giving me lessons in arithmetic and penmanship,
which studies had been prohibited me at school. Here commenced a most
tender attachment and sympathy between brother and I. As there were
two children--Barnes and sister Arminda--between us, our difference of
years had hitherto kept us somewhat apart; but after brother had been
for several months my instructor we were from that time the nearest in
heart in our large household.

"I think that mother must have entirely regained her spirits during the
four years that we lived in Vermont, for I remember that men, women,
and children alike delighted in her society, and our house was the
centre of the little neighborhood. We resided very near the
school-house, and rarely did a morning pass without a visit from some
of the girls, to have a few words of greeting from mother on their way
to their lessons. When recess time came, they would arrive in numbers
to spend the time with her, and beg for a song or a story from the
inexhaustible supply with which her memory was stored, and there they
would remain, fascinated by her sweet, low voice until she would be
obliged to playfully chase them out of the house to compel them to
return to school. From the teacher, for tardiness, punishment was a
very frequent occurrence, but it made slight impression upon the girls
in comparison with the enjoyment of listening to one of mother's
thrilling or romantic stories, for the following day they would return
to our house to again risk the penalty.

"I told you that brother taught me after we were taken out of school.
He was the gentlest and kindest of instructors, and was always ready to
lay down his own book to help me out of any difficulty that my lesson
presented, although it was by no means easy to make him close his book
under other circumstances; such as the solicitations of his young
friends to join them in a game.

"I have described father to you as a stern man in his every-day
intercourse with us, but although his motto was 'Work,' he was always
willing to grant us a holiday or a play-hour, when he thought we had
earned it. He would relax his dignity, too, somewhat when young people
came to pass the evening with us; would encourage us to play games and
dance, and would often join us; for, although he never played cards
himself, nor would he allow them to be played in his house, he himself
taught us how to dance.

"When our young friends came to see us, there was much rejoicing