She might have sent me to the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form associations incompatible with the refinement she had so carefully cultivated in me.

She might have continued to teach me at home, for she was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of an institution like this would give tone and firmness to my poetic and dreaming mind.

She wanted me to become practical,--she wanted to see the bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres.

She anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse destiny.

I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words.