sensation as ever I experienced. After she had been a
month or two at Blithedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and kept her
pretty constantly in a state of bubble and ferment, impelling her to
far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure. She was
very fond of playing with the other girls out of doors. There is
hardly another sight in the world so pretty as that of a company of
young girls, almost women grown, at play, and so giving themselves up
to their airy impulse that their tiptoes barely touch the ground.

Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more
untamable and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting
variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a
harmonious propriety through all. Their steps, their voices, appear
free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music inaudible
to us. Young men and boys, on the other hand, play, according to
recognized law, old, traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of
fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts.
For, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be a brute.

Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race,
with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than they
need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But
Priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and
irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, except
to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use
of her legs. Setting buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival less
swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and
often tumbled on the grass. Such an incident--though it seems too
slight to think of--was a thing to laugh at, but which brought the
water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater
joys and sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. Priscilla's
life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected me in just this
way.

When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that
Priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any
other girl in the Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster,
in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes round
Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some other
young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide