ted
circles of society. Fancy the reception given such a commonplace at
any of our fashionable summer resorts to-day!

On Andover Hill the event was a moral cataclysm. Andover girls were
country girls, but not of rustic (any more than of metropolitan)
social training. Which of them would have suffered an Academy boy,
walking home with her from a lecture or a prayer-meeting, any little
privilege which he might not have taken in her father's house, and
with her mother's knowledge? I never knew one. The case of which I
speak was historic, and as far as I ever knew, unique, and was that of
a victim, not an offender.

The little beauty to whom this atrocity happened cried all night and
all the next day; she was reported not to have stopped crying for
twenty-six hours. Her pretty face grew wan and haggard. She was too
ill to go to her lessons.

The teachers--to whom she had promptly related the
circumstance--condoled with her; the entire school vowed to avenge
her; we were a score of as disturbed and indignant girls as ever wept
over woman's wrongs, or scorned a man's depravity.

Yet, for aught I know to the contrary, this abandoned young man may
have grown up to become a virtuous member of society; possibly even
an exemplary husband and father. I have never been able to trace his
history; probably the moral repulsion was too great.

Yet they were no prigs, for their innocence! Andover girls, in the
best and brightest sense of the word, led a gay life.

The preponderance of young men on the Hill gave more than ample
opportunity for well-mannered good times; and we made the most of
them.

[Illustration: VIEW LOOKING FROM THE FRONT OF ELIZABETH STUART
PHELPS'S HOME IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.]

Legends of the feminine triumphs of past generations were handed
breathlessly down to us, and cherished with awe. A lady of the
village, said to have been once very handsome, was credibly reported
to have refused nineteen offers of marriage. Another, still plainly
beautiful, was known to have received and declined the suits of nine
theologues in one winter. Neither of these ladies married. We watched
their whitening hairs and serene faces with a certain pride of sex,
not easily to be understood by a man. When we began to think how
many times they _might_ have married, the subject assumed sensational
proportions. In fact, the maiden ladies of Andover always, I fancied,
regarded each other with a peculiar sense of peace. Each kne