flame. I think he aimed at me in
speaking of soft, harmless bugs which creep over your newspaper or book.
Many faces were turned to me as he repeated these lines. I am sorry to
say the piece was much applauded. It has put back the cause of
emancipation in College, I fear, a term.

The following introduction to another piece was written, and was read,
at the same meeting, by a member of my own class. I fear that there is a
sly hit intended by the writer, which I do not discern, at somebody, or
something, related to freedom. This I suspected from the applause it
excited on the part of those who I know are the most deadly foes we have
to free institutions. I obtained a copy of this introduction. It will
serve, at least, to show you, dear Aunty, what a variety of topics we
have to excite our minds here in College. You can exercise your
discretion about letting uncle read it, as it is on a subject of some
delicacy. The writer says,--

"I am collecting facts from our daily papers illustrating the Barbarism
of Matrimony. My list of wives poisoned, beaten, maimed for life by
their husbands, and of divorces, cruel desertions, the effects on wives
of intemperance in husbands, is truly fearful. I make no question that
there are some happy marriages. But a relation which affords such
peculiar opportunities for cruelty to women, must sooner or later
disappear. No doubt the time will come when marriage will be deemed a
relic of barbarism, and a bridal veil be exhibited as one of the mock
decorations of the unhappy victims. Human nature in man is not good
enough to be trusted with such a responsibility as the happiness of
woman. Let Bachelors of Arts, on our parchments, suggest to us our duty
to aid, through our example, as well as by words, in breaking this
dreadful yoke, bidding those innocent young women who are now, perhaps,
fearfully looking at us as their future oppressors, to be forever free.
In the language of young Hamlet: 'I say, we will have no more
marriages.'"

* * * * *

Just before dark one evening, I was sitting in my room, meditating on
the great theme which absorbs my thoughts. My eye was caught by the
bright bolt of my door-lock, the part of the bolt between the lock and
the catch showing, beyond question, that the door was fastened. Some one
on the outside had turned a key upon me.

I had the self-possession to be quiet, for my mind had been calmed by
reflecting, in that twilig