on not intended, that is, that women who
were not educated--not intellectual--were really not companionable--but
let that pass. It is curious how this idea that a woman is only a
scullion and a drudge has permeated society until even the women
themselves partake of the prejudice against themselves.

Mother Herschel didn't want her daughters to become educated, nor study
the science of music nor the science of anything. A goodly grocer of the
Dutch School had been picked out as a husband for Caroline, and now if
she went away her prospects were ruined--Ach, Mein Gott! or words to
that effect. And it was only on William's promise to pay the mother a
weekly sum equal to the wages that Caroline received in the
dressmaking-shop that she gave consent to her daughter's going. Caroline
arrived in England, wearing wooden shoon and hoops that were exceeding
Dutch, but without a word of English. In order to be of positive use to
her brother, she must acquire English and be able to sing--not only sing
well, but remarkably well. In less than a year she was singing solo
parts at her brother's concerts, to the great delight of the aristocrats
of Bath.

They heard her sing, but they did not take her captive and submerge her
in their fashionable follies as they would have liked to do.

The sister and the brother kept close to their own rooms. Caroline was
the housekeeper, and took a pride in being able to dispense with all
outside help. She was small in figure, petite, face plain but full of
animation. All of her spare time she devoted to her music. After the
concerts she and her brother would leave the theater, change their
clothes and then walk off into the country, getting back as late as one
or two o'clock in the morning. On these midnight walks they used to
study the stars and talk of the wonderful work of Kepler and Copernicus.
There were various requests that Caroline should go to London and sing,
but she steadfastly refused to appear on a stage except where her
brother led the orchestra. About this time Caroline wrote a letter home,
which missive, by the way, is still in existence, in which she says:
"William goes to bed early when there are no concerts or rehearsals. He
has a bowl of milk on the stand beside him, and he reads Smith's
'Harmonics' and Ferguson's 'Astronomy.' I sit sewing in the next room,
and occasionally he will call to me to listen while he reads some
passage that most pleases him. So he goes to sleep buried