ities of the benevolent. It was something new to me, and impressed me painfully. I gave the man some tea that I had brought at Mrs. Holmes' suggestion. He looked at me gratefully, and put it into his pocket, he could not speak.

June 1.-Saddest, sweetest of months! I am sorry to spend it in a place so dirty, so dusty and so dull.

June 8.-On this same side of the page in my red journal one year ago to-morrow I wrote the words, "Mary is dead." And I have n't the heart to write now that this, the first return of that awful day, has come. "Speech is silver, silence golden." In silence I will think my thoughts. A letter written to father and mother, the lonely, heart-aching pair, shall be my record of this day.

June 12-Two weeks from to-day I start for home. I am very eager for it, more so than I can tell. Indeed, I think about it all my spare time. Father and mother, the house and garden,-Mary's grave. "Thoughts that do lie too deep for tears" go through me as I think of my changed home, and the pleasant face shut out of sight. It is idle to write about it.

Death is unspeakably mysterious and awful. The feeling of this grows stronger in my soul. The terrible sentence rings in my ears, "I am to die! I am to die!" No matter to what it conducts, the earth side of it-and that is what we see—is fearful enough to strike one dumb. Mary always viewed it so herself, and yet it has passed upon her!

June 16.-Pittsburgh is in a ferment, two thousand men are working on fortifications, Gen. Lee's army is said to be approaching, and martial law is to be declared. Trains from the South are forbidden to come to the city. Miss Dole, our New England teacher, is very much alarmed. The girls are distressed, especially those living to the southward, but I am not troubled a bit, nor any of the teachers except Miss Dole. It is quite exciting, though. The President has ordered out 100,000 men, 50,000 of them from Pennsylvania, but there are so many false alarms that it does not do to receive all we hear as gospel on any subject.

Last night came a long letter from Oliver, the first since he went to Denver last fall. It was interesting and characteristic. Though our roads lie so far apart, and our interests are so unlike, yet I always think fondly of my brother and proudly of his success. It is nice for him and Mary B. to love each other and to be together.

June 25.--Doctor P. just now called me into the music-room and complimented me so much that I must write it down, for this book is my safety-valve. Ahem! He said my success in the essay before the Alumnæ was something wonderful. He said it made a marked impression, that he wanted me to come back, would make it pleasant for me, and that if he had only thought of it in time, he would have had me make the address to the graduating class upon the occasion of receiving their diplomas, instead of Dr. Herrick Johnson, pastor of one of the first Presbyterian churches in this city and one of the oldest, and furthermore that he wanted me to write an account of the Commencement for "Tom Eddy's paper," and insisted on my taking a five dollar bill for the same. So now, in great

Nineteen Beautiful Years.

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haste and honest joy, I have written this and will proceed to prepare the article. Praise, when it is meant, is life to me, "in a sense." I am afraid I think too much about it. Anyhow, I know that I am glad of all this and would like those who love me to know of it.

Evanston, July 7.-Thank God for my safe return.

July 9.-Sabbath morning before church. Sitting alone in my little newly furnished room that father and mother have had fitted up for me, the one where Mary and I once sat together when I was merry-hearted. Mother has just been in and read to me some beautiful thoughts of Hannah More's, on prayer. Mother is wonderfully spiritual since Mary is among the spirits, and her thoughts are only incidentally of earth, habitually in heaven. Father and she are in the front room now. He is reading the Northwestern Christian Advocate, she lying on the lounge, perhaps thinking of Mary in heaven. Down-stairs the pleasant housekeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Hanchett, otherwise Alfred and Cynth, with active little Tillie, the small maid of all work, are walking about or reading in the rooms where we used to lounge on Sabbath morning; and under this room where I sit, that one where Mary died is darkened and left solitary. Oh, life is strange and full of change! If these things did not come to us slowly, they would craze us, I am sure; but as it is, we adjust ourselves to them and manage to get on. Though the fresh air and sunshine are taken away, we live in darkness and from long habit breathe on, struggling to inhale the heavy, unreviving air.

July 15.-I am writing with enthusiasm the book about Mary and think it will be interesting. Her journals are delightful. I did not know she had such talent as they evince. Evanston is different, though I say little about it. I have been to the city to visit dear, true Clara Thatcher, one of the best friends I have on earth. Life is rather queer, but it pays, for all that. I want to be good and get ready for something better in the way of animated existence. I do not expect to live to be old. If I were sure about the Future, I would like to go there right away.

July 24. Not because I have the least thing to write, but just from habit, sitting at my table, I take the pen and scratch away. If it were not for "Mary's book," at which I work almost constantly of late, I could hardly get on. I go out very little, which is foolish, I presume. My book is so well commenced now, that I mean to write only forenoons and visit more; read, study German, and play a little. I am really happy over books, they are the true magicians. They take me back across the chasm of years and make me as fresh-hearted as when the leaves sent their shadows dancing to and fro on the pages which I read in the garden or on the piazza at home, with the tinkle of the distant cow-bell in my ears, and the fragrant breath of flowers cooling my cheek.

Sitting here alone, so often, I think about my future life out there in the mystic country, and glimpses come to me of an atmosphere golden as sunbeams and inspiring as ether, of crystal towers and snowy cushions of cloud, of streams that sing songs as they flow, of perfume delicate as the color of rose-lined shells, of infinite repose and that unspeakable feeling never to be won on earth by prayer or penance-that we are satisfied. Christ has in

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"A Change of Works."

His nature the elements that will make all this true when we behold Him face to face. We do not know what we are seeking here when we strive so hard and fret so much. Human love no doubt comes nearest, but it is only the melody of an anthem, the study for a picture, the twilight of a morning that shall dawn, and oh, to think! "the fret and jar gone from our souls forever," how we shall erelong awake to life and be restless and hungry and thirsty no more!

This may be as good a place as any in which to state that when we wrote in our journals or elsewhere, as children, mother was wont to help us with points, and sometimes with sentences. In extreme cases, father would do the same. It never occurred to me that this was at all out of the way, any more than to have them help me with my mathematical problems. When I went away to school, it soon became known to my fellow-students that I kept a somewhat voluminous journal, and was very fond of writing. Naturally enough, they flocked around me for aid and comfort in their composition work, which I was by no means slow to render, for I think no school-mate ever asked my help without receiving it. Indeed, I am afraid that I had an undeveloped conscience on this subject, for one of my most lively remembrances is a "change of works," by which my clothes were mended, and my room set in order, while I plied my pencil in the interest of some girl whose harp was on the willows in view of the fact that next Friday afternoon she must bring in a composition.

When I was a teacher, while disposed to be helpful to all my pupils, I did not write their essays, though given to "interlarding," as my father used to call the help furnished us children at home. In a single instance I remember writing an important. paper for a pretty young lady, who received a class honor on the basis of her good looks rather than upon her facility with her pen. This was a deadly secret between us two, and one never before divulged. It is mentioned now only by way of warning, for in the confession of sin that I deem it right to make, as a true witness in this autobiography, I am obliged to include not only sins of omission but of commission in the particular treated of in this paragraph.

In the autumn of 1863, I returned to Pittsburgh and taught in the Female College two thirds of that school year.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GROVE SCHOOL AND THE BUILDING OF HECK HALL.

(1865-1866.)

Mr. Edward Haskin, of Evanston, having six children of his own and plenty of money, determined to found a select school near his own home where they could have the best advantages. He enlisted several leading gentlemen to coöperate with him as trustees. Their children also attended the school, which was in two departments, primary and intermediate, with a tendency toward academic, in exceptional cases. My talented cousin, Mrs. Minerva Brace Norton, was the first teacher. She was a woman of intellect so penetrating and experience so large, that to follow her was not a holiday undertaking, but it fell to my lot to make this attempt in the winter of 1865. Associated with me were the "two Kates," as we were wont to call them, Miss Kate Kidder, the accomplished daughter of our Professor in Homiletics, and Kate Jackson, for so many years my friend and comrade. The building where we exercised our gifts is still standing on Hinman avenue, near the corner of Davis street, and I never pass it without seeing those two rooms full of the best-born and bestmannered children in Evanston, kindly, quick-witted and studious. If there were any naughty children I do not recall them. One or two who were dull formed the background for the rest. Our school had many unique features, but perhaps none more so than the custom of the pupils to write questions on the blackboard for their teachers to answer. This turn about was but fair play, stimulated the minds, of all concerned, and added to the good will and confidence between teacher and pupil. As we had al! grade s, from the toddler of four years old to the elegant young lady of sixteen, the problem of government was not so simple as

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The Bank of Character.

it might appear. After trying several experiments, I introduced the Bank of Character, opening an account with each student in my room, and putting down certain balances in his favor. Then by a system of cards of different values, which were interchangeable as are our bank notes of different denominations, that is, one of a higher value being equivalent to several of a lower denomination, the plan was carried out. Every absence, tardiness, failure in recitation, case of whispering, was subtracted from the bank account, and so emulous were those children that my tallest boys were as much on the qui vive to know their standing, as were their youngest brothers. Aside from the lessons, into which we introduced as much as possible of natural history, object-lessons, drawing and gymnastics, we gave out questions at each session, keeping an account of the answers and putting at a premium those who brought in the largest number of correct replies. I remember my honored friend, Dr. Raymond, told me that his boy, Fred, one of the brightest and most exceptional pupils I ever had, when not in school was lying on the sitting-room floor with his face in a book, hunting up the answers to some of this continuous game of twenty questions. It was certainly delightful to see the enthusiasm of my young folks in that Grove school.

We had our exhibition duly at the end of each term, on which occasion the University chapel would be packed with the appreciative throng of fathers and mothers to hear the exercises, in which their children had been most carefully drilled, and to see who got the prizes, for, thanks to the generosity of L. L. Greenleaf, at that time one of our wealthiest citizens, we always had several attractive rewards of merit, usually in the form of books, which seem to me the most unexceptionable prize that can be given. As I grow older, however, I doubt more and more the propriety of offering prizes. Competition is so fierce in this country and age, and the "set" of children's brains is so strong toward it from the first, that I have become an ardent believer in coöperation as a principle destined some day to overthrow the selfishness of competition, and with my present views, would hardly re-enact the scenes that made the last day" so exciting in that school.

་ ་

Oddly enough, the prosperity of this pleasant enterprise gnawed at the root of its life. The trustees were urged to make