“I love that dear old house! my mother lived there Her first sweet marriage years. * * * * The sunlight there seems to me brighter far Than wheresoever else. I know the forms Of every tree and mountain, hill and dell: Its waters jingle like a tongue I know: It is my home.” —Mrs. Frances K. Butler. Kate Aylesford was an only child and an orphan. It had been her misfortune to lose her mother, at so early a period of life, that she retained no distinct remembrance of her, and could only recall a mild, sweet face, which, as in a dream, seemed to have looked down on her, far away in the past, like a Madonna in a picture. Eighty years ago, when our story opens, the facilities for female education were small anywhere, for it was a generation when Hannah More was considered a prodigy and when to be able to write grammatically was regarded as all-sufficient, even for a gentlewoman. There were few good schools for girls in England, and none at all in America. Mr. Aylesford, the father of Kate, held a different, and as would be said in this day, a worthier estimate of woman, from that which was popular among his generation. He looked back with regret to the time when ladies studied Greek and read Virgil in the original. The story told of Lady Jane Grey, that she preferred to stay with her tutor, Ascham, and read Plato, rather than join the chase, was one of his favorites. He early resolved, accordingly, that his daughter should be educated in a better manner than was the fashion of the day. He declared she should be capable, as he phrased it, of being a companion for a husband, instead of a mere plaything: that is, he added, with the reverent piety which, without being Pharisaical, formed a main ingredient of his character, “if God willed she should be so blessed.” For, among his other old-fashioned notions, Mr. Aylesford held that a woman is never so fortunate as when a happy wife and mother.