etter
than common folks."

"Any other child would be clear out of bonds and past redemption,"
declared Aunt Priscilla. "Everybody made so much of her, as if it was
her party. And how the little creetur does sing! I'd like to hear her
praising the Lord with that voice instead of wasting it on French things
that may be so bad you couldn't say them in good English."

"That isn't," replied Betty. "It is a little good-night that her mother
used to sing to her and taught her."

Aunt Priscilla winked hard and subsided. A little orphan girl--well,
Cousin Winthrop would be a good father to her. Perhaps no one would ever
be quite tender enough for her mother.

Everybody went home pleased. Yet nowadays such a family party would have
been dull and formal, with no new books and theaters and plays and
tennis and golf to talk about, and the last ball game, perhaps. There
had been a kind of gracious courtesy in inquiries about each other's
families--a true sympathy for the deaths and misfortunes, a kindly
pleasure in the successes, a congratulation for the younger members of
the family growing up, a little circling about religion and the recent
rather broad doctrines the clergy were entertaining. For it was a time
of ferment when the five strong points of Calvinism were being severely
shaken, and the doctrine of election assaulted by the doctrine that,
since Christ died for all, all might in some mysterious manner share the
benefit without being ruled out by their neighbors.

Winthrop Adams would hardly have dreamed that the presence of a little
girl in the house was stirring every pulse in an unwonted fashion. He
had brooded over books so long; now he took to nature and saw many
things through the child's fresh, joyous sight. He brushed up his
stories of half-forgotten knowledge for her; he recalled his boyhood's
lore of birds and squirrels, bees and butterflies, and began to feast
anew on the beauty of the world and all things in their season.

It is true, in those days knowledge and literature were not widely
diffused. A book or two of sermons, the "Pilgrim's Progress," perhaps
"Fox's Book of Martyrs," and the Farmer's Almanac were the extent of
literature in most families. Women had too much to do to spend their
time reading except on Saturday evening and after second service on the
Sabbath--then it must be religious reading.

But Boston was beginning to stir in the education of its women. Mrs.
Abigail Adams had said, "If w