endship with those I knew and loved best
lasted but a few years, then our ways in life parted. I should not
know where to find one now, and if I did, probably our ideas would
differ on every subject, as I have wandered in latitudes beyond the
prescribed sphere of women. I suppose it is much the same with many
of you--the familiar faces are all gone, gone to the land of
shadows, and I hope of sunshine too, where we in turn will soon
follow. "And yet, though we who are left are strangers to one
another, we have the same memories of the past, of the same type of
mischievous girls and staid teachers, though with different names.
The same long, bare halls and stairs, the recitation rooms with the
same old blackboards and lumps of chalk taken for generation after
generation, I suppose, from the same pit; the dining room, with its
pillars inconveniently near some of the tables, with its thick,
white crockery and black-handled knives, and viands that never
suited us, because, forsooth, we had boxes of delicacies from home,
or we had been out to the baker's or confectioner's and bought pies
and cocoanut cakes, candy and chewing gum, all forbidden, but that
added to the relish. There, too, were the music rooms, with their
old, second-hand pianos, some with rattling keys and tinny sound,
on which we were supposed to play our scales and exercises for an
hour, though we often slyly indulged in the 'Russian March,'
'Napoleon Crossing the Rhine,' or our national airs, when, as
slyly, Mr. Powell, our music teacher, a bumptious Englishman, would
softly open the door and say in a stern voice, 'Please practice the
lesson I just gave you!'

"Our chief delight was to break the rules, but we did not like to
be caught at it. As we were forbidden to talk with our neighbors in
study hours, I frequently climbed on top of my bureau to talk
through a pipe hole with a daughter of Judge Howell of Canandaigua.
We often met afterward, laughed and talked over the old days, and
kept our friendship bright until the day of her death. Once while
rooming with Harriet Hudson, a sister of Mrs. John Willard, I was
moved to a very erratic performance. Miss Theresa Lee had rung the
bell for retiring, and had taken her rounds, as usual, to see that
the lights were out and all was still, when