t
blended itself with the flow of our lives. Almost the first of my
poemlets in the "Lowell Offering" was entitled "The River." These are
some lines of it:--

"Gently flowed a river bright
On its path of liquid light,
Gleaming now soft banks between,
Winding now through valleys green,
Cheering with its presence mild
Cultured fields and woodlands wild.

"Is not such a pure one's life?
Ever shunning pride and strife,
Noiselessly along she goes,
Known by gentle deeds she does;
Often wandering far, to bless,
And do others kindnesses.

"Thus, by her own virtues shaded,
While pure thoughts, like starbeams, lie
Mirrored in her heart and eye,
She, content to be unknown,
All serenely moveth on,
Till, released from Time's commotion,
Self is lost in Love's wide ocean."

There was many a young girl near me whose life was like the beautiful
course of the river in my ideal of her. The Merrimack has blent its
music with the onward song of many a lovely soul that, clad in plain
working-clothes, moved heavenward beside its waters.

One of the loveliest persons I ever knew was a young girl who worked
opposite to me in the spinning-room. Our eyes made us friends long
before we spoke to each other. She was an orphan, well-bred and
well-educated, about twenty years old, and she had brought with her to
her place of toil the orphan child of her sister, left to her as a
death-bed legacy. They boarded with a relative. The factory
boarding-houses were often managed by families of genuine refinement,
as in this case, and the one comfort of Caroline's life was her
beautiful little niece, to whom she could go home when the day's work
was over.

Her bereavements had given an appealing sadness to her whole
expression; but she had accepted them and her changed circumstances
with the submission of profound faith which everybody about her felt in
everything she said and did. I think I first knew, through her, how
character can teach, without words. To see her and her little niece
together was almost like looking at a picture of the Madonna. Caroline
afterwards became an inmate of my mother's family, and we were warm
friends until her death a few years ago.

Some of the girls could not believe that the Bible was meant to be
counted among forbidden books. We all thought that the Scriptures had a
right to go wherever we went, and that if we needed them anywhere, it
was at our work. I evaded the law by