enty years old."

"Where does he live, Aunt Esther?" inquired Gabrielle, "With his
father?"

"No; in Kansas with Victoria," was the reply. "I must not forget to
tell you that he taught school in Indiana when only sixteen years old,
and received a diploma from the State. His half-sister, Eugenia, who
is only fourteen, has had very pretty verses published in different New
York journals."

"Did Aunt Margaret receive as good an education as you did, when a
young girl, mamma?" inquired Marguerite. "I remember hearing you say
that you were sent away to school for two or three years."

"No," replied mamma, "her advantages for learning were not so good as
mine; indeed, I was her principal teacher. As I have told you, I went
to school very little as a child, and the village school at Vermont
gave only the most meagre and elementary instruction, but I was always
an eager reader of whatever came in my way, as well as an attentive
listener, and thus I contrived while in the woods to pick up
considerable information. I remember seeing at that time in a
neighbor's house, a little, cheaply bound volume, 'Blair's Rhetoric,'
which so interested me that I offered to take care of the owner's baby
for two weeks, if she would give me the book. A bargain was
accordingly made; I 'tended baby' for fifteen days, and received in
exchange the precious volume, which I studied until I learnt it by
heart.

"Then I saved pennies until I had collected a sufficient number to send
to Erie and purchase a copy of Comstock's Natural Philosophy--the first
one by the way that had ever been brought into our township--and these
two books, together with my self-acquired knowledge, and my own
experience of two years as a teacher, sufficed to fit me to enter the
Fredonia Academy, and to compete fairly with the other girls whose
instruction had not been so dearly bought.

"I spent four of the happiest years of my life in school at Fredonia,
and only regretted that sister Margaret could not have shared my
advantages.

"Meantime, Margaret commenced to teach school at the age of fifteen,
and continued to do so, until she was married, when twenty years old,
giving great satisfaction to every one. She has, you know, three
children. Her two boys, Eugene and Arthur, are promising young men,
and are both employed in _The Tribune_ office. Arthur is married, and
has several children. We all know how pretty his sister Evangeline is;
she, you know, is to b