e with me. I
made a rush at the visitors as they entered, and sometimes I was asked
if I were lady principal, and sometimes if I were the matron. This
morning Miss Lyman's voice was gone. She must have seen five hundred
people yesterday.

"Among others there was one Miss Mitchell, and, of course, that anxious
mother put that girl under my special care, and she is very bright. Then
there were two who were sent with letters to me, and several others
whose mothers took to me because they were frightened by Miss Lyman's
_style_.

"One lady, who seemed to be a bright woman, got me by the button and
held me a long time--she wanted this, that, and the other impracticable
thing for the girl, and told me how honest her daughter was; then with a
flood of tears she said, 'But she is not a Christian. I know I put her
into good hands when I put her here.' (Then I was strongly tempted to
avow my Unitarianism.) Miss W., who was standing by, said, 'Miss Lyman
will be an excellent spiritual adviser,' and we both looked very
serious; when the mother wiped her weeping eyes and said, 'And, Miss
Mitchell, will you ask Miss Lyman to insist that my daughter shall curl
her hair? She looks very graceful when her hair is curled, and I want it
insisted upon,' I made a note of it with my pencil, and as I happened to
glance at Miss W. the corners of her mouth were twitching, upon which I
broke down and laughed. The mother bore it very good-naturedly, but went
on. She wanted to know who would work some buttonholes in her daughter's
dress that was not quite finished, etc., and it all ended in her
inviting me to make her a visit.

"Oct. 31, 1866. Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect: we
do things that other colleges have done before. We wait and ask for
precedent. If the earth had waited for a precedent, it never would have
turned on its axis!

"Sept. 22, 1868. I have written to-day to give up the Nautical Almanac
work. I do not feel sure that it will be for the best, but I am sure
that I could not hold the almanac and the college, and father is happy
here.

"I tell Miss Lyman that my father is so much pleased with everything
here that I am afraid he will be immersed!" [Footnote: Vassar College,
though professedly unsectarian, was mainly under Baptist control.] Only
those who knew Vassar College in its earlier days can tell of the life
that the father and daughter led there for four years.

Mr. Mitchell died in 1869.

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