g sense of horror, and mine, as we
lingered long over the portraitures of Timothy flying from Sin, of
Xerxes laid out in funeral garb, and of proud Korah's troop partly
submerged.

My Book and Heart
Must never part.

So runs one of the couplets in this little Primer-book, and right truly
can I say that from the springtime day sixty-odd years ago, when first
my heart went out in love to this little book, no change of scene or of
custom no allurement of fashion, no demand of mature years, has abated
that love. And herein is exemplified the advantage which the love of
books has over the other kinds of love. Women are by nature fickle, and
so are men; their friendships are liable to dissipation at the merest
provocation or the slightest pretext.

Not so, however, with books, for books cannot change. A thousand years
hence they are what you find them to-day, speaking the same words,
holding forth the same cheer, the same promise, the same comfort;
always constant, laughing with those who laugh and weeping with those
who weep.

Captivity Waite was an exception to the rule governing her sex. In all
candor I must say that she approached closely to a realization of the
ideals of a book--a sixteenmo, if you please, fair to look upon, of
clear, clean type, well ordered and well edited, amply margined, neatly
bound; a human book whose text, as represented by her disposition and
her mind, corresponded felicitously with the comeliness of her
exterior. This child was the great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin
Waite, whose family was carried off by Indians in 1677. Benjamin
followed the party to Canada, and after many months of search found and
ransomed the captives.

The historian has properly said that the names of Benjamin Waite and
his companion in their perilous journey through the wilderness to
Canada should "be memorable in all the sad or happy homes of this
Connecticut valley forever." The child who was my friend in youth, and
to whom I may allude occasionally hereafter in my narrative, bore the
name of one of the survivors of this Indian outrage, a name to be
revered as a remembrancer of sacrifice and heroism.

II

THE BIRTH OF A NEW PASSION

When I was thirteen years old I went to visit my Uncle Cephas. My
grandmother would not have parted with me even for that fortnight had
she not actually been compelled to. It happened that she was called to
a meeting of the American Tr