from the feeling that the world was under a curse ever since that
unlucky appleeating in the garden of Eden. Why, oh! why had not the
sentence of death been carried out at once, and a new start made with
more prudent people? The school in which as a day scholar I passed nine
years of my life was more literary than many which were more
pretentious. Needlework was of supreme importance, certainly, but
during the hour and a half every day, Saturday's half-holiday not
excepted, which was given to it by the whole school at once (odd
half-hours were also put in), the best readers took turns about to
read. some book selected by Miss Phin. We were thus trained to pay
attention. History, biography, adventures, descriptions, and story
books were read. Any questions or criticisms about our sewing,
knitting, netting, &c., were carried on in a low voice, and we learned
to work well and quickly, and good reading aloud was cultivated. First
one brother and then another had gone to Edinburgh for higher education
than could be had at Melrose Parish School, and I wanted to go to a
certain institution, the first of the kind, for advanced teaching for
girls, which had a high reputation. I was a very ambitious girl at 13.
I wanted to be a teacher first, and a great writer afterwards. The
qualifications for a teacher would help me to rise to literary fame, so
I obtained from my father a promise that I should go to Edinburgh next
year; but he could not keep it. He was a ruined man.




CHAPTER II.