By that time, however, Anna had become quite enthusiastic over daguerreotypes. She had learned during the afternoon of three of her friends who were going to have their pictures taken. "May I have mine taken if I earn the money myself?" she asked. "Oh, yes, indeed," her father replied, and then dismissed the matter, feeling that when she had seen a daguerreotype she would have no further interest in them. It was then two weeks before the artist, as he called himself, would come to town. Anna went to work at once picking blueberries. The berries were plentiful, and Anna's purse held enough money for the picture before the two weeks had passed. Anna, however, did not go to the picture gallery the first day it was opened. She waited to see Abigail's picture. When Abigail fairly danced into the house the second afternoon after the artist's arrival, Anna was much disappointed at first, because she thought Abigail had left the picture at home. "See!" cried Abigail, holding up something that looked like a little black wooden book. It was about four inches by three and a half and not more than half an inch thick. [Illustration: ABIGAIL'S DAGUERREOTYPE] Abigail unfastened the two tiny brass hooks which held the two covers together, and displayed the picture inside. Fitted into one of the covers and framed by a mat of red velvet was a likeness of Abigail which made Anna gasp with surprise. There was Abigail's face, Abigail's smile, even the sprigs of roses on Abigail's new delaine dress. It was not a colored picture, to be sure, but otherwise it was just as good a picture as an oil painting, so Anna thought. Such daguerreotypes as that of Abigail, and the ambrotypes and the ferrotypes which were advertised at almost the same time--so quickly were new kinds of pictures invented when once the process of photography was discovered--were the first portraits made by the camera. Compared with the beautiful photographs of to-day, these pictures taken during the ten years preceding the Civil War seem very poor and unsatisfactory; but to those who had never seen any likenesses except either the oil portraits or the silhouettes, these likenesses made by the camera were very wonderful. It is rather surprising that the pictures taken when Anna was a child were as good as those still in existence show them to have been. It had been little more than ten years since Monsieur Daguerre had announced to the French Academy his invention of photography. Unlike most other inventors he actually wished all his discoveries to be made public, and as a result, the further discoveries of other men greatly hastened the development of the art.