-CHILDREN OF EDWARD AND JUDITH LEIGH.

BORN SEPTEMBER 3, 1790.

DIED AUGUST 1, 1810.

"_I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because_ THOU
_didst it._"

I sat down in the summer-house and had a long thinking spell, all by
myself. Too young to word the emotions that swelled my heart, the
thoughts that oppressed my brain, there was, all the while, in heart and
head, the recollection of the story she had told of her manner of
getting the first pair of humming-birds--and how she had stolen softly
around to the window after dark, and shut the parents in with their
nestlings.

I never saw her again. On Christmas morning the maid, who came as usual
to awake and dress her mistress, found that she had died in her sleep.

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Chapter XVII

Out into the World

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Cousin Burwell Carter fell in love with our handsome, amiable Boston
governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age.
She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister,
who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr.
John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of
her first session in our school-room.

My father looked quizzically grave when the two sisters recommended a
Miss Bradnor of Springfield, Massachusetts, as a person who was sure to
please our parents and to bring us on finely in our studies.

"Is she pretty and marriageable?" he asked. "My business, nowadays,
seems to be providing the eligible bachelors of Powhatan with wives. It
is pleasant enough from one standpoint, and that is the young men's. But
my children must be educated."

Both young matrons assured him, earnestly, that Miss Bradnor was "a
predestined old maid--a man-hater, in fact--and was likely to remain a
fixture in our school-room as long as we needed her." When she arrived I
was surprised to see a prim, quiet little personage who looked too
gentle to hate any one. She fitted easily into her place in our family
and soon proved herself the prize we had been promised, being a born
instructor, and loving her profession. She awoke my mind as nobody else
had done. I fancied that I could feel it stretch, and grow, and get
hungry while she taught me. The more it was fed, the hungrier it grew,
and the more eagerly it stretched itself. I studied Comstock's _Natural
Philosophy_ with Miss Bradnor, and Vose's _Astronomy