fortune kept in constant relation. Our schoolmate, the small maid so slight
of limb, so dark and tearful, was soon sent away to live with an aunt in
Bristol, on the Delaware, having become an orphan by the death of her
mother. Darthea Peniston passed out of my life for many years, having been,
through the accident of her tenderness, the means for me of a complete and
fortunate change.




III


The academy was, and still is, a plain brick building, set back from Fourth
street, and having a large gravelled space in front and also at the back.
The main school-room occupied its whole westward length, and upstairs was a
vast room, with bare joists above, in which, by virtue of the deed of gift,
any Christian sect was free to worship if temporarily deprived of a home.
Here the great Whitefield preached, and here generations of boys were
taught. Behind the western playground was the graveyard of Christ Church.
He was thought a brave lad who, after school at dusk in winter, dared to
climb over and search around the tombs of the silent dead for a lost ball
or what not.

I was mightily afraid of the academy. The birch was used often and with
severity, and, as I soon found, there was war between the boys and the town
fellows who lived to north and east. I was also to discover other
annoyances quite as little to the taste of Friends, such as stone fights or
snowball skirmishes. Did time permit, I should like well to linger long
over this school life. The college, as it was officially called, had a