Now I was in my element: superintending a very inferior servant girl; providing wholesome simple meals for the invalids; going three mornings a week to an apothecary shop where a friendly man permitted me to assist him in his work, thus acquiring a knowledge of drugs and their preparation; going two mornings a week to my preceptor’s office to recite in the usual manner; giving German lessons two afternoons a week; spending one evening a week at meetings in houses of different parishioners for discussions on theological subjects, especially Unitarian and Universalist themes; assisting Mr. Mayo on Sundays at the Sunday school, especially in organizing the same and in substituting for absent teachers; and, after the arrival of the baby girl, taking exclusive charge of the delicate little being, trying to bring it up by hand. During this summer, I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Leander Lippincott (_Grace Greenwood_, a sister of Mrs. Mayo). And later I met a great many renowned ministers and lecturers from the East who either called when passing through Cleveland or exchanged pulpits with Mr. Mayo, being our guests in either case. All these gentlemen were highly interesting, especially when talking on politics, the Free Soil movement and anti-slavery. My knowledge of American civilization was in this way greatly increased and my powers of observation and meditation received full satisfaction. This quiet yet useful existence was broken by a letter from my father, bringing the news of his having sent my mother and the youngest two sisters to New York for a visit to us, with the intention of following them himself as soon as he could obtain a year’s furlough with full salary. All this was meant to see for himself whether I could not be brought back to my senses and persuaded to return to the proper sphere of woman. Perhaps it may be of interest here to state that my only brother had arrived in New York just before I left for Cleveland and had found a good position as mechanical engineer. And a half-brother of my mother, whom my father had adopted, had arrived after my departure. My father wanted to rescue these two from the fate of being soldiers in Germany, so he expatriated them, sending them to America. But in their new country, the former became a captain in the militia, while later, during the war of the rebellion, the latter became a captain in the regular United States Army. Shall I attempt to describe the feeling that overpowered me on the receipt of these tidings? If I did, you never could feel it with me, for I could not picture in words the joy I felt at the prospect of beholding again the mother whom I loved beyond all expression, and who was my friend besides; for we really never thought of each other in our relation of mother and child, but as two who were bound together as friends in thought and in feeling.