little boy, who would come home to supper no more, nor yet to bed,

- whose porringer would be laid away empty thenceforth, and his
half-worn shoes wait until his small brother grew to fit them.

As for all manner of superstitiousobservances, I used once to
think I must have been peculiar in having such a list of them, but

I now believe that half the children of the same age go through the
same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue of

OMENS as I found in the Sibylline leaves of my childhood. That
trick of throwing a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issue

to hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in one or more
biographies, I well remember. Stepping on or over certain

particular things or spots - Dr. Johnson's especialweakness I got
the habit of at a very early age. - I won't swear that I have not

some tendency to these not wise practices even at this present
date. [How many of you that read these notes can say the same

thing!]
With these follies mingled sweet delusions, which I loved so well I

would not outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary effort to
put a momentary trust in them. Here is one which I cannot help

telling you.
The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard is easily heard at

the place where I was born and lived. "There is a ship of war come
in," they used to say, when they heard them. Of course, I supposed

that such vessels came in unexpectedly, after indefinite years of
absence, - suddenly as falling stones; and that the great guns

roared in their astonishment and delight at the sight of the old
war-ship splitting the bay with her cutwater. Now, the sloop-of-

war the Wasp, Captain Blakely, after gloriously capturing the
Reindeer and the Avon, had disappeared from the face of the ocean,

and was supposed to be lost. But there was no proof of it, and, of
course, for a time, hopes were entertained that she might be heard

from. Long after the last real chance had utterly vanished, I
pleased myself with the fond illusion that somewhere on the waste

of waters she was still floating, and there were YEARS during which
I never heard the sound of the great guns booming inland from the

Navy-yard without saying to myself, "The Wasp has come!" and almost
thinking I could see her, as she rolled in, crumpling the water

before her, weather-beaten, barnacled, with shattered spars and
threadbare canvas, welcomed by the shouts and tears of thousands.

This was one of those dreams that I nursed and never told. Let me
make a clean breast of it now, and say, that, so late as to have

outgrown childhood, perhaps to have got far on towards manhood,
when the roar of the cannon has struck suddenly on my ear, I have

started with a thrill of vague expectation and tremulous delight,
and the long-unspoken words have articulated themselves in the

mind's dumb whisper, THE WASP HAS COME!
- Yes, children believe plenty of queer things. I suppose all of

you have had the pocket-book fever when you were little? - What do
I mean? Why, ripping up old pocket-books in the firm belief that

bank-bills to an immenseamount were hidden in them. - So, too, you
must all remember some splendid unfulfilled promise of somebody or

other, which fed you with hopes perhaps for years, and which left a
blank in your life which nothing has ever filled up. - O. T.

quitted our household carrying with him the passionate regrets of
the more youthful members. He was an ingeniousyoungster; wrote

wonderful copies, and carved the two initials given above with
great skill on all available surfaces. I thought, by the way, they

were all gone; but the other day I found them on a certain door
which I will show you some time. How it surprised me to find them

so near the ground! I had thought the boy of no trivial
dimensions. Well, O. T., when he went, made a solemn promise to

two of us. I was to have a ship, and the other a marTIN-house
(last syllablepronounced as in the word TIN). Neither ever came;

but, oh, how many and many a time I have stolen to the corner, -
the cars pass close by it at this time, - and looked up that long

avenue, thinking that he must be coming now, almost sure, as I
turned to look northward, that there he would be, trudging toward

me, the ship in one hand and the marTIN-house in the other!
[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as well as all I

have said, was told to the whole company. The young fellow whom
they call John was in the yard, sitting on a barrel and smoking a

cheroot, the fumes of which came in, not ungrateful, through the
open window. The divinity-student disappeared in the midst of our

talk. The poor relation in black bombazine, who looked and moved
as if all her articulations were elbow-joints, had gone off to her

chamber, after waiting with a look of soul-subduing decorum at the
foot of the stairs until one of the male sort had passed her and

ascended into the upper regions. This is a famous point of
etiquette in our boarding-house; in fact, between ourselves, they

make such an awful fuss about it, that I, for one, had a great deal
rather have them simple enough not to think of such matters at all.

Our landlady's daughter said, the other evening, that she was going
to "retire"; whereupon the young fellow called John took up a lamp

and insisted on lighting her to the foot of the staircase. Nothing
would induce her to pass by him, until the schoolmistress, saying

in good plain English that it was her bed-time, walked straight by
them both, not seeming to trouble herself about either of them.

I have been led away from what I meant the portion included in
these brackets to inform my readers about. I say, then, most of

the boarders had left the table about the time when I began telling
some of these secrets of mine, - all of them, in fact, but the old

gentleman opposite and the schoolmistress. I understand why a
young woman should like to hear these simple but genuine

experiences of early life, which are, as I have said, the little
brown seeds of what may yet grow to be poems with leaves of azure

and gold; but when the old gentleman pushed up his chair nearer to
me, and slanted round his best ear, and once, when I was speaking

of some trifling, tender reminiscence, drew a long breath, with
such a tremor in it that a little more and it would have been a

sob, why, then I felt there must be something of nature in them
which redeemed their seeming insignificance. Tell me, man or woman

with whom I am whispering, have you not a small store of
recollections, such as these I am uncovering, buried beneath the

dead leaves of many summers, perhaps under the unmelting snows of
fast-returning winters, - a few such recollections, which, if you

should write them all out, would be swept into some careless
editor's drawer, and might cost a scanty half-hour's lazy reading

to his subscribers, - and yet, if Death should cheat you of them,
you would not know yourself in eternity?]

- I made three acquaintances at a very early period of life, my
introduction to whom was never forgotten. The first unequivocal

act of wrong that has left its trace in my memory was this:
refusing a small favor asked of me, - nothing more than telling

what had happened at school one morning. No matter who asked it;
but there were circumstances which saddened and awed me. I had no

heart to speak; - I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant
excuse, stole away, and the first battle of life was lost. What

remorse followed I need not tell. Then and there, to the best of
my knowledge, I first consciously took Sin by the hand and turned

my back on Duty. Time has led me to look upon my offence more
leniently; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong is

infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely finite. Yet, oh
if I had but won that battle!

The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was that had silenced
me, came near me, - but never, so as to be distinctly" target="_blank" title="ad.清楚地，明晰地">distinctly seen and

remembered, during my tender years. There flits dimly before me
the image of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a

schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told that she had