o
the nursery, took the tiny infant from its nurse, and laid it in my
father's arms. The little one thenceforth became the object of his most
tender affection.

He regarded all his children with great solicitude, feeling, as he
afterward said to one of us, that he must now be mother as well as
father. My mother's last request had been that her unmarried sister, the
same one who had accompanied us on the journey to Niagara, should be
sent for to have charge of us, and this arrangement was speedily
effected.

This aunt of ours had long been a care-taker in her mother's household,
where she had had much to do with bringing up her younger sisters and
brothers. My mother had been accustomed to borrow her from time to time,
and my aunt had threatened to hang out a sign over the door with the
inscription, "Cheering done here by the job, by E. Cutler." She was a
person of rare honesty, entirely conscientious in character, possessed
of few accomplishments, but endowed with the keenest sense of humor. She
watched over our early years with incessant care. We little ones were
kept much in our warm nursery. We were taken out for a drive in fine
weather, but rarely went out on foot. As a consequence of this
overcherishing, we were constantly liable to suffer from colds and sore
throats. The young physician of whom I have already spoken became an
inmate of our house soon after my mother's death. He was afterward well
known in New York society as an excellent practitioner, and as a man of
a certain genius. Those were the days of mighty doses, and the slightest
indisposition was sure to call down upon us the administration of the
drugs then in favor with the faculty, but now rarely used.

[Illustration: JULIA CUTLER WARD (MRS. HOWE'S mother)

_From a miniature by Anne Hall._]

My father's affliction was such that a change of scene became necessary
for him. The beautiful house at the Bowling Green was sold, with the new
furniture which had been ordered expressly for my mother's pleasure, and
which we never saw uncovered. We removed to Bond Street, which was then
at the upper extremity of New York city. My father's friends said to
him, "Mr. Ward, you are going out of town." And so indeed it seemed at
that time. We occupied one of three white freestone houses, and saw from
our windows the gradual building up of the street, which is now in the
central part of New York. My father had purchased a large lot of land at
the corner of our s