which no better book for teaching English has ever been contrived. But this was considered too hard for a beginner, though I do not really believe it was any more difficult than the one I had in hand. It is by no means the case that things are always made easier by attempts to simplify them.

Two important family events happened this spring—a new baby was born, and Ruth, now four years old, began to go to school. She was a sturdy, merry, sweet-tempered little thing, who made friends wherever she went, and she was soon quite at home in the little commonwealth, and needed no protection from me. She was a greater favourite than I had ever been, which I considered rather hard, seeing I was quite sure that she never took half as much pains to please Miss Tempy or any one else as I did; but she had an even, sunny temper and a disregard of small annoyances much more calculated to make her way smooth than were my excessive sensitiveness, my various and irregular moods and tenses. However, I can honestly say I was never for one moment jealous or envious of Ruth, but rejoiced in all her social and school triumphs as much as if they had been my own.

The new baby was a fine, bouncing boy, of a whom we were all as proud—so Rose said—as if we had made him ourselves. To Jeanne's special delight, he was named Henry Dupont, after her father. Jeanne was now toward sixteen, very sedate and mature for her age. She did not go to school this summer, but stayed at home to help mother with the work and the care of the baby; and a very efficient help she was. I missed her greatly in school, where we had always been companions, despite our differing ages, and I used regularly to tell her everything that happened—a practice which I am sure kept me out of a great many scrapes. She was a kind of outward conscience, for I was always thinking, "What will Jeanne say?"

I got on very nicely that summer. The school was small, and Miss Tempy was able to give me a great deal of individual attention, which she did, I suppose, all the more readily that I really loved learning for its own sake. I did rather grudge the time she would have me spend on fine needle-work and grew somewhat impatient under her extreme particularity. I specially remember almost breaking out into active rebellion over a night-cap ruffle which she made me take out and do over three times before she was satisfied with it.

"The time will come, Olivia," said she, in her precise way—she never called one Olive or Olly, as other people did—"the time will come, Olivia, when you will thank me for making you do your work exactly right;" and she was correct. I have thanked her many a time when I have seen what work young, and even married, women make of sewing nowadays, especially of their button-holes. I made a fine linen shirt this summer—an achievement of which I was very proud; and my father, for whose birth-day I had prepared it, gave me a dollar—not, he was careful to explain to me, by way of payment, but as a reward or encouragement for taking so much pains to improve in my sewing.

I also learned to spin wool this summer, and this learning to spin was one of the many occasions on which I got myself laughed at by my brothers and Rose. Mother often employed a spinning-girl named Lucy Cherryman, who went out spinning by the week and was famous for accomplishing her day's work in less time than any one else in the neighbourhood. Lucy had a fine voice, and always sung at her wheel. The process of drawing out the thread looked very easy to me.

"Gently, gently!" said my mother. "You will have to be very careful at first."

But I was confident in my own powers, as usual. I drew out my thread, and at the same time struck up a verse of one of Lucy's favourite songs:

"Lady Margaret sat in her bow-window
 Combing out her golden yellow hair."

The consequences were what I might have expected. The thread snapped, the wheel ran back, and all was to begin over again. I was dreadfully mortified—not so much at the laugh which followed as at my own silliness—and could hardly be persuaded to try again. At last, however, the boys being out of the way, I took hold of the business once more in a more sober and careful spirit, and succeeded very well, insomuch that when I was fifteen I could despatch my day's work as well and in as short a time as Lucy Cherryman herself. I also learned the use of the little or linen-wheel, but I never spun much linen. The action of the small wheel affected my head and made me nervous, so that I could not get rid of the motion even in my sleep. So I left the little wheel to Jeanne, who was marvellously skilful in its use, and confined myself to the spinning of wool, and also of tow, which was easy, though dirty, work.

I often wonder, when I look back at it, how we used to find time for so much work, and I am almost tempted to think the days were longer eighty years ago than they are now. Besides all the household work performed by a farmer's family nowadays—the making of cheese and butter, the baking and other cooking—my mother brewed beer at least once in ten days, and usually every week. This beer was a very mild beverage, of course, and I don't know that any one could possibly have been intoxicated upon it, but it was very pleasant to the taste, being brisk and sparkling, at least when new. After a few days it began to deteriorate, and the appearance of certain white specks known as "messengers" gave warning that the time was come for another brewing.

But besides these cares, there was also the preparation of the family clothing, which was all made at home. The farmer sheared his own sheep, his wife and daughters spun the yarn, and not seldom themselves wove the cloth and flannel into which it was converted. It was the same with the flax, which was dressed in the barn and spun and woven in the house. We had some cotton clothes, but they were not very nice and were little used, and we had printed chintz, some of which came from India, for our best dresses.

I remember a story which I heard from Mrs. Sheldon concerning my Aunt Sylvia, my father's eldest sister. It seems there was to be a grand party in the town, to which Mistress Sylvia was of course invited, she being a young lady famous for both her beauty and her accomplishments. Miss Sylvia had set her heart upon a chintz dress to appear in on the grand occasion, but it was in the time of the war, and chintz dresses were not only inordinately dear, but extremely scarce. However, Aunt Sylvia was not to be foiled. She had a colour-box and was possessed of some skill in the art of painting flowers. So she took a pair of fine linen sheets; and having fastened them down on the floor, she proceeded to ornament the linen with bunches of flowers laid on with her best colours and skill. The gown thus produced was worn in triumph to the party, and was greatly admired. * But in general our clothes were nearly all home-made in every sense of the word.

* I had this tale from Mrs. Chloe Sheldon, a very intelligent old lady, who died at the "Home" in Rochester at the age of one hundred and four, retaining her faculties to the last.

With all these manifold employments, women found time for a great deal of fancy-work, especially in the way of working flounces and piecing bed-quilts, for much visiting, and also for a great deal of reading. It was a time of much interest and discussion in the theological world, and most of the neighbours who visited my mother were fully capable of taking an intelligent part in the arguments which were pretty sure to occur on the great points whereon the magnates of the said theological world were at issue. But their study was not confined to religious and metaphysical books. My mother was one of the best-read women I have ever met in classical English literature, especially in poetry, of which she was very fond; and though she knew no language but her own, at least she knew that thoroughly, and she saved many a dollar from her dress that she might spend it on books.

My father was also a reader, and took two newspapers; besides that, he rarely went to Pittsfield or Albany—whither some business concerning his father's property usually called him two or three times a year—without bringing home a new book. I shall never forget Jeanne's delight and mine when, after his return from one of these excursions, he produced Miss Burney's "Evelina" and "Cecilia." Mother at once made a law—more for my benefit than Jeanne's, who was always a law to herself in all matters of self-denial—that these charming volumes must not be touched till the work was all done and the lessons all learned—a rule which, instead of detracting from our enjoyment, only made it last the longer. We read and reread and discussed these volumes again and again; and I am sure no people I have ever met are more real to me at this moment than the characters in these stories.

For Sundays we had the Bible first of all. Grandfather had given each of his daughters at her marriage a fine family Bible with many prints and containing the Apocrypha. This book my mother wisely kept in reserve for our Sunday's entertainment; and as we were not allowed to have it on any other day, it was always new. Besides this, we had a few special Sunday books. One of these, and a great favourite of mine, was "Flavel on the Prophecies," which I used to read and dream over with great interest. "Paradise Lost" occupied a sort of debatable ground, especially after I found out that, though the book contained some of the same people who were in the Bible, yet the speeches and a good many of the stories were made up. It seemed to me, as indeed it does now, that Mr. Milton had no right to put his own words into the mouth of the Creator and Redeemer, and that the doing so was a great irreverence. Fox's "Book of Martyrs" was quite as much of a favourite and had not the same drawbacks, and I was never tired of meditating on the heroic instances of virtue and endurance recorded therein. Jeanne, however, never liked this book as well as I did. She seemed somehow to feel that the stories of Roman Catholic persecutions it contained were a sort of reflection on her own ancestors and on her kind friends the nuns of Baltimore, whom she always remembered with great affection.

We had no Sunday-school books and no Sunday-school, properly so-called, though we children learned the catechism in school, and were examined in the same by the minister in the meeting-house, usually as often as once in every month.

I don't think I ever found those old Sundays as tiresome as it is the fashion to represent them nowadays. For one thing, they were broken by the custom of keeping Saturday night, which prevailed universally at that time. Saturday morning was a time of considerable haste and bustle. There was usually baking to be done, and something specially nice to be prepared, that there need be no unnecessary cooking on Sunday. Often there was a little mystery attached to the Sunday feast, which was got ready in the buttery and committed to the big brick oven unseen by us children, that it might turn out a pleasant surprise. Our Sunday clothes were all to be looked over and got in readiness and the best shoes blacked. There were errands to be done at the store; and happy was I when these errands fell to my lot, for I was a favourite with old Mr. Clapp, who kept it, and I hardly ever went thither without receiving some little present—a piece of tinsel, an end of ribbon, a few raisins, or a lump of white sugar; or if the old gentleman had just returned from Albany or Boston, my eyes were usually made glad by the sight of a new little book.

But to return to our Sundays. As the day wore on, the bustle began to subside, and before sunset it was all over and the quiet of Sunday descended upon our household. There was often a prayer-meeting somewhere in the neighbourhood, which my father and brothers attended, but mother seldom went, and Jeanne and I had her all to ourselves for one of those precious talks which we loved so much, and to which I learned afterward to look back with an inexpressible sense of longing home-sickness and desolation. It could hardly have been so, I think, but it seems to me now as if on those evenings the sunsets were always bright and beautiful and the moon always shining. If any trouble or perplexity or wrong-doing had burdened our minds or consciences through the week, mother was sure to have it laid before her on Saturday night. Oh, they were lovely, peaceful hours!

We usually went to bed pretty early, as it was needful to be up in good season on Sunday morning in order to have the work done up in time to go to church. The breakfast was a little better than ordinary, and we children were each allowed a cup of tea; coffee had not come into general use at that time, though we sometimes had it on great occasions. A dainty specially allotted to Sunday morning was the Indian bread which had stood in the brick oven since the day before, and now came out hot and delicious, as no corn-bread can be which is not baked in the same way.

From breakfast to meeting-time was, I must admit, rather a weary interval. We children were all in our best clothes, and could not be allowed to run about for fear of spoiling them, so there was nothing for it but to sit still in our chairs, look out of the window, and fidget, while our elders did up such work as was absolutely needful. After I learned to read, I used to employ this time in committing to memory hymns and psalms; and I learned a great deal of the hymn-book in this way.

Before the first bell had done ringing, we were all on our way to church, except when there was a little baby; then mother, Rose, and latterly Jeanne, took turns in staying at home with it. I was never considered steady enough for this office, to my great indignation—not that I desired to stay away from church, but I did not like to feel that I was not trusted.

Our pew in church was a square one, with seats which folded back as we stood up which we did in prayer-time. My own special seat was a corner one, with my back to the minister and my face to the window—a position which not seldom proved a snare to me when I grew so old that I was expected to remember and give some account of the sermon. A large tree grew before our particular window, and in this tree a pair of robins and also a pair of red squirrels made their home summer after summer, and I sometimes found it quite impossible not to be diverted from Mr. Henderson's sermons by the doings of these little people.

Mr. Henderson was considered a very fine preacher, but I do not think his discourses in general were calculated to be interesting or edifying to a little child. They were nearly always occupied with discussions of the abstruse points of doctrine which at that time absorbed so much attention in New England. I could not often follow his reasoning, or see any particular meaning or use in it if I did; and though I always remembered the text and the substance of the chapter that was read, I could make but a poor account of the sermon itself. I was always delighted when Mr. Henderson occupied himself with any subject of practical duty or gave, as he sometimes did, a lecture on the chapter he read, for at such times he was so clear and simple that any child could understand him, and his illustrations were full of point and beauty. But in general I must say it was a time of great relief when the sermon was ended and the last hymn sung. Both my brothers were in the choir, and it was always an interesting thing to see them standing in the gallery with their singing-books. I specially delighted in what were called fuguing tunes, where the different parts followed and caught and passed each other, always seeming in danger of utter confusion, but always coming out right in the end.

A good many boys and girls sat in the gallery, but mother always insisted that her children should remain with their parents, in which I think she was quite right, for such of the young folks as sat by themselves often got into sad trouble. Once I remember that two of our school-girls, Mehitabel Andrews and Abby Sheldon, behaved so badly that Mr. Henderson spoke to them from the pulpit. This was a terrible disgrace and distressed poor Abby, who was really a very good girl in general, though she had the misfortune of being very easily roused to laughter. She was forced to go and beg Mr. Henderson's pardon, as was no more than proper. The good man dealt very gently and kindly with her, pointing out the great impropriety of her conduct in disturbing public worship, etc., and concluding by the excellent advice that she should always sit with her grandmother or some elderly friend, and keep her eyes and attention fixed on the minister.

Mehitabel had nobody to control her except a very foolish and weak-minded step-mother, who, as Rose said, was always tight in the wrong place and loose in the wrong place. On this occasion Mrs. Andrews took Hetty's part against both Mr. Henderson and Miss Tempy Hutchinson, who was greatly mortified that one of her oldest girls should have involved herself in such disgrace. I am glad to say, however, that when Hetty's first anger cooled, and she had time to think the matter over, she saw her conduct in its true light, and of her own accord made proper apologies both to Mr. Henderson and Miss Tempy. The lesson was not lost on the other young folks who sat in the gallery, and for a long time the tithing-men, whose business it was to preserve order, had an easy time of it.

At noon we had an intermission of an hour between the services. This was a very pleasant, social time. Those who lived at a distance from the church—that is, at least half the congregation—stayed to the second service, and employed the time between in eating the luncheons they had brought with them and in quiet conversation. It was a place of meeting for friends and relations who, living in different parts of the town, did not see each other through the week, to detail family news and to compare notes on family affairs. Neighbourhood prayer-meetings were often arranged at this time; and if any one was sick, his or her case was talked over with friendly interest, and watchers arranged for where they were necessary.

We girls—that is, Jeanne and I—enjoyed the time of intermission greatly, chiefly because we were certain to see Cousin Lemuel's daughters Margaret and Emma, who were great friends of ours, and Myra Landon, another very distant cousin, who lived in quite another part of the town. We usually repaired to a distant corner of the grave-yard where some moss-grown stones afforded convenient seats, and clubbing the resources of our lunch-bags spread quite a little feast. We often took occasion at this time to make an exchange of books, and I particularly remember Myra's bringing with her "The Pilgrim's Progress," on which I fastened so eagerly that I had not a word for any one, thereby scandalizing Maggie and Emma, who declared it could not be a real Sunday book because there were pictures in it, and stories of giants and dragons and battles, just like our fairy-tales. Myra, on the contrary, maintained with doubtful logic that it was a Sunday book because her father read it on Sunday, and besides, it told about the "devil;" and to prove her position she turned to the picture of Apollyon, a very truculent-looking demon indeed. The matter was, as usual, referred to Jeanne, and she, as usual, advised me to wait and ask mother, to which I somewhat reluctantly consented. Highly delighted I was when mother told me that "The Pilgrim's Progress" was an excellent Sunday book, and father promised me that when I could say the whole catechism without one single mistake, I should have a copy of my own if he could find such a thing in Albany.

The afternoon session was usually somewhat shorter than the morning. Sometimes we had a catechising instead, at which time we children stood up before the minister and recited the catechism word for word; and happy was the boy or girl who by the readiness of his or her answers, and the accuracy with which the "proof-texts" were recited, won a word of commendation from Mr. Henderson. There were several negroes in our class, servants or the children of servants, and our gravity was sometimes severely tried by the oddity of their answers.

When church was out, we went home to a kind of tea-dinner which took place between four and five, at which the mysterious something which had been prepared the day before made its appearance, and when we children were again allowed a cup of well-sweetened tea if we succeeded in giving the texts correctly.

At sunset the restraints of Sunday, such as they were, ceased, but we children usually kept quiet till we could see one star, by way of being quite on the safe side. My mother and Rose took their knitting and father his weekly paper. Abner put on his best clothes and went to see his sweetheart. Tom and Ezra, and sometimes Jeanne and I, went to singing-school. The ringing of the nine o'clock bell sent everybody to bed; and that ended our Sunday.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GREAT BREAK.

MY life went on the even tenor of its way as I have described it till I was eleven years old. At this time I was large of my age, though not as strong in health as most of my school-mates, and I was farther advanced in my studies than I think most girls of eleven are nowadays. I could read, write, and spell English very well. I had gone as far as square root in arithmetic. I was parsing in Young's "Night Thoughts," and could give every rule in Murray's grammar by number and most of the notes to the same, and had written all the exercises. I had executed a marvellous sampler, and was now engaged on a fine white cambric flounce which was intended to contain a specimen of every known variety of satin-stitch, knot, and lace-stitch. I had grown rather superior to the attractions of dolls, and had made over to Ruth all my possessions in that line, always excepting my beautiful Lanesborough doll, which had to me the sacredness of a precious relic, and which I never meant to part with. I had become skilful in various house-keeping mysteries, and was considered an excellent spinner for my age.

I do not think my moral improvement had kept pace with my intellectual gain. I was very sensitive to praise and blame, very proud, and inclined to be jealous and to think myself ill-treated. At the same time, I was rather reserved; and instead of "telling everything right out," as Ruth did, I used to brood over and magnify my troubles till they assumed very large proportions.

Jeanne's absence from home was a great trouble to me. She was now a woman grown, and for the last few months she had been teaching very successfully in Cousin Lemuel's district, coming home every other Saturday and returning with Lemuel's family on Sunday afternoon. Ruth was a dear, sunshiny little soul, and I loved her with all my heart, but she did not in the least make Jeanne's place good. Tom was away with one of my Salisbury uncles, learning the iron business, to which he always had a great bent, and Ezra was intent on earning the means to go through college and fitting himself for the same.

Ezra had always been very good to me, and never teased me, as Tom did, but his mind was naturally very much occupied with his own studies and plans, and he had once or twice cut short my confidences and my catalogue of grievances by telling me that I thought quite too much about my little self, which was no doubt true. He also told me that I should not be all the time looking out for affronts and imagining that people meant to overlook me or hurt my feelings, but that I should busy my mind in thinking what I could do to give pleasure to others. This was excellent advice, but not much to the taste of the morbid, conceited little girl I then was. I was, in fact, just in the state of the heroine of the story-books Alice sometimes brings me home, who find themselves misunderstood and unappreciated at home and sigh for a wider career than helping their own mothers to mend their own clothes and cook their own dinners. I can't say it ever entered my mind to be dissatisfied with mother, who was still my model of all perfection, and whom I would have done well to imitate, but I did think it hard that she should have to give so much time to Harry while she had so little to spare for me.

In the latter part of this summer a change came over the spirit of our usually happy household. Father lost his accustomed cheerfulness and was absent-minded and gloomy, sometimes displaying an irritability which nobody had ever seen in him before. Ezra's face was dark as night for a few days; and when it cleared up a little, the expression was by no means what it had been before, but rather a look of settled patience and resolution. He had several private conferences with father and mother in their bed-room. I was busy in the yard one day during the last of these conferences; and though I scorned to listen, I did catch a few words.

"God help me!" said father in a voice such as I had never heard from him before. "My son, your very goodness wrings my heart and makes me reproach myself more than I did before."

"Don't say that, father," answered Ezra. "You acted for the best, and that is all any one can do."

"And it will turn out for the best," said my mother, with an evident effort to speak cheerfully. "We should never have known what good children we have been blessed with only for this misfortune."

Then there was a little silence, and presently I heard father's voice in prayer. I stole away to my own particular retiring-place in one of the little rooms up stairs, and cried bitterly, partly because I perceived that some misfortune had happened to my father or brother, I did not know which, and partly because I saw that there was a family secret from which I was excluded.

"They don't think any more of me than they do of old Rose," I thought; "and I dare say Rose knows all about it, for I know I heard her crying last night. And when Jeanne comes home, she and Ezra will go away together and talk about it, and nobody will say a word to me."

In truth, secret conferences had been rather frequent between Ezra and Jeanne of late, which was another of my grievances, for I considered Jeanne to be my own private property.

The next Saturday was not Jeanne's regular day for coming home, but Ezra harnessed up old Fanny to Mr. Hyde's little wagon, which would only hold two, and went after her. I did not see why he could not have taken our own wagon, and thus have made room for me, especially as he knew how much I wanted to see Margaret and Emma.

"Nobody ever wants me nowadays," I said to Rose; "I might as well not have a home at all."

"Look here, child! You don't know what you're talking about," answered Rose, sharply; "you'd better be thankful for your home while you've got it. Folks that don't know when they're well off, first they know their well-off-ness gets taken away, and serve 'em right too."

I was a little awe-struck by Rose's words and manner, but I had no notion of giving up my grievance.

"They might tell me what is the matter, then," said I, discontentedly. "Everybody look so miserable and talks in corners and cries, and nobody will tell me what the matter is. It's too bad!"

I did not know that my mother was in the pantry, but as I spoke she appeared at the door with a pie in her hand, which she gave to Rose to put into the oven.

"The child is right so far," said she; "it is not fair to keep her out of what concerns her as much as anybody else. Get your work and bring it into my room, Olive, and I will tell you all about it."

I obeyed with a heart beating between gratification and alarm, for I saw by my mother's face that something serious was the matter. Harry was just waking up from his nap, and mother washed his face and sent him out to play. Then she took her work and sat down, and in as plain and simple words as she could she told me the whole story. My father had been induced to go into a sort of partnership with his stepbrother, who was doing what seemed a flourishing business in Albany, and to mortgage his farm in order to furnish capital. I learned afterward that mother had been very much opposed to the plan, but she said nothing of this to me. I suppose my father must have been rather careless in making investigations into the business, or else his partner must have been a dishonest man. Anyhow, though I do not to this day understand the particulars, the end was that the concern failed, and my father found that not only must the property he had received from his father's estate be sacrificed, but he would have to sell his farm. All that remained from the wreck was a piece of nearly wild farming-land which grandfather owned in Vermont, and a few hundred dollars of mother's, which father would never consent to touch.

"Then we shall not live in this house any more?" said I, hardly taking in the extent of the calamity.

"No," answered mother; "this house is not ours any more."

"And haven't we any house at all?"

"No, no house at all of our own, and no land, unless father goes to live on his farm in Vermont. Then Ezra will have to give up going to college, for the present at least, because his help will be needed at home."

For the first time the full measure of our misfortune seemed to dawn upon me. Ezra must give up going to college and being a minister; Jeanne must give up her school. We must all go away to a strange, savage place among the mountains—such a place, probably, as the Millars used to live in—away from church and Jenny Hyde and school, and everything that made life worth having. Probably we should have to sell the cows and horses—my own cow Snowball and Jeanne's black colt; and—dreadful to think!—even my tortoise-shell cat and her kitten might have to be left behind. I burst into tears and cried bitterly.

"Oh, it's too bad, it's too bad!" I exclaimed, passionately, amid my sobs. "Father ought not to have had anything to do with that bad man. He ought to have known better. It's too bad!"

"Olive, hush!" said my mother, more sternly than she had ever spoken to me before. "Never let me hear one word of blame toward your father from one of his children. It was for their good he acted—because he wanted to give them a better education than he thought he could afford as things were. He was deceived and imposed upon, and his plans have turned out badly, but he acted for the best, and that is all any one can do. Never, whatever happens, never let me hear you blame your father."

Mother was called out at this moment to attend to some visitors, and there was no time to talk further, even if I had not been too much awed by her manner to continue the subject; but my mind was full of a kind of stunned, and at the same time rebellious, grief. I felt as a man may do who sees all his possessions swallowed up by an earthquake shock or destroyed by some unexpected attack of an enemy. I went slowly up stairs and shut myself up in the garret, and tried to think how it would seem to leave our old home and go to a new place where there was neither church nor school, nor stores nor neighbours—where there would probably be wolves and bears and snakes, and Indians too, very likely. From thinking I fell to dreaming, and was just in the midst of a night-attack of Indians when I was waked by Jeanne's gentle voice:

"Why, Olly, I have been looking everywhere for you. What made you come up to this dusty place and go to sleep on the floor? See what Margaret and Emma have been making for you." And sitting down by my side, she displayed to my view a "work-bag," curiously embroidered in what we used in those days to call queen-stitch.

Jeanne spoke so cheerfully that at first I thought she could not have heard the story, but on looking at her. I saw that, though her face was calm, and even bright, it was very pale and her eyes were red with crying: but she sought to compose herself for my sake.

I hardly glanced at the work-bag, which for some time had been the object of my most ardent desires; but throwing my arms round her neck, I exclaimed, passionately,—

"Oh, Jeanne, don't you know? Isn't it too bad—too hard for anything?"

"It is very hard for father and mother, and rather hard for Ezra, because he must put off going to college," answered Jeanne, "but I don't think we younger ones need mind it so very much. I believe, for myself, I rather like the idea of going to a new place."

"Well, I don't—I think it is horrid," said I, vehemently. "I can't bear the thought of it. To go away among the Indians, where there is no school or library or church or—"

"But, Olly, you are making up a story to scare yourself," said Jeanne. "It is not as bad as that, by any means."

"I thought it was all wild land?" said I.

"Father's farm is mostly wild land," answered Jeanne, "but it is only half a mile from a very nice little village where there is a school and a minister, and where the people are building a church. John Norris has been there, and he was at Cousin Lem's last night and told us all about it."

I began to feel a very little comforted.

"And anyhow, Olly, if it is ever so bad, we shall only make matters worse by fretting and repining," continued Jeanne. "It 'is' hard on father and mother to give up the home where they have always lived and go away among strangers, and it is all the harder for father because he thinks he has been to blame. It must be our part to make things as easy as we can for them, and not give ourselves useless trouble about ourselves."

"I don't see how we can do anything to make things easy," said I, feeling a good deal ashamed as I remembered how selfish my grief had been.

"We can do a great deal by putting a good face on the matter and not giving up to our grief," answered Jeanne; "that is one great thing. And we can remember how many things we have left, be thankful for; that is another. Why, Olly, I did not think 'you' would be the one to give up and break down," added Jeanne, in a tone of gentle reproach—"you who have always been wishing for something to happen, and feeling sorry that there were no martyrs or heroes in these days."

"I didn't mean anything like 'this,'" I answered, feeling not a little mortified. "I meant things like those that happened to John Rogers or the other people in the 'Book of Martyrs.'"

"I don't suppose trouble ever comes in just the shape we would like to have it," said Jeanne, with a very shady little smile; "if it did, it would not be trouble at all. But, Olive, you don't consider that these martyrs had all the daily troubles and trials that we have. Do you think Mistress Rogers found it any easier to see to the dinners and mend the stockings and attend to the lessons of all those ten children because her husband was in prison and she didn't know when her own turn might come to leave her little flock and never see them again? Do you think it would be one bit easier to put up with the loss of our home if we knew that any time—perhaps this very day—father and mother might be carried off and we might never see them till we saw them carried out to be burned alive?"

"No, of course not," I answered; "but all you can say, Jeanne, don't keep me from thinking it very hard that—that—" Something in my throat cut short the sentence.

"Of course it is," said Jeanne. "I don't pretend to deny it: it 'is' very hard. All I say is it is worse for father and mother and for Ezra than it is for you and me, and therefore we ought to help them to bear it instead of making it worse for them. Now is the time for us to show how we love them, and to make some return for all they have done for us."

I felt that there were both truth and consolation in this view of the case.

"I can bear anything if I can only be a comfort to mother," said I; "but how can I, Jeanne?"

"By being cheerful and making the best of everything," answered Jeanne—"by taking extra pains with your work, and by taking care of and amusing Harry, so that mother won't have so much to do. And, after all, Olive, it won't be so very bad," continued Jeanne. "We shall all be together, except Tom."

"Why, where will Tom be?" I interrupted.

"Oh, he is going to stay with uncle, where he is now."

"Why shouldn't he be the one to stay with father and help on the farm instead of Ezra?" I asked.

"Because he is younger and not so strong; and besides, Olive, you know how Tom is."

I knew very well that there was no use in trying to make Tom do anything he did not like. It cost more than it came to, and he was sure to slip out sooner or later and leave the task unfinished, or so finished that it would have been better left undone. Tom was always an odd one in our family.

"We shall all be together," continued Jeanne. "We shall have to rough it for a while, no doubt, but then we shall have the pleasure of seeing things grow better and better every year, and of doing good too, I dare say. Perhaps we might even have a Sunday-school like that one father read about in the paper Mr. Hyde lent us."

Jeanne went on talking in this cheerful strain till she had talked me, and perhaps herself, into quite a brilliant view of our prospects, and almost made it appear that breaking up our home in Massachusetts and going to Vermont was the best thing that could possibly happen to us.

That night at prayers father read the chapter which tells about Abraham's going out from his own home into a strange land, and prayed that the change which had been sent upon us might be blessed to us, "and that thy servant may be forgiven if his sin has brought about this trouble, and may it be under thy hand the means of good to those whom I desired to benefit in another way." When I heard the tremour in my father's voice as he pronounced these words, all the anger I had felt in my heart melted away, and I prayed earnestly in my turn that I might be forgiven for my undutiful thoughts, and that I might indeed be a comfort to my father and mother.

Long after all the children, and even father and mother, had gone to bed, Ezra and Jeanne sat talking by the kitchen fire, and as I lay and listened to their voices a new thought came into my mind regarding them. I lost no time in informing myself on the subject; and when Jeanne at last came to bed, I asked her, bluntly,—

"Jeanne, are you and Ezra going to be married?"

"Some time, perhaps," answered Jeanne, softly, but without any confusion. "But you must not say a word about it, Olive, for nothing is settled yet, and it may be a long time first, especially if Ezra is ever to be a minister. Now, remember, dear, I trust you not to tell!"

I promised to be faithful, and fell asleep, thinking what a grand minister's wife Jeanne would make.

CHAPTER VII.

AUNT BELINDA.

OF course the change in our circumstances soon became known to all our acquaintances in the little place, and it was no small part of our misfortunes to hear the remarks and condolences and the "I told you so's" of the less considerate part of them. I had my share of this part of our troubles at school. There were a few girls who had always accused Jeanne and myself of "feeling above them," as I dare say we did, and from them I had to hear such remarks as "Pride must have a fall," and they "guessed some folks wouldn't hold up their heads quite so high nowadays." In this last supposition they were mistaken, however, at least so far as I was concerned, for I held my head higher than ever. As for Ruth, her happy disposition never led her to think whether any one was above or below her, which was much the better for her.

But there were only a few who were thus ungenerous. Most of my school-mates pitied me quite as much as was good for me, and applauded to my heart's content my resolution to make the best of matters. Miss Tempy gave me as much of her time as possible, and only two or three girls murmured when she passed over their work or lessons for the sake of mine. I was not wanting on my own part, knowing that this summer's schooling might be the last I should ever have, and I applied myself with all my might to the mysteries of square root and Murray's "Prosody," thinking all the time how I should make the rules and explanations clear if I had to teach them. I really think I learned more in this one summer than I had done in two years before. I finished the famous flounce which, as I said, contained specimens of all the stitches known to Miss Tempy; and what she did not know in that line was not worth considering. I learned to darn linen and muslin so as to make them even better than new, and I copied out in a little blank-book which I made for the purpose all those wonderful recipes for domestic medicine and sick-cookery for which Miss Tempy was famous, and which she had inherited from her grandmother.

The summer had passed away. Our school and Jeanne's were both out, and Jeanne had come home for good, when something happened which made a great change in my prospects.

In the first part of these memoirs—if they are worthy of so grand a name—I mentioned the fact that one of my maternal uncles married a rich widow in Boston, where he shortly afterward died. None of us had ever seen Mrs. Belinda Evans, but some letters had passed, and some small presents been interchanged, as opportunity occurred. We knew that Aunt Belinda was a strictly religious woman, a great theologian, that she lived in the best society in Boston, and was very accomplished, according to the notions of those days.

There hung in our best room a framed and glazed piece of embroidery of the kind commonly known as a mourning-piece, which had been executed by Aunt Belinda and sent to my mother on the occasion of my grandfather's death—I suppose as an appropriate expression of sympathy. In the centre of this picture—for such it was—stood a monument of elaborate design, worked in white silk and decorated with a gilt inscription. The monument stood on a green cross-stitch bank variegated with certain red, blue, and yellow dots which were held to represent flowers growing in the grass. The picture was exceedingly regular in its composition. On one side of the tomb approached a train of five little boys all dressed alike in black coats, and with crape streamers standing straight out from their hats. On the other side were five girls regularly graduated in size from a grown woman down to a very little girl, also dressed in black. Each of the little boys carried a basket of flowers and a white handkerchief which he applied to his face, yet in such a way as to reveal his features and two carefully worked tears, one to each eye. Each girl also bore a handkerchief, a pair of tears, and a wreath of flowers, except the eldest, who, with bare arms, which formed a regular curve from the shoulder to the wrist, was applying her wreath to the monument, apparently expecting it to adhere by virtue of some property of stickiness belonging to either itself or the marble.

This work of art was very much admired by most of our neighbours and visitors, but my mother was rather non-committal on the subject, and Jeanne criticised the production in a manner wholly irreverent. However, it was admitted on all hands that my aunt Belinda was a most accomplished woman and had shown great sympathy by the present of this mourning-piece, and mother sent her in return some hanks of her fine linen sewing-thread, for the perfection of which she was justly renowned.

On one of his visits to Boston, which he paid every year, our old neighbour Mr. Hyde made the acquaintance of Mrs. Belinda Evans, and after that the exchanges I have mentioned took place with tolerable regularity. Mr. Hyde always spoke in terms of the highest praise of my aunt, and of the education she had given to her step-daughter and to two young nieces who now lived with her. He went to Boston, as usual, this fall, and on his return, he brought back a letter from Aunt Belinda, in which, after certain phrases of condolence on our altered fortunes and moralizings on the transitory nature of all earthly prosperity, Mrs. Belinda made a very important proposition: no less than that she should take me into her family for two or three years and give me such an education as would "fit me for any station in life, whether I was to reside in the wilds of Vermont or the still more remote and dangerous recesses of the so-called Genesee country, or to shine in Boston society where was to be found as much of mental cultivation mingled with true religion as this continent afforded." Such were her words. She would, she said, take upon herself the whole charge of my clothes and maintenance, with the hope that my gratitude and the usefulness of my after life would more than repay her for her expense and trouble; and she closed with certain religious phrases which I will not repeat.

This letter set our family circle into a considerable agitation. Father, whose chief grief in the change he was about to make was on account of the prospects of his children, was for closing with the offer at once, saying that it was a very liberal one on the part of my aunt—which was quite true—and that I should probably never have such another chance of acquiring an excellent education. Jeanne, on the other hand, was against the plan from the beginning, but her objections, I must say, were not very reasonable, inasmuch as they were grounded on the mourning-piece aforesaid, and on her general impression that my aunt was "a poky kind of woman." My mother wavered. She did not like the idea of parting with me for two or three years, and to such a distance; for practically Boston was farther from Vermont in those days than it is now from London. On the other hand, she was very desirous that I should have such an education as my aunt described—such as her own had been; and of this she saw no chance in any other way than that my aunt proposed. We all felt that it was generous in Aunt Belinda to step forward to our assistance in the time of our distress, as we had no claim on her.

Miss Tempy Hutchinson had a plan of her own to offer—namely, that I should remain with her on the same terms which my aunt offered. But this was considered out of the question, since my father could not afford to pay for my schooling, and neither could he be willing to let Miss Temperance take such a burden on herself, since she had already the care of a widowed and helpless mother. Moreover, I believe mother secretly thought that had already pretty well exhausted Miss Tempy's capacities in the way of book-learning; and to conclude, I fancy we were all a little dazzled by the very idea of an education in Boston under the auspices of a lady so rich and so much looked up to as my aunt Belinda.

Mother asked Mr. and Mrs. Hyde to tea and questioned them very closely about my aunt, but the report was all in her favour. Mr. Hyde enlarged upon her acquirements in English and French, in history and geography and music, and, above all, in theology. He had never met with a woman so capable of appreciating the works of Doctor Hopkins and Doctor Edwards, to say nothing of the English divines, or one more free from errors and prejudices. He believed that no child could wish for more in the line of educational privileges than to be placed under the care of Mrs. Evans; and as he had just been appointed to a professorship at Cambridge, his opinion was certainly entitled to consideration. Mrs. Hyde, on her part, enlarged on my aunt's fine house, her Turkey carpets and imported furniture, her cashmere and Canton crape shawls, and her India satin and French silks, and also on her liberality to ministers and their wives and her intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Vice President Adams and other distinguished people. Mrs. Evans, she said, could paint pictures on satin, paper, or velvet, do every known kind of needle-work, and play on the spinet and harpsichord. (Pianos had hardly begun to come into use even abroad.)

It was necessary that the matter should be decided immediately, in order that I might travel to Boston under the escort of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde, who were to go thither in three weeks again, leaving Jenny and their house under the care of a sister. Besides that, our own moving must take place in a month's time. After much discussion and a very determined opposition on the part of old Rose, and one less loud but equally decided from Jeanne, it was concluded that Aunt Belinda's offer should be accepted, and mother at once began to have me got ready.

I hardly know whether I was most troubled or pleased when I knew I was to go away from home for three years. It would be a dreadful thing not to see mother or Jeanne or any of my own family for so long, but then there was the thought of beholding Boston and all its wonders, of my aunt Belinda's fine house, and, above all, her library, containing, according to Mrs. Hyde, two or three times as many books as Mr. Henderson possessed. I supposed that my cousins would probably consider me a little ignoramus, but then came the consoling thought that at least I had been well drilled in grammar and could work satin- and cross-stitch as well as my aunt herself, or better, and that what else I did not know I could undoubtedly learn; for a want of confidence in my own powers was not one of my troubles in those days. And then, with such an education as my aunt meant to give me, what might I not be able to accomplish in future for the good of my family? I might help Ezra to go to college, and educate Ruth and Harry, and support father and mother when they grew old. I might have a boarding-school of my own, perhaps, and teach young ladies in my turn. Nay, I might—so high did my fancy soar—I might even write a book like Mrs. Hannah More, whose "Sacred Dramas" my old friend Mr. Clapp had just given me for a parting present. I must say, in justice to myself, that my castles in the air were of a very unselfish kind, and built far less for my own advantage than for that of my family. I remember being very much hurt by a remark of Tom's—who, poor fellow! had always a knack of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and place—that I might think myself lucky in getting rid of all the fuss and trouble of moving, whereas it was one of my principal causes of grief that I should not be at hand to lighten the labours of my mother and sister.

"I shall feel just as mean as can be," said I to Jeanne one day, "to think that I am having a good time in Boston while you are having such a hard one up in Castle Hill."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Olive," answered Jeanne, gravely. "I dare say you may have your share of trouble. You will be in a new place, among strangers, and you will find Aunt Belinda a very different person from mother, or I am much mistaken."

"She may be different from mother and yet be good," said I, sententiously. "Good people are not all alike."

"Of course; I know that," answered Jeanne; "but it is not always easy to get used to new ways. I remember, though I was such a little child, how strange this house seemed to me when I came here from the nunnery. However, I don't want to discourage you, Olive; only I do hope, dear, you will have a good time."

"But you don't expect it," said I, rather vexed.

"Well, no, not just at first. As I said, you will find Boston ways and Aunt Belinda's ways very different from ours; and unless you are more careful than you are at home, you will always be making mistakes and getting corrected and found fault with, or perhaps laughed at, which, you know, you like least of all."

"I believe you think I am a wild Indian!" said I, pettishly.

"If you were a wild Indian, you would be in less danger, because they always watch to see what other people do, and so save themselves from awkward mistakes," said Jeanne; "but you are rather apt to take it for granted that you understand, when you don't, and that you can do a thing the first time you try as well as if you had practiced it all your life."

I was just about to vindicate myself from this charge rather sharply, when I remembered the spinning-lesson, and was silent. Jeanne also seemed to think she had said enough, and changed the subject by informing me that I was wanted to rip mother's second-best black silk, which was to be made over for me, and by telling me that my new dresses were all to be long gowns—two pieces of news with which I was much delighted. But as I carefully ripped the black bilk I pondered Jeanne's words, and arrived at two wholesome and just conclusions—namely, that I "was" rather too apt to take up new things as if I knew all about them, and also that I would keep my wits about me and try, by carefully observing the ways of my aunt and my cousins, to avoid making myself ridiculous.

Never did any time pass so quickly as those two weeks. I could hardly believe it when the last Sunday came—my very last Sunday in that dear old house and in the corner seat at church, which I had occupied ever since I could remember. I was to leave Lee on Tuesday, and expected to arrive at Aunt Belinda's house on Friday, stopping on the road to visit some friends of Mr. Hyde's. As long as I live I shall never forget that sweet and sorrowful Lord's day. I had spent the evening before alone with mother, and had promised her that I would try to be a good girl and please Aunt Belinda in all things, that I would never forget to read my Bible and say my prayers every day, and, above all, that I would keep in mind that I had a Father in heaven who loved me, and who desired me to love him and serve him here that I might be happy with him in heaven. Mother impressed it upon me that heaven was my real home, to which I could look forward with joy and hope whatever might be my troubles here, and she solemnly charged me to be prepared to meet her there. I was always a religiously disposed child, I think, but certainly the eternal world never seemed so real and so near to me as it did that night.

"Do you think I shall have a great many troubles, mother?" I asked, remembering my conversation with Jeanne.

"I presume you will have your full share," answered mother, smoothing my hair as my head lay on her knee. "Your disposition is not calculated to slip through the world as easily as some other people's—that of Ruth, for instance."

"I know I am touchy," said I, humbly; "and Ezra says I think too much about my own dignity and consequence."