Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/100

82 was her day. Her task as to mere instruction was not difficult, and her letters everywhere show her to have had that natural love of children so essential to the teacher. She never leaves a house but some gay message, sent back to the youngest members, shows unerringly that they, at least, cannot have complained of her as haughty or supercilious.

A lady who was, when a child, a housemate of Margaret Fuller while in Providence, has lately told me an anecdote which thoroughly illustrates the noble and truthful way in which she habitually dealt with children. My informant, who was then a little girl, says that there were beautiful books and other curiosities upon Miss Fuller’s table, and that the children in the house were allowed to see them sometimes, on condition that they would not touch them. One day, in Miss Fuller’s absence, a young visitor came, and insisting on taking down a microscope, despite the little girl’s remonstrances, dropped and broke it. My informant was found in an agony of tears amidst the wreck; all her protestations of innocence were unheeded, and she was shut up as a prisoner, not merely for disobedience, but for falsehood. No one would even listen to her story, the circumstantial evidence seemed so overwhelming. Miss Fuller returned, and was told the incident; she came instantly to the room and took the weeping child upon her knee. “Now, my dear little girl,”