54
Tom Eddy and Eugene Stone 66
"Uncle David Dudley Field" 66
Grandmother's Rocking Chair 88
The Grandfather Clock 88
Hon. Francis Granger 100
Mr. Gideon Granger 100
The Old Canandaicua Academy 124
The Ontario Female Seminary 132
"Old Friend Burling" 138
Madame Anna Bishop 138
"Abbie Clark and I Had Our Ambrotypes Taken To-day" 152
"Mr. Noah T. Clarke's Brother and I" 152

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PUBLISHERS' NOTE

After this book was in type, on March 29, 1913, the author, Mrs.
Caroline Richards Clarke, died at Naples, New York.

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INTRODUCTION

The Diary of Caroline Cowles Richards fell into my hands, so to speak,
out of space. I had no previous acquaintance with the author, and I sat
down to read the book one evening in no especial mood of anticipation.
From the first page to the last my attention was riveted. To call it
fascinating barely expresses the quality of the charm. Caroline Richards
and her sister Anna, having early lost their mother, were sent to the
home of her parents in Canandaigua, New York, where they were brought up
in the simplicity and sweetness of a refined household, amid Puritan
traditions. The children were allowed to grow as plants do, absorbing
vitality from the atmosphere around them. Whatever there was of gracious
formality in the manners of aristocratic people of the period, came to
them as their birthright, while the spirit of the truest democracy
pervaded their home. Of this Diary it is not too much to say that it is
a revelation of childhood in ideal conditions.

The Diary begins in 1852, and is continued until 1872. Those of us who
lived in the latter half of the nineteenth century recall the swift
transitions, the rapid march of science and various changes in social
customs, and as we meet allusions to these in the leaves of the girl's
Diary we live our past over again with pe