. And yet when I told her about
them, I found that she partook of everything. For she had her talent
for vicarious enjoyment, by means of which she entered as an actor
into my adventures, was present as a witness at the frolic of my
younger life. Or if I narrated things that were beyond her, on account
of her narrower experience, she listened with an eager longing to
understand that was better than some people's easy comprehension. My
world ever rang with good tidings, and she was grateful if I brought
her the echo of them, to ring again within the four walls of the
kitchen that bounded her life. And I, who lived on the heights, and
walked with the learned, and bathed in the crystal fountains of youth,
sometimes climbed the sublimest peak in my sister's humble kitchen,
there caught the unfaltering accents of inspiration, and rejoiced in
silver pools of untried happiness.

The way she reached out for everything fine was shown by her interest
in the incomprehensible Latin and French books that I brought. She
liked to hear me read my Cicero, pleased by the movement of the
sonorous periods. I translated Ovid and Virgil for her; and her
pleasure illumined the difficult passages, so that I seldom needed to
have recourse to the dictionary. I shall never forget the evening I
read to her, from the "AEneid," the passage in the fourth book
describing the death of Dido. I read the Latin first, and then my own
version in English hexameters, that I had prepared for a recitation at
school. Frieda forgot her sewing in her lap, and leaned forward in
rapt attention. When I was through, there were tears of delight in her
eyes; and I was surprised myself at the beauty of the words I had just
pronounced.

I do not dare to confess how much of my Latin I have forgotten, lest
any of the devoted teachers who taught me should learn the sad truth;
but I shall always boast of some acquaintance with Virgil, through
that scrap of the "AEneid" made memorable by my sister's enjoyment of
it.

Truly my education was not entirely in the hands of persons who had
licenses to teach. My sister's fat baby taught me things about the
origin and ultimate destiny of dimples that were not in any of my
school-books. Mr. Casey, of the second floor, who was drunk whenever
his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer
mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly
teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening