That night I was lulled to sleep for the first time by what was to be forevermore associated in my thoughts with the fair City of Seven Hills—the song of the river-rapids. It is a song—never a moan. Men have come and men may go; the pleasant places endeared by history, tradition, and memory may be, and have been, laid waste; the holy and beautiful houses in which our fathers worshipped have been burned with fire, the bridges spanning the rolling river have been broken down, and others have arisen in their place; but one thing has remained as unchanged as the heavens reflected in the broad breast of the stream—that is the sweet and solemn anthem, dear to the heart of one who has lived long within the sound of it, as the song of the surf to the homesick exile who asked in the Vale of Tempë, “Where is the sea!” We were duly entered in the school conducted by Mrs. Nottingham and her four daughters in an irregularly built frame-house—painted “colonial yellow”—which stood at the corner of Fifth and Franklin Streets. It was pulled down long ago to make room for a stately brick residence, built and occupied by my brother Horace. The school was Presbyterian, through and through. Mr. Hoge had a Bible-class there every Monday morning; the Nottingham family, including boarders, attended Sunday and week-day services in the chapel, a block farther down Fifth Street. The eloquent curate of the Old First was rising fast into prominence in city and church. His chapel was crowded to the doors on Sunday afternoons when there was no service in the mother-church, and filled in the forenoon with the colony which, it was settled, should form itself into a corporate and independent body within a few months. It spoke well for the drill we had had from our late tutor, and said something for the obedient spirit in which we had followed the line of study indicated by him, that Mea and I were, after the preliminary examination, classed with girls older than ourselves, and who had been regular attendants upon boarding and day schools of note. If we were surprised at this, having anticipated a different result from the comparison of a desultory home-education in the country, with the “finish” of city methods, we were the more amazed at the manners of our present associates. They were, without exception, the offspring of refined and well-to-do parents. The daughters of distinguished clergymen, of eminent jurists, of governors and congressmen, of wealthy merchants and rich James River planters, were our classmates in school sessions and our companions when lessons were over. It was our initial experience in the arrogant democracy of the “Institution.”