ry living
thing, for man and beast and tree, which restores the Golden Age."

Very fond of his oldest child, Margaret, the father determined that
she should be as well educated as his boys. In those days there were
no colleges for girls, and none where they might enter with their
brothers, so that Mr. Fuller was obliged to teach his daughter after
the wearing work of the day. The bright child began to read Latin
at six, but was necessarily kept up late for the recitation. When
a little later she was walking in her sleep, and dreaming strange
dreams, he did not see that he was overtaxing both her body and brain.
When the lessons had been learned, she would go into the library, and
read eagerly. One Sunday afternoon, when she was eight years old, she
took down Shakespeare from the shelves, opened at Romeo and Juliet,
and soon became fascinated with the story.

"What are you reading?" asked her father.

"Shakespeare," was the answer, not lifting her eyes from the page.

"That won't do--that's no book for Sunday; go put it away, and take
another."

Margaret did as she was bidden; but the temptation was too strong, and
the book was soon in her hands again.

"What is that child about, that she don't hear a word we say?" said an
aunt.

Seeing what she was reading, the father said, angrily, "Give me the
book, and go directly to bed."

There could have been a wiser and gentler way of control, but he had
not learned that it is better to lead children than to drive them.

When not reading, Margaret enjoyed her mother's little garden of
flowers. "I loved," she says, "to gaze on the roses, the violets, the
lilies, the pinks; my mother's hand had planted them, and they bloomed
for me. I kissed them, and pressed them to my bosom with passionate
emotions. An ambition swelled my heart to be as beautiful, as perfect
as they."

Margaret grew to fifteen with an exuberance of life and affection,
which the chilling atmosphere of that New England home somewhat
suppressed, and with an increasing love for books and cultured people.
"I rise a little before five," she writes, "walk an hour, and then
practise on the piano till seven, when we breakfast. Next, I read
French--Sismondi's _Literature of the South of Europe_--till eight;
then two or three lectures in Brown's _Philosophy._ About half past
nine I go to Mr. Perkins's school, and study Greek till twelve, when,
the school being dismissed, I recite, go home, and practise again ti