old Mr. Stanbury's escort, went to the steamboat, there to find one of
the lady principals of the academy ready to take charge of me on our
brief voyage. It was not in my nature to cherish depression or to make
complaints and sudden confidences, and we chatted very cheerfully all
the way up the river on indifferent subjects chiefly; sharing fruit and
flowers, and general observations and opinions, so that I felt quite
inspirited on my arrival, and made, I have reason to believe, no
unfavorable impression.

My school-girl experiences I shall not record here. They were pleasant
and profitable on the whole, and I earned the esteem of my teachers, by
my zeal and diligence in my studies, and made some few valued friends
more or less permanent, but none so dear as those I left behind.

Laura Stanbury, quiet and uninteresting as she seemed to many, had a
hold on my heart that no newer acquaintance could boast, and for dear
George Gaston, where was there another like him? I have known no one so
gifted, so spiritual, so simply affectionate, as this child of genius
and physical misfortune, whose short but brilliant career is engraven on
the annals of his country, I well believe, indelibly.

When I was fifteen years old, I was recalled suddenly and in the middle
of a busy session to my home, by the severe and almost fatal illness of
my father. He rallied, however, soon after my return, and I had the
inexpressible satisfaction of hearing Dr. Pemberton, our good and
skillful family physician, pronounce him out of danger a week later, but
he would suffer me to go from him no more. The voice of Nature asserted
her claim at last, and, feeling within himself that indescribable
failure of vitality in which no one is ever deceived, and which can
never be explained to or wholly understood by another, he desired me to