which, in those days, was considered a sort of patent of respectability. Miss Black used to allow her to spend the shorter holidays with me and go to those historical lectures as a matter of course. We never publicly mentioned the fact that Eleanor also liked to come to my house to get thoroughly warmed and take a bath, as one of Miss Black's principles of education was that feminine propriety and cold rooms were synonymous, and the long room with a glass roof, sacred to bathing, was known as the 'refrigerator'; but those atrocities that were committed in the name of education have fortunately been stopped by education itself. I don't think that either of us paid much attention to the lectures; the main thing was to get out and go somewhere; yet I don't think any other later good times were as breathlessly fascinating. "Mother seldom went, the hermetically sealed, air-proof architecture of the place not agreeing with her; so father, Eleanor, and I used to walk over, crossing the head of Washington Square, until, as we passed St. Mark's Church and reached the steps of the building, we often headed a procession as sedate and serious as if going to Sunday meeting, for there were fewer places to go in those days. Once within, we usually crept well up front, for my father was one of the executive committee who sat in the row of chairs immediately facing the platform, and to be near him added several inches to my stature and importance, at least in my own estimation. Then, too, there was always the awesome and fascinating possibility that one of these honourable personages might fall audibly asleep, or slip from his chair in a moment of relaxation. Such events had been known to occur. In fact, my father's habit of settling down until his neck rested upon the low chair back, made the slipping accident a perpetual possibility in his case. "Then, when the meeting was called to order, and the minutes read with many h-hems and clearings of the throat, and the various motions put to vote with the mumbled 'All-in-favour-of-the-motion-will-please-signify- by-saying-Ay! Contrary-minded-no-the-motion-is-accepted!' that some one would only say 'No' was our perpetual wish, and we even once meditated doing it ourselves, but could not decide which should take the risk. "Another one of our amusements was to give odd names to the dignitaries who presided. One with lurching gait, erectile whiskers, and blinking eyes we called 'The Owl'; while another, a handsome old man of the 'Signer' type, pink-cheeked, deep eyed, with a fine aquiline nose, we named 'The Eagle.'"