sombre, the setting
was bright and cheerful, and the life in the home was healthy and
wide-awake. When the hilarity became excessive the mother would put in
her little check, from time to time, and the father would try to look as
he ought to, but he evidently enjoyed the whole.

As Mr. Mitchell was kind and indulgent to his children, so he was the
sympathetic friend and counsellor of many in trouble who came to him for
help or advice. As he took his daily walk to the little farm about a
mile out of town, where, for an hour or two he enjoyed being a farmer,
the people would come to their doors to speak to him as he passed, and
the little children would run up to him to be patted on the head.

He treated animals in the same way. He generally kept a horse. His
children complained that although the horse was good when it was bought,
yet as Mr. Mitchell never allowed it to be struck with a whip, nor urged
to go at other than a very gentle trot, the horse became thoroughly
demoralized, and was no more fit to drive than an old cow!

There was everything in the home which could amuse and instruct
children. The eldest daughter was very handy at all sorts of
entertaining occupations; she had a delicate sense of the artistic, and
was quite skilful with her pencil.

The present kindergarten system in its practice is almost identical with
the home as it appeared in the first half of this century, among
enlightened people. There is hardly any kind of handiwork done in the
kindergarten that was not done in the Mitchell family, and in other
families of their acquaintance. The girls learned to sew and cook, just
as they learned to read,--as a matter of habit rather than of
instruction. They learned how to make their own clothes, by making their
dolls' clothes,--and the dolls themselves were frequently home-made, the
eldest sister painting the faces much more prettily than those obtained
at the shops; and there was a great delight in gratifying the fancy, by
dressing the dolls, not in Quaker garb, but in all of the most brilliant
colors and stylish shapes worn by the ultra-fashionable.

There were always plenty of books, and besides those in the house there
was the Atheneum Library, which, although not a free library, was very
inexpensive to the shareholders.

There was another very striking difference between that epoch and the
present. The children of that day were taught to value a book and to
take excellent care of it; as an in