Still, life was not all study and dreaming. There were sometimes merrymakings: witness the gay ball after which Julia wrote to her brother, “I have been through the burning fiery furnace; and I am Sad-rake, Me-sick, and Abed-no-go.” There was mischief, too, and sometimes downright naughtiness, Who was the poor gentleman, an intimate friend of the family, from whom Julia and her sisters extracted a promise that he would eat nothing for three days but what they should send him,--they in return promising three meals a day? He consented, innocently thinking that these dear young creatures wanted to display their skill in cookery, and expecting all kinds of delicacies and airy dainties of pastry and confectionery. Yes! and being a man of his word, he lived for three days on gruel, of which those “dear young creatures” sent him a bowl at morning, noon, and night; and on nothing else! In a certain little cabinet where many precious things are kept, I have a manuscript poem, written by Julia Ward for the amusement of her brothers and sisters when she was still a very young girl. It is called “The Ill-cut Mantell; A Romaunt of the time of Kynge Arthur.” The story is an old one, but the telling of it is all Julia’s own, and I must quote a few lines:-- “I cannot well describe in rhyme The female toilet of that time. I do not know how trains were carried, How single ladies dressed or married; If caps were proper at a ball, Or even if caps were worn at all; If robes were made of crape or tulle, If skirts were narrow, gored, or full. Perhaps, without consulting grace, The hair was scraped back from the face, While on the head a mountain rose, Crowned, like Mont Blanc, with endless snows. It may be that the locks were shorn; It may be that the lofty puff, The stomacher, the rising ruff, The bodice, or the veil were worn, Perhaps mantillas were the passion, Perhaps ferronières were in fashion,-- I cannot, and I will not tell. But this one thing I wot full well, That every lady there was dressed In what she thought became her best. All further notices, I grieve, I must to your imagination leave.” Julia sometimes tried to awaken in her sisters’ minds the poetic aspirations which filled her own. One day she found the two little girls playing some childish game, which seemed to her unnecessarily frivolous. (You all know, I am sure, the eldest sister’s motto,-- “Good advice and counsel sage, And ‘I never did so when I was your age;’” and the companion sentiment of the younger sister,-- “‘Sister, don’t!’ and ‘Sister, do!’ And ‘Why may not I as well as you?’”)