hen she was again in
England, much to her own delight, she "recognized her old London home
and other objects with which she was then familiar."

A lady who was a fellow passenger of the Pickards on their homeward
voyage was struck by the gentle management of the mother and the easy
docility of the child. To say, "It will make me unhappy if you do
that," was an extreme exercise of maternal authority, to which the
child yielded unresisting obedience. This, of course, is told to the
credit of the child, but the merit, probably belongs to the mother.
Doubtless we could all have such children if we were that kind of a
parent. A little tact, unfailing gentleness, and an infinite self
control: with these, it would seem one may smile and kiss a child into
an angel.

On arriving in Boston, Mrs. Pickard took her family to her father's,
where she remained until her death, and where, we read, "with parents
and grandparents, Mary found a home whose blessings filled her heart."
Being an only child, with four elderly persons, Mary was likely to be
too much petted or too much fretted. We are glad to know that she was
not fretted or over-trained. In a letter of retrospect, she writes,
"For many years a word of blame never reached my ears." An early
friend of the family writes, "It has been said that Mary was much
indulged; and I believe it may be said so with truth. But she was not
indulged in idleness, selfishness, and rudeness; she was indulged in
healthful sports, in pleasant excursions, and in companionship with
other children."

Everything went smoothly with her until the age of ten when, rather
earlier than most children, she discovered her conscience: "At ten
years of age I waked up to a sense of the danger of the state of
indulgence in which I was living"; but let us hope the crisis was not
acute. It does not seem to have been. According to the testimony of
her first teacher, she was simply precocious morally, but not at all
morbid. Her school was at Hingham, whither she was sent at the age of
thirteen. The teacher says that with her "devotedness to the highest
objects and purposes of our existence, she was one of the most lively
and playful girls among her companions, and a great favorite with them
all."

There seems to have been really no cloud upon her existence up to this
point,--the age of thirteen. I have had a reason for dwelling upon
this charming period of her childhood, untroubled by a cloud, because
from this da