ig and white aprons. We had
red cloaks, red hoods, red mittens, and red stockings. For one's self to
be all in red six months of the year was bad enough, but to have this
costume multiplied by three was indeed monotonous. I had such an
aversion to that color that I used to rebel regularly at the beginning
of each season when new dresses were purchased, until we finally passed
into an exquisite shade of blue. No words could do justice to my dislike
of those red dresses. My grandfather's detestation of the British
redcoats must have descended to me. My childhood's antipathy to wearing
red enabled me later to comprehend the feelings of a little niece, who
hated everything pea green, because she had once heard the saying, "neat
but not gaudy, as the devil said when he painted his tail pea green." So
when a friend brought her a cravat of that color she threw it on the
floor and burst into tears, saying, "I could not wear that, for it is
the color of the devil's tail." I sympathized with the child and had it
changed for the hue she liked. Although we cannot always understand the
ground for children's preferences, it is often well to heed them.

I am told that I was pensively looking out of the nursery window one
day, when Mary Dunn, the Scotch nurse, who was something of a
philosopher, and a stern Presbyterian, said: "Child, what are you
thinking about; are you planning some new form of mischief?" "No, Mary,"
I replied, "I was wondering why it was that everything we like to do is
a sin, and that everything we dislike is commanded by God or someone on
earth. I am so tired of that everlasting no! no! no! At school, at home,
everywhere it is _no_! Even at church all the commandments begin 'Thou
shalt not.' I suppose God will say 'no' to all we like in the next
world, just as you do here." Mary was dreadfully shocked at my
dissatisfaction with the things of time and prospective eternity, and
exhorted me to cultivate the virtues of obedience and humility.

I well remember the despair I felt in those years, as I took in the
whole situation, over the constant cribbing and crippling of a child's
life. I suppose I found fit language in which to express my thoughts,
for Mary Dunn told me, years after, how our discussion roused my sister
Margaret, who was an attentive listener. I must have set forth our
wrongs in clear, unmistakable terms; for Margaret exclaimed one day, "I
tell you what to do. Hereafter let us act as we choose, without