t and mind at
once.

Mrs. Peake also considered singing an important part of a right
education. Among the favorite hymns first learned and sung in her
school were, "I want to be an angel," "There is a happy land," "Around
the throne of God in heaven," "Here we meet to part again," "In heaven
we part no more," and others of kindred spirit, so familiar in the
Sabbath schools at the North. How ardent was her desire to win the
young intellect and affections for Jesus and heaven! With strict
appropriateness may we apply to her the poet's language,--

"And as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
She tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."

While Mrs. Peake attached prime importance to the training of the
rising generation, she felt that great improvement might be made among
the adults. This view inspired her action from the first in Hampton,
and with a blessed result, that is now apparent to all. She was
accordingly very ready to gratify the desire of a number of adults for
an evening school, notwithstanding her increasing infirmities. The
result is, that several, who scarcely knew the alphabet before, now
begin to read with considerable readiness.

In these multiplied labors, she exhibited a martyr spirit, of the true
type. Often when she was confined to her bed, her pupils would be
found around her, drawing knowledge as it were from her very life.
Again and again did Dr. Browne, brigade surgeon, who concerned himself
for her like a brother, advise her to consider her weakness, and
intermit her exhausting duties. The scene of these labors was the
Brown Cottage, near the seminary, fronting on Hampton Roads. The
school room was the front room, first story. Her own family apartment
was the front room, second story. It will ever be a place about which
precious memories will linger.

It was proposed that, on Christmas day, the children of the school
should have a festival. All the week previous, they were busy, with
their teacher, in preparations and rehearsals. A large room on the
first floor of the seminary was decorated with evergreens for the
occasion, and at one end a platform was constructed. At an early hour
in the evening, the room was crowded with colored children and
adults, and soldiers and officers. The programme opened with the
singing of "My country, 'tis of thee." Chaplain Fuller read the
a