The room contained no chimney, and, until I was sixteen, no fire for any purpose. At that time, it being supposed that some delicacy of the lungs had threatened serious results, my father, who always moved the sods beneath him and the skies above him to care for a sick child, had managed to insert a little stove into the room, to soften its chill when needed. But I did not have consumption, only life; and one was not expected to burn wood all day for private convenience in our furnace-heated house. Was there not the great dining-room where the children studied? It was not so long since I, too, had learned my lessons off the dining-room table, or in the corner by the register, that it should occur to any member of the family that these opportunities for privacy could not answer my needs. Equally, it did not occur to me to ask for any abnormal luxuries. I therefore made the best of my conditions, though I do remember sorely longing for quiet. This, at that time, in that house, it was impossible for me to compass. There was a growing family of noisy boys--four of them--of whom I was the only sister, as I was the oldest child. When the baby did not cry (I have always maintained that the baby cried pretty steadily both day and night, but this is a point upon which their mother and I have affectionately agreed to differ), the boys were shouting about the grounds, chasing each other through the large house, up and down the cellar stairs, and through the wide halls, a whirlwind of vigor and fun. They were merry, healthy boys, and everything was done to keep them so. I sometimes doubt if there are any happier children growing anywhere than the boys and girls of Andover used to be. I was very fond of the boys, and cherished no objection to their privileges in the house. But when one went down, on a cold day, to the register, to write one's chapter on the nature of amusements in the life to come, and found the dining-room neatly laid out in the form of a church congregation, to which a certain proportion of brothers were enthusiastically performing the duties of an active pastor and parish, the environment was a definite check to inspiration. I wonder if all Andover boys played at preaching? It certainly was the one sport in our house which never satiated. Coming in one day, I remember, struggling with certain hopeless purposes of my own, for an afternoon's work, I found the dining-room chairs all nicely set in the order of pews; a table, ornamented with Bible and hymn-books, confronted them; behind it, on a cricket, towered the bigger brother, loudly holding forth. The little brother represented the audience--it was usually the little one who was forced to play this duller _rôle_--and, with open mouth, and with wriggling feet turned in on the rounds of the chair, absorbed as much exhortation as he could suffer. "My text, brethren," said the little minister, "is, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.'