compelled by her Anglo-Saxon mistress to wear her head-
handkerchief; as soon as she was set free, she, with all the women
of her race in the South, tore the head-handkerchief indignantly
off. In the same way, it cost the war of the Union to enable
Gabriella to teach school. She had been set free also, and the
bandage removed from her liberties. The negress had been empowered
to demand wages for her toil; the Anglo-Saxon girl had been
empowered to accept without reproach the wages for hers.

Gabriella's memoirs might be writ large in four parts that would
really be the history of the United States, just as a slender seam
of gold can only be explained through the geology of the earth. But
they can also be writ so small that each volume may be dropped,
like certain minute-books of bygone fashions, into a waistcoat
pocket, or even read, as through a magnifying glass, entire on a
single page.

The first volume was the childhood book, covering the period from
Gabriella's birth to the beginning of the Civil War, by which time
she was fourteen years old: it was fairy tale. These earliest
recollections went back to herself as a very tiny child living with
her mother and grandmother in a big white house with green window-
shutters, in Lexington--so big that she knew only the two or three
rooms in one ell. Her mother wore mourning for her father, and was
always drawing her to her bosom and leaving tears on her face or
lilylike hands. One day--she could not remember very well--but the
house had been darkened and the servants never for a moment ceased
amusing her--one day the house was all opened again and Gabriella
could not find her mother; and her grandmother, everybody else, was
kinder to her than ever. She did not think what kindness was then,