rder task than any Greek root she ever dug up.

'We paper-stainers must learn how to make shields, or we are lost.
I'll give you a pattern of the pinafore I used to wear in my
"blood-and-thunder days", as we call them,' said Mrs Jo, trying to
remember what became of the old tin-kitchen which used to hold her
works.

'Speaking of writers reminds me that my ambition is to be a George
Eliot, and thrill the world! It must be so splendid to know that one
has such power, and to hear people own that one possesses a "masculine
intellect"! I don't care for most women's novels, but hers are immense;
don't you think so, Mrs Bhaer?' asked the girl with the big forehead,
and torn braid on her skirt.

'Yes; but they don't thrill me as little Charlotte Bronte's books do.
The brain is there, but the heart seems left out. I admire, but I don't
love, George Eliot; and her life is far sadder to me than Miss Bronte's,
because, in spite of the genius, love, and fame, she missed the light
without which no soul is truly great, good, or happy.'

'Yes'm, I know; but still it's so romantic and sort of new and
mysterious, and she was great in one sense. Her nerves and dyspepsia do
rather destroy the illusion; but I adore famous people and mean to go
and see all I can scare up in London some day.'

'You will find some of the best of them busy about just the work I
recommend to you; and if you want to see a great lady, I'll tell you
that Mrs Laurence means to bring one here today. Lady Abercrombie is
lunching with her, and after seeing the college is to call on us. She
especially wanted to see our sewing-school, as she is interested in
things of this sort, and gets them up at home.'

'Bless me! I always imagined lords and ladies did nothing but ride round
in a coach and six, go to balls, and be presented to the Queen in cocked
hats, and trains and feathers,' exclaimed an artless young person from
the wilds of Maine, whither an illustrated paper occasionally wandered.

'Not at all; Lord Abercrombie is over here studying up our American
prison system, and my lady is busy with the schools--both very
high-born, but the simplest and most sensible people I've met this long
time. They are neither of them young nor handsome, and dress plainly;
so don't expect anything splendid. Mr Laurence was telling me last night
about a friend of his who met my lord in the hall, and owing to a rough
greatcoat and a red face, mistook him for a coachman, and said: