We were taught the waltz, galop, polka, lancers, and quadrille. The best dancers learned the gavotte and shawl dance, to the secret envy of the others. The Burgess boys, Sydney and Edward (the famous yacht builder) and one or two more brothers, wonderfully turned out lads, with immaculate clothes and tightly curling hair, were the champion dancers among the boys; Annie Merwin, Susie Spring, and Fannie Bartlett among the girls. On the wonderful “last day”, the dancing class was transformed into a real party. The boys wore white kid gloves--on ordinary days only the girls sported them. The brown holland disappeared from benches and wall hangings, revealing a handsome dark-blue brocade. The crystal chandelier came out of its chrysalis and became a blaze of glory. There was a real orchestra in the “Minstrel’s Gallery”; the mysterious double doors leading to the supper room were thrown wide, the boys coerced into offering ice cream and cake to their partners before falling-to themselves. The benches were crowded with admiring parents; some, to encourage the youngsters, “took a turn” with the dancing master or his assistant, Miss Hunt, a correct lady in brown silk, gloves to match, and bronze slippers! Most of the children came from the exclusive quarter known as “Beacon Street” and belonged to the conservative class called by the Young Whigs, “Hunkers.” On a certain afternoon, soon after my introduction to Papanti’s, I came running home, weeping bitterly, and threw myself into my mother’s arms, crying out: “Mama, Mama! What is an abolitionist? Are we that sort of thing? The big girls at the dancing school wouldn’t speak to the Andrew children and me; they said we were nasty little abolitionists.” This was the first, but not the last time that I have been made to suffer for holding a minority opinion. I connect this incident with General McClellan’s visit to Boston, in the year of emancipation, 1862. Feeling ran very high over the question of McClellan’s loyalty. My father, Governor Andrew, and Charles Sumner thought little of him, but the Hunkers made much of him, invited him to Boston, where they held a great reception for him and presented him with a sword, though he had but lately been relieved from his last command in the Union Army; and from a military point of view, at least, his career was over.