years, had seen my mother arrayed for a dinner at this royal
residence, in a white dress, probably of embroidered cambric, and a
lilac turban. Her early death was a lifelong misfortune to her children,
who, although tenderly bred and carefully watched, have been forced to
pass their days without the dear refuge of a mother's heart, the wise
guidance of a mother's inspiration.

A dear old cousin of my father's, who lived to the age of one hundred
and two years, loved to talk of a visit which she had made in her youth
to my grandfather Ward, then resident in New York. She had not quite
forgiven him for not allowing her to attend an assembly on which, being
only sixteen years of age, she had set her heart. Years after this time,
when such vanities had quite gone out of her mind, she again visited
relatives in the city, and came to spend the day with my mother. Of this
occasion she said to me: "Julia, your mother's tact was remarkable, and
she showed it on that day, for, knowing me to be a young woman of
serious character, she presented me on my arrival with a plain linen
collar which she had made for me. On a table beside her lay Law's
'Serious Call to the Unconverted.' Don't you see how well she had suited
matters to my taste?"

This aged relative used to boast that she had never read a novel. She
desired to make one exception in favor of the story of the
Schoenberg-Cotta family, but, hearing that it was a work of fiction,
esteemed it safest to adhere to the rule which she had observed for so
many years.

Her son, lately deceased, once told me that when she felt called upon to
chastise him for some childish offense, she would pray over him so long
that he would cry out: "Mother, it's time to begin whipping."

Her husband was a son of General Nathanael Greene, of Revolutionary
fame.

The attention bestowed upon impressions of childhood to-day will, I
hope, justify me in recording some of the earliest points in
consciousness which I still recall. I remember when a thimble was first
given to me, some simple bit of work being at the same time placed in my
hand. Some one said, "Take the needle in this hand." I did so, and,
placing the thimble on a finger of the other hand, I began to sew
without its aid, to the amusement of my teacher. This trifle appears to
me an early indication of a want of perception as to the use of tools
which has accompanied me through life. I remember also that, being told
that I must ask pardon