More she taught me, sighing, singing, Taught me free to think and move, Taught this fond instinctive clinging To the helpful arm of love. The suitors called her "_Diva_," but in the family circle she was "Jules," or "Jolie Julie." The family letters of this period are full of affectionate cheerfulness. When "Jolie Julie" is away on a visit, the others send her a composite letter. Louisa threatens to shut her up on her return with nothing to read but her Anglo-Saxon grammar and "Beowulf." ("If that does not give you a distaste for all wolves," she says, "not excepting those _Long fellows_,[12] I do not know what will!") [12] Longfellow had lent her "Beowulf." Annie tells of opening the window in Julia's room and of all the poetical ideas flying out and away. Emily, her brother's wife, describes Mr. Ward sighing, "Where is my beauty?" as he sits at the table; and the letter closes with a lively picture of the books in the library "heaving their dusty sides in sorrow for her absence." In describing life at "The Corner," we must not forget the evenings at No. 23, Colonel Henry Ward's house. Uncle Henry and his namesake son (the boy who was to "see death approaching with joy"!) were musical. When Mr. Ward permitted (in his later and more lenient days) an informal dance at "The Corner," the three girls sent for Uncle Henry as naturally as they sent for the hair-dressing and salad-making _émigrés_; and the stately, handsome gentleman came, and played waltzes and polkas with cheerful patience all the evening. On Sunday the whole family from "The Corner" took tea with Uncle Henry, and music was the order of the evening. Mr. Ward delighted in these occasions, and was never ready to go home. When Uncle Henry thought it was bedtime, he would go to the piano and play the "Rogue's March." (Twice flogged for stealing a sheep, Thrice flogged for de_sar_tion! If ever I go for a soldier again, The devil may be my portion! We hear the fife shrill through the lively air!) "No! no, Colonel!" Mr. Ward would cry. "We won't march yet; give us half an hour more!" And in affectionate mischief he would stay the half-hour through before marshalling his flock back to "The Corner." A stern period was put to all this innocent gayety by the death of Mr. Ward, at the age of fifty-three. His life, always laborious, had been doubly so since the death of his wife. Stunned at first by the blow, his strong sense of duty soon roused him to resume his daily responsibilities--with a difference, however. Religion had always been a powerful factor in his life; henceforth it was to be his main inspiration, and he found his chief comfort in works of public and private beneficence.