do gather into themselves something of the character of those
who live among them, through association; and this alone makes
heirlooms valuable. They are family treasures, because they are part of
the family life, full of memories and inspirations. Bought or sold,
they are nothing but old furniture. Nobody can buy the old
associations; and nobody who has really felt how everything that has
been in a home makes part of it, can willingly bargain away the old
things.

My mother never thought of disposing of her best furniture, whatever
her need. It traveled with her in every change of her abiding-place, as
long as she lived, so that to us children home seemed to accompany her
wherever she went. And, remaining yet in the family, it often brings
back to me pleasant reminders of my childhood. No other Bible seems
quite so sacred to me as the old Family Bible, out of which my father
used to read when we were all gathered around him for worship. To turn
its leaves and look at its pictures was one of our few Sabbath-day
indulgences; and I cannot touch it now except with feelings of profound
reverence.

For the first time in our lives, my little sister and I became pupils
in a grammar school for both girls and boys, taught by a man. I was put
with her into the sixth class, but was sent the very next day into the
first. I did not belong in either, but somewhere between. And I was
very uncomfortable in my promotion, for though the reading and spelling
and grammar and geography were perfectly easy, I had never studied any
thing but mental arithmetic, and did not know how to "do a sum." We had
to show, when called up to recite, a slateful of sums, "done" and
"proved." No explanations were ever asked of us.

The girl who sat next to me saw my distress, and offered to do my sums
for me. I accepted her proposal, feeling, however, that I was a
miserable cheat. But I was afraid of the master, who was tall and
gaunt, and used to stalk across the schoolroom, right over the
desk-tops, to find out if there was any mischief going on. Once, having
caught a boy annoying a seat-mate with a pin, he punished the offender
by pursuing him around the schoolroom, sticking a pin into his shoulder
whenever he could overtake him. And he had a fearful leather strap,
which was sometimes used even upon the shrinking palm of a little girl.
If he should find out that I was a pretender and deceiver, as I knew
that I was, I could not guess what might happen