CHAPTER XV

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_ENGLISH DAYS._

THE next morning, after breakfast, Mrs. Deborah established me in the library with all the materials for writing and a large sheet of thin paper, which she rummaged out of the bottom of a drawer. She stood for a moment, holding it in her hand, and I was sure I saw tears in her eyes. Then she drew a deep sigh and laid the sheet down before me.

"There, little miss! That is just what you need," said she. "I knew I had some if I could only find it, but I have not seen it for years—not since I used to write letters to India. And here, you see, is a bundle of nice pens and plenty of ink, and so I will leave you to write your letter."

I settled myself to my work with great satisfaction. The room was a very pretty one, larger than any other in the house, and containing a fine collection of books of all sorts placed in low cases between the windows. On the top of these cases stood busts of various learned and famous people, done in plaster or marble, and there were some beautiful pictures on the walls. It had been the study and library of Mr. Wyndham's father, who had once been the clergyman of the parish.

But I was not destined to be left in peace very long. I had hardly settled to my work when Mrs. Angelica came in.

"My dear," said she, "are you not afraid you will make your head ache writing?"

"Oh no, madam," I answered.

"But writing often does have that effect. I assure you I have sometimes made my head ache so, just by writing a letter, that I could hardly see out of my eyes. Don't you think you had better go and take a walk instead of writing?"

"But, Mrs. Angelica, you know Mr. Wyndham is going to-morrow," said I, "and I would rather write first and walk afterward."

"Oh, very well, dear; just as you please. I dare say you are right; but I assure you writing very often does make the head ache. I have heard my honoured father say so many a time. 'My head aches from writing,' he would say; and he ought to know, because he often wrote all night when he was engaged upon his great book. And I am sure your mamma would not wish you to have the headache."

I did not know what to answer, so I went on with my letter.

Mrs. Angelica fidgeted about a while, and then returned to the charge:

"My dear, is that a good pen? I should not wish to have your mamma think we had no good pens, or that you were careless in your writing."

"Yes, madam, it is a very good one."

"But I am sure," peering at my letter with her glass—"I am sure I see some very coarse marks. Don't you think you had better take another?"

Here, to my relief, Mrs. Deborah came to the rescue, appearing at the glass door which led into the garden:

"Sister Angelica, I want you. Come away, and let the child write in peace."

"Just as you say; you are always right, Sister Deborah," said Mrs. Angelica, obeying the call. "But, my dear, do take a new pen; and 'don't' you think you had better go out and walk?"

"Sister Angelica!"

"Yes, Sister Deborah; I am coming;" and at last she did go.

I made the most of my time, and filled my large sheet in every corner except just the place where the direction must go, for we did not use envelopes in those days. Then I folded and sealed it with a wafer which I found in the ink-stand, and directed it neatly just as Mrs. Austin called me to get ready for dinner.

"Well, little miss, have you finished your letter?" asked Mrs. Deborah as we sat down to dinner. People used to stand up till the blessing was asked in those days in England.

"Yes, madam," I answered; "it is folded and sealed, all ready to go."

"But, my dear, but, Sister Deborah, the spelling must be corrected before it is sent," said Mrs. Angelica. "Surely, Sister Deborah, you will not have little miss send her letter till the spelling is corrected?"

I dare say I coloured and looked as indignant as a turkey-cock. The idea that my spelling should need correction!

Mrs. Deborah only smiled, and answered, carelessly,—

"Never mind, Sister Angelica; I dare say the spelling will do very well, and miss would not like to have any one read her letter to her mamma. Who knows what she may have been saying about us? Eh, miss? Have you given us a fine character?"

"I am sure I should be very naughty if I didn't, Mrs. Deborah," I answered, with perfect truth; "but—"

"But you don't exactly want us to read it; that is only natural. Never fear, child; your spelling will go as it is for all me, I assure you."

"But indeed, Mrs. Deborah, I do know how to spell," said I, almost ready to cry with mortification. "Miss Tempy Hutchinson said I was the best speller in school."

"I dare say you do. There! Eat your dinner, and never mind. Nobody shall touch your precious letter."

"I dare say you are right, Sister Deborah; you are always right. Only when we were at school at Mrs. Trimmer's, the writing-master always corrected our letters and made us copy them; and Mrs. Trimmer's was considered an excellent school, and we were much improved by what was taught us there. You know that, Sister Deborah."

However, nobody corrected my letter, but it was left to go as it was written.

That afternoon I walked down to the rectory with Mrs. Deborah, and made acquaintance with Mrs. Fuller and her children. There were four of the little Fullers, two girls and two boys, all along close together from ten to fourteen, the boys being the eldest. After suitable introductions, I was sent out into the garden with my new friends, while Mrs. Deborah consulted with Mrs. Fuller on the matter which had brought her down to the rectory.

Emily and Julia Fuller were nice, pleasant, lady-like girls of about my own age, and were evidently disposed to be very polite and kind to the little stranger. They showed me their rabbits and their kittens, and promised to give me a little tabby, which I at once fell in love with as reminding me of my own dear Tabby at home.

"But I must ask Mrs. Deborah," said I. "Perhaps she won't want me to have a cat. Some people don't like them, you know."

The girls assented to the propriety of this measure, and presently began to question me about my journey and about America—a subject on which they were evidently very curious. Were there many Indians and wild beasts there? Did we have any schools or churches? Were most of the people white? Did we have any books? All of which questions I answered. They seemed very much surprised when I told them there were none but a few Christian Indians left in Massachusetts, and still more when they learned that Boston was a large city where people had pianos and books and carriages, and the other conveniences of life. Presently we began to compare the books we had read, and they were greatly delighted to find that I was acquainted with "Evelina" and "Cecilia," and they promised, if their mother were willing, to lend me another book by the same author. On the whole, we got on together very well.

Presently we were called into the parlor, and I was introduced to a prim but kind-looking gentlewoman named Miss Talbot, and informed that she was to be my governess.

"I have been arranging matters with Mrs. Fuller, as my brother desired," said Mrs. Deborah to the as we walked homeward. "You are to go to the rectory for your lessons every morning at nine and stay till two, and you will study whatever Miss Talbot thinks best. My brother would have engaged a governess for you alone and had her reside in the family, but I did not think it would answer; there were reasons against it. The fact is Sister Angelica does not get on well with everybody. She is, though one of the best women in the world, a little peculiar, as you may have observed already. But remember that I expect every one to treat Sister Angelica with the utmost respect—remember that, Olivia Corbet," said Mrs. Deborah, with grave emphasis. "There, little miss! You need not look so confused; I am not blaming you," she added, kindly. "I have no fault to find with you about that or anything else so far. But it is only natural for young people to notice such things, and I always think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

The next day I went over to the rectory to begin my lessons. Emily was looking out for me, and received me kindly.

"You mustn't mind if Miss Talbot is a little prim and sharp," said she, in a half whisper, as she led the way to the school-room; "I suppose all governesses are so. Did you go to school at home?"

I told her that I always went to school till I went to live in Boston, and after that I said my lessens to Aunt Belinda.

"And was your governess good-natured?"

"Oh, you mean the teacher?" said I, after a minute's consideration. "We don't call them governesses in America."

"How very odd!" said Emily. She and Julia always thought everything "very odd" to which they had not been used. "But was she kind?"

"Oh yes, indeed; she was perfectly lovely!" said I, with enthusiasm. "Everybody in Lee thought Miss Tempy Hutchinson was just perfection. But she could be sharp too if we were naughty. I remember how she whipped Thomas Allen for tormenting his little sister by pretending he was going to drown her kitten."

"I just wish 'our' boys could go to school to her, then; they are such plagues," said Emily. "But they are going to Eton pretty soon, and then we shall have some peace."

This seemed to me an odd way to speak of one's brothers, but I said nothing.

Emily opened the school-room door at that moment with—

"Please, Miss Talbot, here is Miss Corbet."

"Good-morning, Miss Corbet," said Miss Talbot, kindly; "I am glad to see that you can be punctual. Ring the bell if you please, Emily. Your sister is late, as usual. Miss Corbet, you will take that desk by the window."

Our first exercise was reading a chapter in the New Testament. Julia came in just as we were beginning, and we had no sooner finished than Miss Talbot sent her back to her room to brush her dress and tie up her shoes properly—a direction which she obeyed pleasantly enough.

Miss Talbot then called me to her and asked me what I had studied.

"I have been through Murray's grammar, ma'am," I answered, "and I have been through the arithmetic as far as cube root twice, and I have studied geography some, and I have been through Goldsmith's 'Greece.'"

"You mean that you have studied some geography," corrected Miss Talbot. "Do you know how to work?"

"Oh yes, ma'am," I answered, promptly; "I can bake and wash and spin and help about most kinds of work except about weaving. Mother never had any weaving done at home."

Emily giggled outright, and Miss Talbot herself smiled, while I turned hot and wondered what I had said to be laughed at.

"All those are excellent things to know, and your mamma was quite right in making you understand house-keeping," said Miss Talbot, with a reproving glance at Emily; "but I referred particularly to working with the needle. Can you sew neatly?"

"Yes, ma'am, I believe so," I answered.

"You seem to have been well taught. I am quite surprised," said Miss Talbot; and I fancy she was a little disappointed also. "Mrs. Deborah told me that you were to learn music. I suppose you know nothing about it?"

"I can play a little," I answered.

There was a piano in the school-room, and Miss Talbot bade me let her see what I could do, so I played the "Harmonious Blacksmith," which was, and is, a great favourite of mine, and acquitted myself respectably.

"You must have had great pains taken with your education," said Miss Talbot. "I did not suppose that pianos had penetrated the wilds of America."

"Boston isn't wild," said I. "It is a very nice city, only I don't like cities much."

"It was the hot-bed of rebellion," said Miss Talbot, severely. "The brother of Lady Strickland, to whose children I was formerly governess, was killed at Boston."

It was on the end of my tongue to say that Lady Strickland's brother might have stayed at home and minded his business, but my good genius kept me silent.

Miss Talbot continued:

"I shall arrange your lessons to correspond as far as possible with those of your companions. You will, of course, continue your music, as Mrs. Deborah desires it, and you may as well review your other studies: I mean arithmetic and grammar. I dare say your acquirements are not as great as you fancy. People often pass over those things very superficially in schools, even in English schools."

She then showed me the lessons which Emily and Julia were studying, and also set me a task of verses to learn—a portion of Pope's "Essay on Man."

"Please, Miss Talbot, I know that already," said I.

Again Miss Talbot looked disappointed, but she changed the book for Goldsmith's "Poems," which I had never seen. Learning poetry by heart was a regular part of a girl's education then, and I don't think it was a bad one, either. It stored the mind with good and agreeable ideas, expressed in good English, and furnished subjects for thought and imagination.

My grammar lesson was soon despatched, and also my arithmetic—indeed, I knew them both already—and I turned with great pleasure to my book of poetry. I soon learned my task, and then I ventured to ask Miss Talbot if I might read the rest of the poem, as my lessons were done.

"Not now," said she; "I am going to hear you say your lessons, and after that you must practice your scales."

I acquitted myself very well at recitation, and took great pains with my practice, so that I won from Miss Talbot that qualified degree of approbation which was all she was accustomed to bestow. Then we had a recess for half an hour. I would have liked to spend it in reading, but that Miss Talbot very properly would not allow, and the girls took me out to the garden.

"Well, how do you like her?" asked Julia, when we were in the garden, out of hearing.

"I don't know much about her yet," was my remarkably prudent answer.

"You shouldn't ask her, Julia," said the more considerate Emily.

"Didn't her eyes flash, though, when Miss Talbot said that about Boston?" said Julia, laughing.

"It wasn't very polite in her," I said.

"No, I don't think it was," said Emily; "but, Olivia, you mustn't mind people's teasing you about your country. The boys will be sure to do it; and the more you mind it, the more they will keep on. All boys are that way."

At this moment the two boys made their appearance, followed by a great rough water-dog which immediately jumped upon me and licked my hands and face as if I had been an old friend. I always liked animals of all sorts, and was not at all timid, so I patted the dog and said "Poor fellow!"

At which, apparently quite overjoyed, he rushed away, and immediately returned with a large stick, which he presented to me, apparently as a token of his regard.

"Hullo!" said Jack Fuller. "She isn't afraid of dogs, anyhow. Isn't he a fine fellow?"

I agreed that he was.

"He is perfectly horrid," said Emily. "He killed my kitten, but Jack set him on."

"I didn't," retorted Jack.

"Yes, you did," said the other brother, whose name was Theodore; "but, Emily, Jack didn't know it was yours. He thought it was a stray."

"Suppose it was a stray? I don't think you need have set the dog on it," said I. "What is the use of being so cruel?"

"Oh, all girls are milk-sops," was the careless answer. "All boys do such things. It is only girls that care about kittens and can't bear to have them killed."

"Isn't he perfectly horrid?" said Julia to me. "But I suppose all brothers are just the same."

"My brothers are not," I answered, indignantly. "Ezra wouldn't kill a kitten for the world—not unless he had to."

"Then he is a milk-sop too," said Jack. "I dare say he never fired a gun in his life."

"He shot a bear only last winter, and that is more than you ever did, or will do in a hurry, I guess."

"I guess! Hear the little Yankee!" cried Jack and Julia together.

"Julia, you are very rude!" said Emily, reprovingly. "I should think 'you' would have more sense. Don't you know what mother said? Come, Olivia, never mind; let's go and see the rabbits."

"What did your mother say?" I asked as we walked away together.

"She said you were a stranger and a foreigner, and we were not to laugh at you if you did make mistakes," answered Emily. "I don't see anything more ridiculous in saying 'I guess' than in a great many words the boys use, but it sounds odd, you know."

We were looking at the rabbits when the boys came upon us again.

"I say! Don't you be vexed, Miss What's-your-name," said Jack; "I didn't mean any harm."

"I'm not Miss What's-your-name,' thank you," I answered, laughing, for his manner was so frank I could not be angry. "My name is Olivia Corbet, at your service," making him a courtesy as I spoke.

"Well, Miss Olivia Corbet, then. There's a first-rate fellow at our school named Corbet," said Jack. "Tell us about the bear your brother killed, will you?"

"I will after school, perhaps," said I. "It is time for us to go in now."

After recess, as I had no work ready, Miss Talbot allowed me to read "The Deserted Village" the rest of the morning. So I passed my time very pleasantly.

That afternoon Mrs. Deborah and I walked to the village and bought materials for a piece of worsted work—carpet-work we called it then. It was to be a cushion for mother, and I was much pleased with the idea of working it.

After this beginning, my school-days went on very prosperously for a while. Miss Talbot was an excellent teacher, and we got on well together, though I often horrified her with what she called "my American notions." Finding, what she had been rather doubtful about, that I really did understand English grammar and arithmetic, she enlarged the circle of my studies by the addition of Goldsmith's "Rome" and some "History of England,"—I don't know whose. It was not much more than a compendium of names and dates. I had soon been made free of the book-cases at home by Mrs. Deborah, and I had routed out the fine folio copy of "Chronicle," into which I plunged over head and ears. Miss Talbot insisted on my remembering the dates. I read the stories out of my "Chronicle;" and putting them together, I got a capital grounding in the early part of English history.

With the children I did very well. Julia was a careless, good-natured slattern, always in disgrace with Miss Talbot, and never caring a pin so long as she had not extra tasks to learn. The boys were rough cubs who ordered their sisters about and made them wait on them more than was at all proper, in my estimation. Me they sometimes petted and sometimes tried to tease, but I was quite a match for them; and though we now and then disagreed, we usually got on very well.

Once, however, we had a serious quarrel. Jack was teasing me about being a Yankee; and proceeding to greater lengths than usual, he declared that all the Yankees were traitors, and that Washington ought to have been hung. That was too much for my patience, and my old temper flamed up. I gave him a sound box on the ear with all my little force, and then burst into tears and ran away. Nor would I speak to him that whole day, and I was almost equally vexed with Emily, the universal peace-maker, because she said I need not have minded Jack.

I went home with a heart full of anger and a terrible headache, which sent me at once to bed. I was not able to go to school the next day, but spent the time helping Mrs. Deborah and Mrs. Austin in the still-room, as they called it, a very interesting place to me, where Mrs. Deborah distilled peppermint water and lavender water and all sorts of medicines and cordials which she gave away to the poor people in the village.

By and by she asked me if I would go into the park and bring her some handfuls of ground ivy, which grew near the path by which I went to the rectory. I was gathering my ivy when Rover, Jack's dog, jumped upon me, as usual; and looking up, I saw Jack himself; looking very shame-faced indeed.

"I say, Olivia, I'm sorry I teased you yesterday," said he. "Won't you make up friends?"

"If it was only myself; Jack, I would in a minute," I answered, gravely and sorrowfully, "but I'm afraid I can't get over what you said about Washington and the Yankees. My father fought in the army seven years, and I don't think I can like anybody who says he ought to be hanged."

"Well, I'll take it back—every word of it," said Jack, earnestly; "and I like you all the better for sticking up for your own side. Come, I'll give you Beauty's black pup if you'll only be friends again."

"I don't want the black pup," said I, feeling, at the same time, that Jack must be very much in earnest to offer his chief treasure for the purpose of making amends. "If you take it back, that's all about it, and I am sorry I boxed your ears. It was very unlady-like."

"It served me just right," averred Jack; and that was the end of the quarrel.

But my school-days with Miss Talbot soon came to an end, to my great regret: My head had not been quite comfortable since the night of the shipwreck, and it began to be very troublesome. I had a headache every evening and the nightmare almost every night. I had spots before my eyes and was often giddy. Mrs. Deborah attended very carefully to my diet and exercise, but all did no good. Mr. Wyndham came down just at this time, and was so alarmed at the state in which he found me that he sent over to Plymouth for a doctor.

Doctor Selden was an elderly man, and was considered quite an oracle in those parts. He put me in mind of our own old Doctor Partrige, and I liked him at once for that reason. He questioned me very particularly about my feelings and about how long I had been ill. I told him that I had always been subject to sick headaches, but that those I now had were different and I never had them till after the wreck, adding that my head had never felt quite right since.

The doctor looked rather grave upon this, and he held a long consultation with Mrs. Deborah, from which I was excluded. At last I was called in, and heard the result of the conference. I was not to have any more lessons to learn at present, but was to run about is the open air as much as possible, and to sleep whenever I felt like sleeping. Doctor Selden did not think I should need any medicine, except, some simple tonic, perhaps, but he was quite decided about my lessons. I was dreadfully disappointed and distressed by this decision, and began to cry.

"Heyday!" said the doctor. "What sort of little girl is this who cries because she has no lessons to do?"

"Olivia is very fond of her books," said Mrs. Deborah.

"Fond or not, we must not have no more lessons at present," answered the doctor, "and Olivia must be a sensible girl and make the best of it. Is it not better to stop lessons a while than to lose your mind altogether? Come, now, let me see that you are a little lady."

I was ashamed of my tears, and stopped crying as quickly as I could, but I felt much grieved at losing my lessons and my pleasant hours at the rectory, for I had grown very fond of the family there. The girls were as much troubled as myself; and promised to come and see me as often as they could. Mrs. Fuller consoled me better than any one else. She talked to me very kindly, and told me that I must not give up all thoughts of learning because I could not use my books.

"A great many things can be learned without books," said she; "you have found that out already, I am sure, since you told me how you learned to make butter and spin, and help your mamma in other ways. If I were you, I would try to cultivate all sorts of pleasant and graceful and helpful habits. Learn to watch for chances to do small services as well as great ones—to thread a needle or pick up a spool or set a chair or open a door. Try to think of pleasant things to say, and learn to discipline that quick temper," she added, smiling, "so as not to be annoyed when Mrs. Angelica interferes. Oh, I assure you, you can make these idle hours and days among the best school-days of your life if you only take pains with them."

I felt very much comforted by Mrs. Fuller's suggestions, and determined to take her advice. And as I walked homeward through the park considered what I had better do first.

"There is my carpet-work—I think I might do a little at that every day; and I might knit some stockings. I wish I had my spinning-wheel; I'm sure I could spin. Anyhow I will Mrs. Deborah for some yarn, and I will knit some stockings for that poor old man who lives by himself near the church-yard."

Mrs. Deborah was much pleased when I told her my plan about the stockings, and promised to get me some yarn directly.

Men wore long stockings in those days—not socks, as they do now—and a pair of worsted stockings was quite an undertaking. However, thanks to mother's instructions and to lifelong practice, I was a very fast knitter, and I had no fears of not being able finish my task before cold weather.

Mrs. Deborah was very kind to me. She made a great many errands for me to the rectory and the village. She let me gather herbs and berries and mushrooms, and help her in distilling her medicines after her old-fashioned recipes; and very funny recipes some of them were. I remember one famous medicine had two handfuls of red earth-worms and half as many pounded snails in it. Others were very nice, like the rose cordial and lavender compound and the conserves of rose leaves and of hips, which are the berries of the wild rose.

I used to go with Mrs. Deborah to see the poor people; and while I acknowledge her goodness and kindness of heart, I used to wonder whether the poor women really liked to have us come in on them so unceremoniously, and to have Mrs. Deborah lecture them on their house-keeping.

One day Mrs. Angelica, who hardly ever went beyond the garden except to church, asked me if my mamma visited the poor.

"I don't think we have any poor people, Mrs. Angelica," said I—"not what we call poor people here."

"But, my dear, you must have them," argued Mrs. Angelica; "there are poor people everywhere."

I tried to think of the poor people I had known in Lee.

"There was Widow Benson; she used to have help from the town," said I; "but she lived in a nice wooden house with a board floor and a rag carpet."

"My dear, not a carpet! You must be mistaken. I don't think a poor person would have a boarded floor, much less a carpet, even if it were ragged."

"It was not ragged, it was quite whole all over, and everybody has board floors in America," said I. "I never saw a brick floor in my life till I came here. Father would hardly think his cows could live in such places as some of the poor people live in here," which was quite true. Father would hardly have kept his pigs in a hovel such as more than one decent family inhabited on the duke's estate.

"But, my dear, I am sure you said a ragged carpet."

"I said a 'rag' carpet," answered I; and I tried to explain the matter, but without much success. "Then there is Mrs. Winslow: she is pretty poor, but she is just as good as anybody. She takes tea with the minister's wife, and Mr. Henderson lends her his books and papers, I know. Sometimes mother used to send her nice things to eat when she wasn't well; but whenever we gave her anything, she used to send something back—berries or dried herbs, or something."

But I did not succeed in enlightening Mrs. Angelica very much on the state of American society. In fact, it never seemed possible to add to her stock of ideas in any way.

Mrs. Angelica was almost the only vexation I had, and she "was" a vexation; there was no denying it. Kind-hearted, lady-like, and really conscientious as she was, her "ways," as Mrs. Austin called them, were always making people uncomfortable. One of these ways was her pertinacity. She never could make up her mind to give anything up. No amount of evidence had any weight with her, and she would persist in arguing—if that could be called arguing which consisted in repeating the same assertion over and over—till every one else was tired of the subject.

Her insisting upon my taking camphor julep or chamomile tea for my headaches was just a specimen of her way of sticking to some particular point. It was utterly useless to tell her that Doctor Selden had said I did not need medicine, and indeed had forbidden my taking it.

"But then, Sister Deborah, you know it did help Austin."

"But the child's headaches are quite different, Sister Angelica, and do not proceed from the same cause."

"No doubt you are right—you are always right, Sister Deborah," she would say, quite submissively; "but my dear mother thought there was nothing like camphor julep for the headache, and I am sure it would do the dear child no harm."

Another of her "ways" was that she never could let one alone. Whatever I was doing, she always wanted me to stop and do something else. If I was knitting, she was sure I was getting a headache over it, and I ought to get up and run about the garden. If I was at work in the garden, "it was very bad for my complexion to be out in the wind." If I was reading, she thought it "such a pity I should not finish my pretty carpet-work, after all the pains Sister Deborah had been at to buy the wool and canvas;" and when the carpet-work was in hand, it was "such a pity I should not take such a fine day to walk over to the village;" and so on to the end of the chapter.

"Nonsense, Sister Angelica! Let the child alone," Mrs. Deborah would say; and then came the inevitable—

"No doubt you are right, Sister Deborah—you are always right; but I do think—" and then she would say it all over again. It really was a great trial of patience to a lively child of twelve years old—far worse than Aunt Belinda's strictest rules, for in them one could see some sense, and they were at least uniform in their action.

I had need of all my principles, and of all the love and respect which I felt for Mrs. Deborah and Mr. Wyndham, to enable me to bear patiently with the poor old lady. Mrs. Deborah herself, though she would not allow me to be "hunted about," as she said, never lost patience with her sister, not even when, as now and then happened, Mrs. Angelica had a fit of feeling abused, when she would sigh and weep for two or three days together over some fancied slight or neglect, and end by keeping her room perhaps for three or four days together. Yes, Mrs. Angelica certainly was a trial.

It was on my birth-day that Mrs. Deborah had a fall on a slippery place in the garden, and so got a broken arm and a sprained ankle, which kept her on the sofa almost all the rest of the winter. She suffered a great deal for a time, and was quite helpless still longer. It was wonderful, considering the active life she usually led, to see how cheerful she was under her confinement and pain. Mrs. Angelica was worse than nobody in a sick-room. Her only notion of usefulness seemed to consist in poking the fire till it burned furiously, in shutting out every breath of air, and in asking Mrs. Deborah once in five minutes, especially if she were trying to sleep, whether she felt better.

Mrs. Austin was an excellent nurse; but if she spent too much time with Mrs. Deborah, Mrs. Angelica was sure to feel symptoms of hysterics or headache, or something, and require her attendance; and these interruptions were another grievance. In fact, I do think she was rather jealous that Deborah should be ill at all, and it was quite impossible for Mrs. Deborah to have any ache or pain that Mrs. Angelica had not felt a dozen times, only a great deal worse.

Under these circumstances, I gradually and naturally slipped into the place of Mrs. Deborah's attendant. She would not have me stay with her at night, but in the day-time I was always at hand to read to her, to bathe her head or her ankle, or merely to sit still by her side with my knitting when she was unable to bear any noise or motion. As she got better, I used to do her errands to the poor people in the village and bring her news about them. She was very unselfish, and every day or two she would send me over to the rectory for two or three hours' amusement; but I knew that the time seemed long to her when I was away, and I never stayed long.

I count the days and weeks which I spent in Mrs. Deborah's sick-room as among the most valuable portions of my whole education. Under Austin's eye I learned to put on a bandage properly, to make a bed and put a room in order, and to arrange the fire without disturbing my patient. I learned to make broth and good gruel—a very uncommon accomplishment even among nurses—and to do those hundred little offices on which the comfort of a sick person depends. I learned, too, to bear patiently with the whims of Mrs. Angelica, and to restrain my too ready tongue and temper when she talked about "those wicked rebels in America, who wouldn't let good King George govern them," or about "dear Sister Deborah making such a fuss about her pains and keeping Austin waiting on her, when 'she' had had exactly the same, only a great deal worse, and had never told anybody."

In the hours when I was alone with her, Mrs. Deborah and I had many delightful talks. She had lived in London and known Miss Burney, the author of my beloved "Evelina," and Doctor Johnson, and all that brilliant and gay society. She had known Mrs. Hannah More, and heard her talk about education, and she amazed me very much by telling me how Mrs. More thought that, though cottage- and servant-girls might learn to read, it would be very undesirable, and even dangerous, to teach them to write.

On the whole, the fall passed very pleasantly, in-doors at least. Without, the weather seemed to me, accustomed to the autumns of New England, with their glorious woods, dismal in the extreme.

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