ularly dealt with in their early
education. But she knew her deficiencies, and earned money enough to
leave her work and attend a day-school part of the year.

She was an ambitious scholar, and she persuaded me into studying the
German language with her. A native professor had formed a class among
young women connected with the mills, and we joined it. We met, six or
eight of us, at the home of two of these young women,--a factory
boarding-house,--in a neat little parlor which contained a piano. The
professor was a music-teacher also, and he sometimes brought his
guitar, and let us finish our recitation with a concert. More
frequently he gave us the songs of Deutschland that we begged for. He
sang the "Erl-King" in his own tongue admirably. We went through
Follen's German Grammar and Reader:--what a choice collection of
extracts that "Reader" was! We conquered the difficult gutturals, like
those in the numeral "acht und achtzig" (the test of our pronouncing
abilities) so completely that the professor told us a native really
would understand us! At his request, I put some little German songs
into English, which he published as sheet-music, with my name. To hear
my words sung quite gave me the feeling of a successful translator. The
professor had his own distinctive name for each of his pupils. Eliza
was "Naivete," from her artless manners; and me he called "Etheria,"
probably on account of my star-gazing and verse-writing habits.
Certainly there was never anything ethereal in my visible presence.

A botany class was formed in town by a literary lady who was preparing
a school text-book on the subject, and Eliza and I joined that also.
The most I recall about that is the delightful flower-hunting rambles
we took together. The Linnaean system, then in use, did not give us a
very satisfactory key to the science. But we made the acquaintance of
hitherto unfamiliar wild flowers that grew around us, and that was the
opening to us of another door towards the Beautiful.

Our minister offered to instruct the young people of his parish in
ethics, and my sister Emilie and myself were among his pupils. We came
to regard Wayland's "Moral Science" (our text-book) as most interesting
reading, and it furnished us with many subjects for thought and for
social discussion.

Carlyle's "Hero-Worship" brought us a startling and keen enjoyment. It
was lent me by a Dartmouth College student, the brother of one of my
room-mates, soon after i