with Maria by his side counting the seconds the father observed the
eclipse. Maria was then twelve years old.

At sixteen Miss Mitchell left Mr. Peirce's school as a pupil, but was
retained as assistant teacher; she soon relinquished that position and
opened a private school on Traders' Lane. This school too she gave up
for the position of librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, which office
she held for nearly twenty years.

This library was open only in the afternoon, and on Saturday evening.
The visitors were comparatively few in the afternoon, so that Miss
Mitchell had ample leisure for study,--an opportunity of which she made
the most. Her visitors in the afternoon were elderly men of leisure, who
enjoyed talking with so bright a girl on their favorite hobbies. When
they talked Miss Mitchell closed her book and took up her knitting, for
she was never idle. With some of these visitors the friendship was kept
up for years.

It was in this library that she found La Place's "Mécanique Céleste,"
translated by her father's friend, Dr. Bowditch; she also read the
"Theoria Motus," of Gauss, in its original Latin form. In her capacity
as librarian Miss Mitchell to a large extent controlled the reading of
the young people in the town. Many of them on arriving at mature years
have expressed their gratitude for the direction in which their reading
was turned by her advice.

Miss Mitchell always had a special friendship for young girls and boys.
Many of these intimacies grew out of the acquaintance made at the
library,--the young girls made her their confidante and went to her for
sympathy and advice. The boys, as they grew up, and went away to sea,