ctor Todd, was announced
to preach in the Presbyterian church, and both these Haverhill
schoolmates were moved to hear him. By a singular chance they occupied
the same pew, and sat close together, but Miss Bray was the only one who
was conscious of this, and she was too shy to reveal herself. It must
have been her bonnet hid her face, for otherwise Whittier's remarkably
keen eyes could not have failed to recognise the dear friend of his
school-days.

Their next meeting was at the reunion of the Haverhill Academy class of
1827, which was held in 1885, half a century after their second
interview at Marblehead. It was said by some that it was this schoolboy
love which Whittier commemorated in his poem, "Memories." But Mr.
Pickard, the poet's biographer, affirms that, so far as known, the only
direct reference made by Whittier to the affair under consideration
occurred in the fine poem, "A Sea Dream," written in 1874.

In the poet, now an old man, the sight of Marblehead awakens the memory
of that morning walk, and he writes:

"Is this the wind, the soft sea wind
That stirred thy locks of brown?
Are these the rocks whose mosses knew
The trail of thy light gown,
Where boy and girl sat down?

"I see the gray fort's broken wall,
The boats that rock below;
And, out at sea, the passing sails
We saw so long ago,
Rose-red in morning's glow.

* * * * *

"Thou art not here, thou art not there,
Thy place I cannot see;
I only know that where thou art
The blessed angels be,
And heaven is glad for thee.

* * * * *

"But turn to me thy dear girl-face
Without the angel's crown,
The wedded roses of thy lips,
Thy loose hair rippling down
In waves of golden brown.

"Look forth once more through space and time
And let thy sweet shade fall
In tenderest grace of soul and form
On memory's frescoed wall,--
A shadow, and yet all!"

Whittier, it will be seen, believed that the love of his youth was dead.
He was soon to find out, in a very odd way, that this was not the case.

Early in the forties, Miss Bray became principal of the "female
department" of the Benton School at St. Louis. In 1849, during the
prevalence of a fearful epidemic, the school building was converted into
a hospital, and one of the patients was an Episcopal clergyman, Reve