in correcting the exercises of the pupils. I took the opportunity to tell
him of the curious envy that had taken possession of the girls; upon which
he began to explain to me human nature and its fallacies, drawing
inferences therefrom for personal application. He found a ready listener
in me. My inclination to abstract thought, combined with the unpleasant
experience I had had in life, made me an attentive pupil, and fitted me to
comprehend his reasoning in the broadest sense. For fifteen months, I thus
spent the noon-hour with him in the schoolroom; receiving lessons in and
reasoning upon concrete and abstract matters, that have since proved of
far more psychologic value to me than ten years of reading on the same
subjects could do. A strong attachment grew up between us: he became a
necessity to me, and I revered him like an oracle. But his health failed;
and he left the school at the end of these fifteen months, in a
consumption. Shortly after, he sent to the school for me one morning to
ask me to visit him on his deathbed. I was not permitted to leave the
class until noon; when, just as I was preparing to go, a messenger came to
inform the principal that he had died at eleven. This blow fell so heavily
upon me, that I wished to leave the school at once. I was forced to stay
three weeks longer, until the end of the quarter; when I left the
schoolroom on the 1st of April, 1843, at the age of thirteen years and
seven months, and never entered it again.

On the same day that I quitted my school, an aunt, with whom I was a
favorite, was attacked with a violent hemorrhage from the lungs, and
wished me to come to stay with her. This suited my taste. I went; and, for
a fortnight, was her sole nurse.

Upon my return home, my father told me, that, having quitted school, I
must now become a thorough housekeeper, of whom he might be proud; as this
was the only thing for which girls were intended by nature. I cheerfully
entered upon my new apprenticeship, and learned how to sweep, to scrub, to
wash, and to cook. This work answered very well as long as the novelty
lasted; but, as soon as this wore off, it became highly burdensome. Many a
forenoon, when I was alone, instead of sweeping and dusting, I passed the
hours in reading books from my father's library, until it grew so late,
that I was afraid that my mother, who had commenced practice, would come
home, and scold me for not attending to my work; when I would hurry to get
th