nday night, and she began by telling us that Miss Judy
Curran was coming the next day, to make our fall and winter frocks, and
that there would be a pretty busy time with us all for the rest of the
month, as we were going to school in Richmond, the fifth day of October.

"Your father and I do not believe in boarding-schools," she continued.
"We think that God gives our children to us to be brought up and
educated, as far as possible, by us, their parents, and not to be made
over to hirelings at the very time when they are most easily led right
or wrong. There are, however, excellent reasons why you should begin now
to know more of the world than you can learn in a quiet country
neighborhood such as this. We are thankful to be able to give you the
advantages of a city school, without depriving you of good
home-training. You are to live with your Cousin Molly Belle, and be
day-scholars in Mrs. Nunham's seminary."

Even Mary 'Liza gave a little jump under the sheet at the astounding
news, while I leaped clean out of bed, and danced around the room in my
night-gown, clapping my hands and uttering small shrieks of ecstasy.

"Hurrah! hurrah! goody! goody! mother! it is like a fairy tale!"

I was somewhat abashed, and decidedly ashamed of my transport when the
blessed mother said gently, after a little sigh:--

"Of course I shall miss my daughters sadly, but I hope what we are doing
is for their good. If I were less sure of this, I could not part with
them."

From the hour in which her first-born baby was laid in her arms, until
she closed her eyes in the sleep from which our wild weeping could not
awaken her, her ever-present thought was the children's best good.
Nothing that could secure that was self-denial on her part.

* * * * *

I have come to Richmond to write this chapter. From my window I look
down upon the pavement trodden by my feet twice a day for ten months out
of twelve, during four school years. The house in which I sojourn
belongs to a younger brother of him who figures in my story as "Bud." It
occupies the site of the large, yellow frame building in which Mrs.
Nunham taught her "young ladies," more than forty years ago.

[Illustration: HOW I CAME TO TOWN.

"My father walked between Mary 'Liza and myself, each of us holding to
one of his arms, as gentlemen and ladies walked."]

I smile, as fancy reconstructs the group that turned the corner into
this street, a block aw