ical order; and the Professor told his best
stories; and the ladies of the family were expected to keep more or
less quiet while the gentlemen talked. But this, I should say, was of
the earlier time.

And, of course, we had the occasional supply; and as for the clerical
guest, in some shape he was always with us.

I remember the shocked expression on the face of a not very eminent
minister, because I joined in the conversation when, in the absence
of my father's wife, the new mother, it fell to me to take the head of
the table. It was truly a stimulating conversation, intellectual, and,
like all clerical conversations, vivaciously amusing; and it swept
me in, unconsciously. I think this occurred after I had written "The
Gates Ajar."

This good man has since become an earnest anti-suffragist and opposer
of the movement for the higher education of women. I can only hope he
does not owe his dismal convictions to the moral jar received on that
occasion; and I regret to learn that his daughter has been forbidden
to go to college.

[Illustration: DR. EDWARDS A. PARK, FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN
THEOLOGY IN ANDOVER SEMINARY.

From a photograph taken in 1862 by J.W. Black, Boston.]

We had, too, our levees--that was the word; by it one meant what is
now called a reception. I have been told that my mother, who was a
woman of marked social tastes and gifts, oppressed by the lack of
variety in Andover life, originated this innocent form of dissipation.

These festivities, like others in academic towns, were democratic to
a degree amusing or inspiring, according to the temperament of the
spectator.

The professors' brilliantly-lighted drawing-rooms were thrown open to
the students and families of the Hill. Distinguished men jostled the
Academy boy who built the furnace fire to pay for his education, and
who might be found on the faculty some day, in his turn, or might
himself acquire an enviable and well-earned celebrity.

Eminent guests from out of town stood elbow to elbow with poor
theologues destined to the missionary field, and pathetically
observing the Andover levee as one of the last occasions of civilized
gayety in which it might be theirs to share. Ladies from Beacon Street
or from New York might be seen chatting with some gentle figure in
black, one of those widowed and brave women whose struggles to sustain
life and educate their children by boarding students form so large a
part of the pathos of academi