only in the afternoon, and on Saturday evening.
The visitors were comparatively few in the afternoon, so that Miss
Mitchell had ample leisure for study,--an opportunity of which she made
the most. Her visitors in the afternoon were elderly men of leisure, who
enjoyed talking with so bright a girl on their favorite hobbies. When
they talked Miss Mitchell closed her book and took up her knitting, for
she was never idle. With some of these visitors the friendship was kept
up for years.

It was in this library that she found La Place's "Mecanique Celeste,"
translated by her father's friend, Dr. Bowditch; she also read the
"Theoria Motus," of Gauss, in its original Latin form. In her capacity
as librarian Miss Mitchell to a large extent controlled the reading of
the young people in the town. Many of them on arriving at mature years
have expressed their gratitude for the direction in which their reading
was turned by her advice.

Miss Mitchell always had a special friendship for young girls and boys.
Many of these intimacies grew out of the acquaintance made at the
library,--the young girls made her their confidante and went to her for
sympathy and advice. The boys, as they grew up, and went away to sea,
perhaps, always remembered her, and made a point, when they returned in
their vacations, of coming to tell their experiences to such a
sympathetic listener.

"April 18, 1855. A young sailor boy came to see me to-day. It pleases me
to have these lads seek me on their return from their first voyage, and
tell me how much they have learned about navigation. They always say,
with pride, 'I can take a lunar, Miss Mitchell, and work it up!'

"This boy I had known only as a boy, but he has suddenly become a man
and seems to be full of intelligence. He will go once more as a sailor,
he says, and then try for the position of second mate. He looked as if
he had been a good boy and would make a good man.

"He said that he had been ill so much that he had been kept out of
temptation; but that the forecastle of a ship was no place for
improvement of mind or morals. He said the captain with whom he came
home asked him if he knew me, because he had heard of me. I was glad to
find that the captain was a man of intelligence and had been kind to the
boy."

Miss Mitchell was an inveterate reader. She devoured books on all
subjects. If she saw that boys were eagerly reading a certain book she
immediately read it; if it were harmless she en