the night gatherings; but my Aunt Gary had her answer ready,
and warned him not to do anything to hinder me, for I was the apple of
my father's eye. Miss Pinshon, sharing to the full my aunt's
discontent, would have got on horseback, I verily believe, to be with
me in my rides; but she was no rider. The sound of a horse's four feet
always, she confessed, stamped the courage out of her heart. I was let
alone; and the Sunday evenings in the kitchen, and the bright morning
hours in the pine avenues and oak groves, were my refreshment and my
pleasure and my strength.

What there was of it; for I had not much strength to boast for many a
day. Miss Pinshon tried her favourite recipe whenever she thought she
saw a chance, and I did my best with it. But my education that winter
was quite in another line. I could not bear much arithmetic. Bending
over a desk did not agree with me. Reading aloud to Miss Pinshon never
lasted for more than a little while at a time. So it comes, that my
remembrance of that winter is not filled with school exercises, and
that Miss Pinshon's figure plays but a subordinate part in its
pictures. Instead of that, my memory brings back, first and chiefest
of all, the circle of dark faces round the kitchen light wood fire,
and the yellow blaze on the page from which I read; I, a little figure
in white, sitting in the midst amongst them all. That picture--those
evenings--come back to me, with a kind of hallowed perfume of truth
and hope. Truth, it was in my lips and on my heart; I was giving it
out to those who had it not. And hope--it was in more hearts than
mine, no doubt; but in mine it beat with as steady a beat as the
tickings of my little watch by my side, and breathed sweet as the
flowers that start in spring from under the snow. I had often a large
circle; and it was part of my plan, and well carried into execution,
that these evenings of reading should supply also the place of the
missing prayer-meeting. Gradually I drew it on to be so understood;
and then my pieces of reading were scattered along between the
prayers, or sometimes all came at first, followed by two or three
earnest longer prayers from some of those that were present. And then,
without any planning of mine, came in the singing. Not too much, lest,
as Maria said, we should "make de folks upstairs t'ink dere war
somethin' oncommon in de kitchen;" but one or two hymns we would have,
so full of spirit and sweetness that often nowadays t