Page:Letters of Life.djvu/338

326 from obscurity into a freer atmosphere and brighter sunbeam.

2 "Life and Writings of Nancy Maria Hyde."

This was a loving tribute to the memory of her who from school-days had been to me as a sister. In the spring of 1816 she had taken her departure from earth; and a vacation of three weeks spent with my parents, the following June, was devoted, except such intervals as were imperatively necessary for exercise, to the arrangement and correction of some of her manuscripts for the press. These, connected by a biographical sketch, were published in Norwich, our native place, in a volume of two hundred and forty-one pages. The labor of preparation, though arduous for the short time I was able to command, was a solace to my feelings, and a source of profit to the bereaved mother.

3 "The Square Table" was the first literary production after my marriage, written by snatches while I was becoming initiated into the science of housekeeping, with the shell of the school-mistress still on my head. It was miscellaneous, and in reply to "Arthur's Round Table," a somewhat satirical work which had recently appeared. So strict was its incognita, that I had great amusement in hearing its merits discussed