ay, on the fifth of October of that memorable
year in the forties. My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself,
each of us holding to one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies in the
country walked together then. He was a well-built, clear-eyed,
clean-lived, upright gentleman, whom God had made and whom the world had
not spoiled. My cousin and I were dressed exactly alike. Into every
detail of daily life my mother carried her principle of treating the
orphan as her own child. Our country-made frocks were of dark-green
merino, becoming to my blond companion, and anything but becoming to my
sun-browned skin. Over the frocks were neat black silk aprons with
pockets. White linen-cambric frills, hemstitched by hand, and carefully
crimped, were at our throats and wrists, and sunbonnets upon our heads,
or rather, "slatted" hoods that could be folded at pleasure. These were
of dark-green silk, to match the merinos, and ribbon of the same color
was quilled around the capes, crowns, and brims. Our silk gloves were
also dark green, and my mother had knit them herself.

Every item of our school costume was prescribed by her before we left
home. I comprehend now, why the water stood in Cousin Molly Belle's
eyes, while dancing lights played under the water, when we presented
ourselves at breakfast-time, dressed for the important first day in the
Seminary. I appreciate, furthermore, as it was not possible I should
then, the tact and delicacy with which she gradually modified our
everyday and Sunday attire into something more in accordance with that
of our school-fellows.

As we found out for ourselves, before the day was over, we were little
girls in the midst of young ladies, so far as dress and carriage went.
We were imbued with the idea--gathered from the talk of friends and
acquaintances, and our much reading of English story-books--that we were
to be "polished" by our city associations. It was a shock and a
down-topple of our expectations to be thrown, without preparation, into
the society of girls whose manners were very little, if at all, more
refined than those of the quartette who with us constituted Miss
Davidson's home school. We were even more confounded at the discovery
that our home-education had so rooted and grounded us in the rudiments
of learning that we were classed, after the preliminary examination,
with girls older than we by four and five years. The circumstance did
not make us popular with our comrades.

A