her full. The woman is still both child and
girl, in the completeness of womanly character. We have a right to our
entire selves, through all the changes of this mortal state, a claim
which we shall doubtless carry along with us into the unfolding
mysteries of our eternal being. Perhaps in this thought lies hidden the
secret of immortal youth; for a seer has said that "to grow old in
heaven is to grow young."

To take life as it is sent to us, to live it faithfully, looking and
striving always towards better life, this was the lesson that came to
me from my early teachers. It was not an easy lesson, but it was a
healthful one; and I pass it on to younger pupils, trusting that they
will learn it more thoroughly than I ever have.

Young or old, we may all win inspiration to do our best, from the needs
of a world to which the humblest life may be permitted to bring
immeasurable blessings:--

"For no one doth know
What he can bestow,
What light, strength, and beauty may after him go:
Thus onward we move,
And, save God above,
None guesseth how wondrous the journey will prove."

L.L.
BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS,
October, 1889.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. UP AND DOWN THE LANE
II. SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE
III. THE HYMN-BOOK
IV. NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES
V. OLD NEW ENGLAND
VI. GLIMPSES OF POETRY
VII. BEGINNING TO WORK
VIII. BY THE RIVER
IX. MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS
X. MILL-GIRLS' MAGAZINES
XI. READING AND STUDYING
XII. FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI

A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD

I.

UP AND DOWN THE LANE.

IT is strange that the spot of earth where we were born should make
such a difference to us. People can live and grow anywhere, but people
as well as plants have their habitat,--the place where they belong, and
where they find their happiest, because their most natural life. If I
had opened my eyes upon this planet elsewhere than in this northeastern
corner of Massachusetts, elsewhere than on this green, rocky strip of
shore between Beverly Bridge and the Misery Islands, it seems to me as
if I must have been somebody else, and not myself. These gray ledges
hold me by the roots, as they do the bayberry bushes, the sweet-fern,
and the rock-saxifrage.

When I look from my window over the tree-tops to the sea, I could
almost fancy that from the deck of some one of those inward bound
vessels the wistful eyes of the Lady Arbella m