... Yesterday I incautiously used the word _devil_, and Julia said, “Mamma, that is not a pretty word; you had better say _villain_.” They are both as lovely as children can be. The little one is passionately attached to her sister and cries whenever they are separated.... My father hired a house in Mount Vernon Street, in the years 1847–50, and of this I have still some recollections. The most interesting is that of a day in February, 1850, when my father carried all his three children down-stairs on his back, in a single load, to see our new little sister. She was later named Laura, after my father’s noted pupil, Laura Bridgman, and Elizabeth, after his sister. As Mrs. Laura E. Richards, author of many nursery rhymes and juvenile books, she has since been beloved by several generations of little folk. Our brother, Henry Marion Howe, was not quite two years old when he came down on his father’s back to welcome sister Laura into this bustling world. Although, on one occasion, when he plunged her into the horse-trough, he nearly helped her out of it, they were throughout their childhood inseparable friends and companions. Other memories of those years, 1847–50, relate to my earliest school-days. We went to a private school near by, kept by a Miss Watson, Paper dolls, made or contributed by the older girls, and peach leather loom large in these recollections of school attendance. The latter delicious article of food was a species of stiff marmalade prepared in a sheet about half an inch thick. This was rolled up tightly, and a piece, which was literally a jelly roll, was cut off the end. You could not only eat this, but you could first, happy thought, uncoil it. In old Southern cook-books the receipt for making peach leather can be found. Ours came from Professor and Mrs. Lieber, the former being at that time connected with Columbia College in South Carolina. He has been gratefully remembered, during the present war, as one of the freedom-loving Germans of earlier days. Somehow or other I learned to read, for I can remember being conversant with my Reader before I was five years old—according to the custom of that day. In the early summer of 1850 our parents, with the younger children, Harry and Laura, sailed for Europe. As became a child of New England, I was extremely reserved, and it was thought a pleasant sign when, as the family were about to depart, I wept. Alas! Investigation revealed that my tears were really connected with the little Greek almonds—doubtless too few had been allotted to me. In justice to myself I must say that on the return, eighteen months later, of my mother, brother and sister, I found tears of joy in my eyes.