she entreated to be allowed to engage herself as a
school teacher. "I stood as tall as I could," she says, when she went to
offer herself, and she was accepted, although only fifteen. The system
was that of "boarding round"--_i.e._ the young mistress had to live a
week alternately at each house, and went from thence to her school, but
she found this so uncomfortable that she ended by sleeping at home every
night. She struggled on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework
in after-hours, trying to improve herself, and always contending with
great delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope
with what she calls in one of her letters "a little regiment of wild
cats" for about seven years, when some of the friends she had made
obtained of two sisters who kept a boarding school at Utica that she
should be admitted there to pursue the higher branches of study for a
year or two, and then to repay them by her services as a teacher.

The two ladies, Miss Urania and Miss Cynthia Sheldon, and their widowed
sister, Mrs. Anable, proved Emily's kindest friends, and made a
thoroughly happy home for her. She was very frail and nervous, but of
great power of influence, and even while still only a pupil had this
gift. Here she spent the rest of her maiden days, and here she supplied
the failure of her labours in needlework by contributions to magazines,
generally under the _nom de plume_ of Fanny Forester. They were chiefly
poems and short tales, and were popular enough to bring in a sum that was
very important to the Chubbuck family. The day's employment was very
full, and she stole the time required from her rest. Late one night,
Miss Sheldon seeing a light in the room looked in, and found her
trembling in nervous agitation, holding her head with her hands and her
manuscript before her; and when gently rebuked, and entreated to lie down
at once, she exclaimed with a burst of tears, "Oh! Miss Urania, I must
write; I must help my poor parents."

Her brave and dutiful endeavours prospered so much that she was actually
able to buy a house for them. It was during her stay at Utica that she
was baptized, and several of her writings were expressly for the Baptist
Sunday School Union; and though others were of a more secular cast, all
were such as could only be composed by a religious woman. A little book
of hers fell into the hands of Dr. Judson, and struck him so much that he
said, "I should be glad to know