had not
had the advantages of education.

"I asked her how I could get a photograph of Mrs. Somerville, and she
said they could not be bought. She told me, without any hint from me,
that she would give Vassar College a plaster cast of the bust of Mrs.
Somerville. [Footnote: This bust always stood in Miss Mitchell's parlor
at the observatory.] She said, as women grew older, if they lived
independent lives, they were pretty sure to be 'women's rights women.'
She said the clergy--the broadest, who were in harmony with her--were
very courteous, and that since she had grown old (she's about
forty-five) all men were more tolerant of her and forgot the difference
of sex.

"I felt drawn to her when she was most serious. I told her I had
suffered much from doubt, and asked her if she had; and she said yes,
when she was young; but that she had had, in her life, rare intervals
when she believed she held communion with God, and on those rare periods
she had rested in the long intermissions. She laughed, and the tears
came to her eyes, all together; she was _quick_, and all-alive, and so
courteous. When she gave me a book she said, 'May I write your whole
name? and may I say "from your friend"?'

"Then she hurried on her bonnet, and walked to the station with me; and
her round face, with the blond hair and the light-blue eyes, seemed to
me to become beautiful as she talked.

"In Edinburgh I asked for a photograph of Mary Somerville, and the young
man behind the counter replied, 'I don't know who it is.'

"In London I asked at a bookstore, which the Murrays recommended, for a
photograph of Mrs. Somerville and of Sir George Airy, and the man said
if they could be had in London he would get them; and then he asked,
'Are they English?' and I informed him that Sir George Airy was the
astronomer royal!

* * * * *

"'The Glasgow College for Girls.' Seeing a sign of this sort, I rang the
door-bell of the house to which it was attached, entered, and was told
the lady was at home. As I waited for her, I took up the 'Prospectus,'
and it was enough,--'music, dancing, drawing, needlework, and English'
were the prominent features, and the pupils were children. All well
enough,--but why call it a college?

"When the lady superintendent came in, I told her that I had supposed it
was for more advanced students, and she said, 'Oh, it is for girls up to
twenty; one supposes a girl is finished by twenty.'

"I