the home as it appeared in the first half of this century, among
enlightened people. There is hardly any kind of handiwork done in the
kindergarten that was not done in the Mitchell family, and in other
families of their acquaintance. The girls learned to sew and cook, just
as they learned to read,--as a matter of habit rather than of
instruction. They learned how to make their own clothes, by making their
dolls' clothes,--and the dolls themselves were frequently home-made, the
eldest sister painting the faces much more prettily than those obtained
at the shops; and there was a great delight in gratifying the fancy, by
dressing the dolls, not in Quaker garb, but in all of the most brilliant
colors and stylish shapes worn by the ultra-fashionable.

There were always plenty of books, and besides those in the house there
was the Atheneum Library, which, although not a free library, was very
inexpensive to the shareholders.

There was another very striking difference between that epoch and the
present. The children of that day were taught to value a book and to
take excellent care of it; as an instance it may be mentioned that one
copy of Colburn's "Algebra" was used by eight children in the Mitchell
family, one after the other. The eldest daughter's name was written on
the inside of the cover; seven more names followed in the order of their
ages, as the book descended.

With regard to their reading, the mother examined every book that came
into the house. Of course there were not so many books published then as
now, and the same books were read over and over. Miss Edgeworth's
stories became part of their very lives, and Young's "Night Thoughts,"
and the poems of Cowper and Bloomfield were conspicuous objects on the
bookshelves of most houses in those days. Mr. Mitchell was very apt,