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52 still at home, in the "calm school of silent solitude," I here learned that it was possible to make myself acceptable out of my own family—a fact which, from constitutional diffidence, I had been accustomed to doubt.

My next educational movement was to attend a school for needlework. Our instructress was mild and ladylike, though distant and reserved. In this truly feminine department we strove to excel in nicety of performance, and our working materials were required to be kept in perfect order. Here it would seem that content and happiness must surely reign. But who can tell, by looking on a fair surface, what may smoulder beneath? The vines on the bosom of Vesuvius were scarcely more agitated by the lava-stream at their roots, than we tiny politicians by what we termed the partiality of the mistress for one of our compeers, her own niece. She always walked with her on her way to and from school, sat by her side, and received attentions and caresses which we coveted. We fancied she was made independent of the rules, and shielded when she deserved rebuke. Forthwith the fiercest proceeded to hate her, and the most Socratic ones to treasure up little instances of injustice as themes for private talk. I have often marvelled that I, who had heretofore been an upholder of the most despotic authority on the part of teachers, in the days when the Busby code prevailed, should have been carried away by this current,