e, and more susceptible to sudden impressions;
I was conscious of the ebb and flow of blood through my heart, felt
it when it eddied up into my face, and touched my brain with its
flame-colored wave. I loved life again. The stuff of which each day
was woven was covered with an arabesque which suited my fancy. I
missed nothing that the present unrolled for me, but looked neither
to the past nor to the future. In truth there was little that was
elevated in me. Could I have perceived it if there had been? Whichever
way the circumstances of my life vacillated, I was not yet reached to
the quick; whether spiritual or material influences made sinuous the
current of being, it still flowed toward an undiscovered ocean.

Half the girls at the Academy, like myself, came from distant towns.
Some had been there three years. They were all younger than myself.
There never had been a boarding-house attached to the school, and it
was not considered a derogatory thing for the best families to receive
these girls as boarders. We were therefore on the same footing, in a
social sense. I was also on good terms with Miss Prior. She was a cold
and kindly woman, faithful as a teacher, gifted with an insight into
the capacity of a pupil. She gave me a course of History first, and
after that Physical Philosophy; but never recommended me to Moral
Science. When I had been with her a few months, she proposed that I
should study the common branches; my standing in the school was such
that I went down into the primary classes without shame, and I must
say that I was the dullest scholar in them. We also had a drawing
master and a music-teacher. The latter was an amiable woman, with
theatrical manners. She was a Mrs. Lane; but no Mr. Lane had ever been
seen in Rosville. We girls supposed he had deserted her, which was
the fact, as she told me afterward. She cried whenever she sang a
sentimental song, but never gave up to her tears, singing on with
blinded eyes and quavering voice. I laughed at her dresses which had
been handsome, with much frayed trimming about them, the hooks and
eyes loosened and the seams strained, but liked her, and although
I did not take lessons, saw her every day when she came up to the
Academy. She asked me once if I had any voice. I answered her by
singing one of our Surrey hymns, "_Once on the raging seas he rode_."
She grew pale, and said, "Don't for heaven's sake sing that! I can
see my old mother, as she looked when she sa