Aunt Rice was a “character” in her way and day; shrewd, kindly sympathetic, active in church and home, and with a marvellous repertoire of tale and anecdote that made her a most entertaining companion. “The Seminary” was her foster-child; the students had from her maternal interest and affection. Like other gentlewomen of her time and latitude, she was well versed in the English classics and in translations from the Latin and Greek. Pope, Swift, and Addison were household favorites, and this winter she was reading with delight the just-published _History of the Reformation_, by Merle d’Aubigné. She always wore black—merino in the morning, black silk or satin in the afternoon—and a regulation old lady’s cap with ribbon strings tied under a double chin, and I think of her as always knitting lamb’s-wool stockings. Hers was a pronounced individuality in every capacity she assumed to fill—mistress, housewife, neighbor, and general well-wisher. She never scolded, yet she managed the dozen or more servants that had come down to her by ordinary generation—seven of them men and boys—judiciously and well. Even then she was meditating a scheme she afterward put into successful execution—namely, liberating all her slaves and sending them to Liberia. To this end she had taught them to read and write, and each boy was trained in some manual trade. She superintended their religious education as faithfully. Every Sunday night all the negroes who were beyond infancy assembled in the dining-room for Scripture readings expounded by her own pleasant voice, and for recitations in the Shorter Catechism and Village Hymn-book. They were what was called in the neighborhood vernacular, “a likely lot.” The boys and men were clever workers in their several lines of labor. The women were skilled in the use of loom, spinning-wheel, and needle, and excellent cooks. One and all, they were made to understand from babyhood what destiny awaited them so soon as they were equipped for the enterprise.