ies, the monotony of home life was
sufficiently broken to make our simple country pleasures always
delightful and enjoyable. An entirely new life now opened to me. The old
bondage of fear of the visible and the invisible was broken and, no
longer subject to absolute authority, I rejoiced in the dawn of a new
day of freedom in thought and action.

My brother-in-law, Edward Bayard, ten years my senior, was an
inestimable blessing to me at this time, especially as my mind was just
then opening to the consideration of all the varied problems of life. To
me and my sisters he was a companion in all our amusements, a teacher
in the higher departments of knowledge, and a counselor in all our
youthful trials and disappointments. He was of a metaphysical turn of
mind, and in the pursuit of truth was in no way trammeled by popular
superstitions. He took nothing for granted and, like Socrates, went
about asking questions. Nothing pleased him more than to get a bevy of
bright young girls about him and teach them how to think clearly and
reason logically.

One great advantage of the years my sisters and myself spent at the Troy
Seminary was the large number of pleasant acquaintances we made there,
many of which ripened into lifelong friendships. From time to time many
of our classmates visited us, and all alike enjoyed the intellectual
fencing in which my brother-in-law drilled them. He discoursed with us
on law, philosophy, political economy, history, and poetry, and together
we read novels without number. The long winter evenings thus passed
pleasantly, Mr. Bayard alternately talking and reading aloud Scott,
Bulwer, James, Cooper, and Dickens, whose works were just then coming
out in numbers from week to week, always leaving us in suspense at the
most critical point of the story. Our readings were varied with
recitations, music, dancing, and games.

As we all enjoyed brisk exercise, even with the thermometer below zero,
we took long walks and sleighrides during the day, and thus the winter
months glided quickly by, while the glorious summer on those blue hills
was a period of unmixed enjoyment. At this season we arose at five in
the morning for a long ride on horseback through the beautiful Mohawk
Valley and over the surrounding hills. Every road and lane in that
region was as familiar to us and our ponies, as were the trees to the
squirrels we frightened as we cantered by their favorite resorts.

Part of the time Margaret Chri