about eight hundred persons. For two hours she spoke,
without notes and with easy fluency. There were many well-known men
and women there, who were delighted with what they were pleased to
call a young girl's notable performance. But Anna herself was far from
pleased with her speech. Afterward, on reaching the Longshores', she
threw herself into a chair with an air of utter despondency, and, in
response to their praise, only shook her head.

"I am mortified," she declared. "I spoke too long, and what I said
lacked arrangement, order, and point. And before such an audience!"

This incident shows clearly that, despite all the flattery which was
showered on her at that time, she did not lose her sense of balance,
but knew with a keen instinct whether she had achieved her end or not.

And now winter was over and spring had come with its spirit of new
birth and fulfilment. And, as the buds began to swell and open, the
strong will and fresh young spirit of Anna Dickinson asserted itself
in a desire for more profitable daily work, for as yet she was not
able to give up other employment for the public speaking which brought
her in uneven returns. She disliked the confinement and routine of
teaching so much that she decided to try a new kind of work, and
secured a place in the Mint, where she described her duties vividly to
her interested friends.

"I sat on a stool," she said, "from seven o'clock in the morning to
six at night for twenty-eight dollars a month. The atmosphere of the
room was close and impure, as it was necessary to keep all windows and
doors closed in the adjusting-room, for the least draught of air would
vary the scales." Not a very congenial occupation for the independent
nature of the young orator, but, although she disliked the work, she
was very skilful at it, and soon became the fastest adjuster in the
Mint. But she could not bear the confinement of the adjusting-room
and changed to the coining-room, yet even that was impossible to a
spirit which had seen a vision of creative work and of ability to do
it. Then, too, she thoroughly disliked the men with whom she was
thrown and their beliefs, knowing them to be opposed to principles
which she held sacred; so when, in November, she made a speech on the
events of the war, in which she stated her views so frankly that when
they came to the ears of Government officials who did not agree with
her she was dismissed from the Mint, she was rather pleased than
tr