enthusiasm, her unselfishness, bravery, and generosity, but, at the same time, of her deficiency in the qualities which can alone make departure from the world’s beaten tracks--mill-horse tracks though they be--either wise, profitable, or safe. She had a fine and large intelligence, but not fine or large enough for going quite unpiloted across country. Whether my mother resided any time at Nashoba I am not sure, but I think not. At all events, very shortly after her arrival in America she established herself at Cincinnati. And when it became evident that there was no prospect of permanent work for my brother in the business of regenerating the negroes, it was determined--by the advice of what Cincinnati friends I know not--that he should join my mother there, and undertake the establishment and conduct of an institution which, as far as I was able to understand the plan, was to combine the specialities of an Athenæum, a lecture hall, and a bazaar! And it was when this enterprise had been decided upon, but before any steps had been taken for the realising of it, that I accompanied my father on a visit to America. When I returned from Winchester in July, there were still many months before me of uncertainty whether I might get a vacancy at New College or not, and my father, having determined on going for a short visit to Cincinnati, proposed to take me with him. After what I have written in a previous chapter of my early tastes and proclivities, I need hardly say that the prospect of this travel was in the highest degree delightful to me. I am afraid that, at the time, any call to New College, which should have had the effect of preventing it, would have been to me a very unwelcome one. Our departure was fixed for September, and the intervening time was spent by me in preparations for the great adventure, very much such as Livingstone may be supposed to have made on quitting England for the “dark continent.” I was, as it seems to me now, still a very boyish boy, all ex-Wiccamical prefect as I was, and, I cannot help thinking, younger and more childish than the youngsters of equal age of the present generation.