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HEN one has reached middle age and stands in the lengthening shadows, sorrowfully aware that the long battle is decided, and that the victorious laurels adorn other brows than ours, -one is apt to look wistfully back across the field where lie one's cherished hopes and illusions to that far-off pleasant valley of childhood, and think with tender regret of the child one was, with pain and bitterness of the man or woman one might have become, if only if only if only what? If only everything had been different!

Only to think what one might have become with more favorable environments, or if at each of those turns in the road where, we now know, some glorious opportunity lay in wait for us, there had been some voice to utter one potent word, some finger raised in meaning gesture, some eye closed with a friendly wink; or if a blind world had not so persistently refused to recognize our uncommon attributes, or if— and that is the hardest of all to bear-if a few more years had been granted us before Fancy's light wing began to droop, and sensibility lost its keen edge, and the heart its splendid courage!

If I, for instance, an ardent, impressionable, ambitious, yet erratic child, had been born into surroundings that favored study and systematic intellectual development, instead of making my tardy and I fear not too welcome appearance, as the ninth child of a country clergyman, with all that that implied twoscore years ago, what a woman I might have been!

There is poignant anguish, yet sweet solace, in the thought of what wealth and leisure and proper training might have made of that fearless climber of haymows and apple trees, that sharp-tongued, ready-fisted little amazon, in whom all small, helpless creatures, beast or human, found a champion, and bad boys a foe

In the household where my own existence began, the question of the hour was how to keep the immortal parts of eight children one having died in infancy — in eight sturdy bodies; likewise of keeping those bodies clad up to the standard required of the "minister's family," regardless of the disproportion between its numbers and the salary received by its paternal head. Naturally, the solution of this question absorbed all there was of the mother, mental and physical; for mental training we were thrown upon very inadequate schooling, and the unhindered prowling through our father's library, a privilege we thoroughly availed ourselves of.

The books I remember are Shakespeare, some odd volumes of the Spectator and Littell's Living Age, "Scott's Commentaries," the Waverley Novels, Isaac Walton's work on angling, "King Philip's Wars," some lurid anti-papist volumes, and a much-thumbed, thick-set little edition of Burns's poems not a bad collection altogether, it must be confessed.

We were a bright, rollicking, quarrelsome, affectionate band of brothers and sisters, working out our own destinies without much interference from the overtasked mother, or the abstracted father,

who, with sublime confidence in the capacity of his children to take care of themselves, devoted his superfluous energies to reforming drunkards, persecuting rumsellers, denouncing the institution of slavery, fishing for trout, and hunting partridges; for my father was a parson of the English school- a passionate lover of nature, an expert angler, and before age dimmed his bright blue eye and weakened his strong arm, as good a shot as ever drew bead on bird or beast.

I find I cannot well recall the child I was, without mentioning those who were near me, and helped (unconsciously, for I played but an insignificent rôle in their lives) to make, or mar, me. The four eldest children were girls, and four as differing types as one family ever presented. The eldest lives in my memories of those days as a pale, plump, demure girl, with pensive gray eyes, pale brown curls, remarkably pretty hands, a rich tralto voice, and a guitar slung about her neck by a blue ribbon. She could not, of course, have worn this instrument all the time, but I cannot dissociate her from it, perhaps because of a colored daguerrotype of that era still in possession of the family, in which the guitar and the blue ribbon play a prominent part.

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Next to her came a young woman of the Di Vernon type- a fine, tall creature with strong, shining black hair, skin like "milch und blut," and a laugh like a peal of bells.

High spirits, a generous nature, and a strong will had the beauty of the family; and a strong hand, too, one equally efficient in quelling juvenile ebullitions and curbing unmanageable steeds. A fine figure she was on a horse's back, and, naturally, equestrianism was her passion and delight. So she prances through my memory, mounted upon the fieriest of chargers, the long black plumes of her velvet toque floating on the breeze like the white plumes of Henry of Navarre.

It was not strange that between these two the little parsonage parlor proved strongly attractive to the beaux for miles around, and what with the brown curls and the guitar on the one hand, and the handsome face and gay spirits on the

other, it must have been for many a rustic swain a decided case of

"How happy might I be with either,
Were t'other dear charmer away!

I remember, (having been a very large-eared pitcher, indeed,) that after one of these evenings there were often very heated discussions, she of the guitar accusing her of the overflowing spirits with wilfully and with malice prepense diverting the attention of the visitors during the performance of " I'll chase the antelope over the plains," or "Thou hast learned to love another." I remember, too, that I had my own private opinions on the subject, which I discreetly refrained from expressing, knowing that the utterance of it would bring my inquisitive young ears into intimate relations with the hand of the curber of fiery steeds.

After these two came that dear girl, who, though as attractive and fond of pleasure as the other girls, led by some divine instinct of sympathy and devotion, slipped quietly into line at the tired mother's right hand, becoming a sort of adjutant-mother, as it were, to whom the younger members of the family turned for aid and comfort with great confidence. One such daughter is vouchsafed to most mothers of large families, I have noticed, and great must be their portion of heavenly bliss, for it is little they may expect here below.

Then came still another daughter — a shy, sensitive girl with big, abstracted eyes and a pale-blonde mane flowing, when loosened, to her feet, and loving above all things nature and poetry; after her, two roistering boys who resisted all efforts at fitting them for scholarly professions, but took to gun and fishing-rod, and, when the Civil War broke out, to fighting, as ducks take to water; thenmyself; and after me another odd stick of a boy both of us rather superfluous. blessings, I fear, the sort of gift for which one is thankful with a mental reservation, as for duplicate wedding presents, and which cannot, alas, like them, be "exchanged" for others more needed and desired.

Most unspoiled children are democratic, I think; I was particularly so partly

because of an inborn disdain for conventionalities, but more probably because, like Julius Cæsar, I preferred sovereignty in a country village to a second place in Rome. I chose, whenever possible, a class of companions who must necessarily look up to me as queen and leader.

Nice little girls with smooth hair, immaculate pantalettes and "tiers," and pretty manners, were not to my taste; with wild little Irish girls of unrestrained spirits and freedom of action I was on the best of terms.

In one manufacturing town where we lived for a time-like most "politicspreaching" clergymen of that period, my father was obliged to "move on" with remarkable frequency there was not far from our house an Irish settlement known as "The Patch." There Paddy was on his native heath. There he was born, lived, loved, fought, died, was "waked "and buried in his own sweet way. I am rather ashamed to own that "The Patch" had for me a deep fascination. Behind a gooseberry bush in our garden, there was a loose paling, known only to myself, and many a time have I shoved that paling aside, squeezed through the aperture, and with guilty joy run off to join Micky and Bridget "playin' as good as gowld in the gutter, with three bricks an' a dead kitten by ways of toys."

I liked to hang about the doors of the shanties, listening to the graphic conversations and witnessing the lively scenes always going on. I dimly remember the interiors the big high beds covered with patch-work counterpanes, the flowing wash-tubs, the delightful disorder, the strange odors that were too much even for my broad views, being endowed with a particularly fastidious sense of smell. I remember wondering at the excessive excitability of the numerous old women in frilled caps, and at the inconsistency of so much dirt with such a lavishness of soapsuds as those interiors displayed.

One old woman had a hen setting in the lowest drawer of her bureau, and I took the liveliest interest in the incubation and final appearance of those chicks. But the scene that impressed itself most powerfully upon my memory, was a pig

sticking at which I assisted, accidentally, I believe. The poor shrieking beast, the executioner with his gory knife, the crowd of lookers-on, and the old women running from every direction to the scene with pans and buckets which, to my curdling horror, they filled with the streaming blood - how could I ever forget them, and my subsequent sensations when I was told on inquiry that "Sure it was blood puddin' they'd be makin' wid that same ! It was with chastened spirits that I crawled through the gap in the garden fence that day, and for a long time I never partook of "pudding" in any form, without shuddering memories of that fearful moment; wondering what "bloodpuddin'" was like, and whether instant death would not be preferable to even tasting it. I believe "The Patch," in spite of its jolly old women, its litters of pigs and rabbits and kittens, its goats and hens and chickens, and freedom from the convenances, never had the same charm for me again.

A detestation of the institution of slavery and a horror of alcoholic beverages were the two lessons most faithfully inculcated in our family. My father's total abstinence views might be regarded as extreme, but he never did anything half way. There was a time when not even a bottle of cologne or spirits of camphor was permitted in the house, though, with the inconsistency inseparable from human nature, I have heard that my father allowed himself certain alcoholic stains imperatively demanded by the fine mechanical work which was one of his diversions.

As for slavery, the mere word stung him to the quick, and aroused him to the highest pitch of pulpit eloquence. There are those living who could testify to my father's gifts as an orator — gifts which, if they had been united to a love of study and an eye to the main chance, might have brought him more than the local fame that was his.

It meant something in those days to stand up in the pulpit and hurl fire-tipped javelins into a congregation composed of men who believed, or pretended to, in the divinity of human slavery, and where the very pillars of the church were men

who had made their money in the traffic he was denouncing. Yet when the people stirred uneasily in their pews as the rich sympathizers with divine institutions and the wealthy rumseller rose and stalked wrathfuily from the edifice, my father only grew an inch taller and broader and sent another stinging flight of missiles at their retreating backs.

That all this gave rise to painful scenes at home may be easily imagined; I recall vividly my mother's tearful protestations, and my father's truculent avowals that though we all should end our days in the poorhouse my dear mother's bête noir he would never abate one jot or tittle of his vehement denunciation of evil in every form. And now that it is all over I think my mother would not have had him other than he was, and I thank God that he lived to see the abatement of one evil and the complete extirpation of the other.

With those insatiate ears of mine I heard talk of the "Undergound Railway," and I think my father must have been one of the directors and stockholders in that mysterious and mythical enterprise. For across the disk of memory there pass strange, dusky figures of men and women with black faces and soft, guttural voices, that came, we knew not whence, and after a night's shelter, went, we knew not whither. But there was for us children an unspeakably weird charm about these dusky birds of passage. There were long, secret consultations with my father in his study, that excited our imaginations to the highest pitch; sometimes, at my father's request, our strange guests sang for us songs that made us cry as often as laugh; and the secrecy which pervaded all this, the strict injunctions we children were under not to mention our visitors to any living soul, only added to the charms of the mystery. There was one colossal black man, called Aaron, with a big velvety voice and a gargantuan mouth, who inspired my poor mother with the most intense fear; yet he was as gentle as a child, or a big fine dog. I remember my mother insisted upon his being locked into the room where he slept, and confessed that she had not closed her eyes the whole night.

Another strong impression of my early childhood was my first sight of death— of a dead human being. A servant girl -her name was Jerusha Cronk - took me to see a dead baby, when I was very young. The baby was "laid out" in a bureau drawer-bureaus seem to have been put to queer uses then-and nothing could be more exquisitely lovely than that little waxen image. I thought I was being imposed upon at first. I could not believe the little thing had ever been alive. Then I saw the mother crying over it, and I knew it must be so. Since, sooner or later, we must all look upon death, I am glad that it was first presented to me in so gentle a guise.

The one great passion and joy of my life was music. Nature had given me a correct ear. and a tuneful voice. I needed no urging or teaching in those childish days. I sang as easily and naturally as the robin and the thrush. This gift came to me from my father, who owned one of the rarest tenor voices ever heard. He had the musician's heart and ear too. With his own hands he made various instruments-violins, guitars, flutes, etc., and played them, too, in a crude, unlearned way, to which he clung with curious perversity, preferring, as he always declared, simple, natural, untaught performances to the most highly trained efforts. As for operatic singing, that was a thorn in his flesh. Yet it is related that being in Boston at that period when Adelina Patti was winning her first laurels, some friends, almost by main force, took my father, protesting and disgusted, to "La Somnambula." Absorbed themselves in the performance, his companions almost forgot my father's presence, until, happening to turn just as the unhappy heroine is vainly appealing to her lover, in the first act, there sat the hater of operatic music, with tears rolling down his cheeks, unconsciously consciously muttering, "Poor child! Poor child!" No more genuine tribute was ever laid upon the Diva's shrine.

It was seated on my father's knee that I learned to sing the dear old Scotch ballads that every one loves. As a little maid of five or six years my repertoire was extensive, and made me a famous

and, I fear, very much set-up young person. To stand on a table at "sociables and "donation parties," or on the platform at Sunday-school exhibitions, and warble"Sweet Afton," "Bonnie Doon," "Comin' Thro' the Rye," etc., to applauding audiences was an intoxicating experience. I can see my father now as he looked when singing those dear old songs, his eyes swimming with tears at the pathos of his own incomparable voice, that even in his old age retained its wonderful sweetness; and my heart aches that it is silent here forever.

I was an honest child, hating lies and the hundred and one petty trickeries practised by many of my mates. Yet my hour came, and this retrospective study would be incomplete without the record of an event that caused me unutterable shame and suffering at the time, and stands out as sharply in my memory as if it had happened yesterday.

In the village where I lived when I was about eight years old, was a good-natured woman who kept a millinery establishment. She was fond of me, and every Saturday afternoon I was allowed to come in and overhaul a big band-box filled with the accumulated litter of her work, and to choose from the straps of silk, lace, and ribbon, such as suited my fancy. These were submitted to her, to see that nothing was there that might be wanted, and the rest was mine. One Saturday afternoon I found among other things a few inches of silk fringe, pink and white. I can see it now. It seemed to me that anything so lovely could only have come into the band-box by mistake, and then and there the first tremendous temptation of my life assailed me. I wanted that fringe! Never in my whole life have I wanted anything more intensely. I was making a pincushion to send away, and that fringe was precisely what was needed to complete its beauty. The thought that the milliner might take it from me was terrible so I put it into my pocket, and kept it there.

The cushion was finished and sent off, and then remorse began its work. For several days I suffered the most agonizing tortures of spirit; then came a full confession on the bosom of my shocked and

sorrowful mother.

I remember that, in spite of the liberal theological' views in which was I brought up, it seemed impossible to me that God could ever forgive so heinous a sin, even though my mother did. My offence carried its punishment with it, but I was also condemned to go to the milliner, make my confession, and offer to pay for the fringe. I regret to say that that easy-going person first stared, then laughed, and called me a ninny; but though she took it so lightly, it remained a memory that still sends the hot blood to my cheek, and makes me lenient to the childish transgressor.

I am impelled to relate one more incident of a similar character, at the risk of destroying any vestige of respect that the reader of these egotisms may still entertain for the writer. Although my hatred of restraint made me careless of dress, I had my share of feminine vanity, and occasionally was seized with a passionate, almost barbaric longing for some article of finery that had struck my fancy, and the vain desire for which rendered me miserable. When I was about ten years old there came into fashion a sort of knitted headgear, a fanciful affair finished with a fringe of little dancing balls, and known to the trade as a "Rigolette." A rich and beautiful little girl who lived near us (and was always being held up to me as a model of how a child should treat her clothes), wore one of these fascinating creations, and I suddenly conceived one of my frantic longings for the expensive, and therefore unattainable, object. The more I knew that I could not have it, the more intensely I wanted it. Life lost all zest and charm for me. I was wretched. Like the boy who could "go to meetin' barefooted, but was sufferin' for a bosompin," I was resigned to red calico aprons and calfskin shoes, but a sky-blue "Rigolette" with white fringe, I must have or perish.

About this time my father made a trip to Boston, and just before his return, I learned that my dear mother had requested him to bring me what I wanted, and from Boston too! Within ten minutes every childish acquaintance in the block knew of my good fortune, and there ensued a state of rapturous suspense be