on her head and said, "My little
lady, I wish you a better office." She dropped a courtesy
and answered, quick as lightning, "Yes, sir; to let you in."

Mrs. Evarts was a woman not only of sprightly wit, but of
great beauty. She liked to tell in her old age of a dinner
which John Hancock gave for her father and her, in Boston,
when she was a girl. She described her dress with great
minuteness, and added naively, "Didn't I look pretty?"

My mother, who was married in 1812, knew very intimately many
of her father's and mother's old friends who had been distinguished
in the public service in the Revolutionary period and the
Administration of Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
She knew very well the family of John Jay. He and his wife
were visitors at my grandmother's after their return from
Spain. My mother was intimate in the household of Oliver
Ellsworth as in a second home. His children were her playmates.
She was also very intimate indeed with the family of Senator
Hillhouse, whose daughter Mary was one of her dearest friends.

Senator Hillhouse held a very high place in the public life
of Connecticut in his day. He was one of the friends of Hamilton,
and one of the group of Federal statesmen of whom Hamilton
was the leader. He was United States Senator for Connecticut
from 1796 to 1810.

After she became a young lady, my mother, with Fanny Ellsworth,
afterward Mrs. Wood, and Mary Hillhouse, daughter of the Senator,
established a school to teach young colored children to read
and sew. The colored people in New Haven were in a sad condition
in those days. The law of the State made it a penal offence
to teach a colored child to read. These girls violated the
law. The public authorities interfered and threatened them
with prosecution. But the young women were resolute. They
insisted that they were performing a religious duty, and declared
that they should disobey the law and take the consequences.
A good deal of sympathy was aroused in their behalf. The
New Haven authorities had to face the question whether they
would imprison the daughter of a Signer of the Declaration
of Independence, who had affixed his signature to the great
affirmation that all men are created equal, the daughters of
two Framers of the Constitution, and the daughter of James
Hillhouse, then the foremost citizen of Connecticut, for
teaching little children to read the Bible. They gave up the
attempt. The school kep