know that the child got it out of the library the
next day and never rested till she knew it by heart. Philip could repeat
also the books of the Bible in order, just as glibly as the
multiplication-table, and the little minx, who could not brook that a
country boy should be superior to her in anything, had surprised her
mother by rattling them all off to her one Sunday evening, just as if she
had been born in New England instead of in New York. As to the other
fine things his mother read him, out of Ruskin and the like; Philip
chiefly remembered what a pretty glow there was in his mother's face when
she read them, and that recollection was a valuable part of the boy's
education.

Another valuable part of his education was the gracious influence in his
aunt's household, the spirit of candor, of affection, and the sane
common-sense with which life was regarded, the simplicity of its faith
and the patience with which trials were borne. The lessons he learned in
it had more practical influence in his life than all the books he read.
Nor were his opportunities for the study of character so meagre as the
limit of one family would imply. As often happens in New England
households, individualities were very marked, and from his stern uncle
and his placid aunt down to the sweet and nimble-witted Alice, the family
had developed traits and even eccentricities enough to make it a sort of
microcosm of life. There, for instance, was Patience, the maiden aunt,
his father's sister, the news-monger of the fireside, whose powers of
ratiocination first gave Philip the Greek idea and method of reasoning to
a point and arriving at truth by the process of exclusion. It did not
excite his wonder at the time, but afterwards it appeared to him as one
of the New England eccentricities of which the novelists make so much.
Patience was a home-keeping body and rarely left the premises except to
go to church on Sunday, although her cheerfulness and social helpfulness
were tinged by nothing morbid. The story was--Philip learned it long
afterwards--that in her very young and frisky days Patience had one
evening remained out at some merry-making very late, and in fact had been
escorted home in the moonlight by a young gentleman when the tall,
awful-faced clock, whose face her mother was watching, was on the
dreadful stroke of eleven. For this delinquency her mother had reproved
her, the girl thought unreasonably, and she had quickly replied, "Mother,