James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[299] of family relics, and also with all manner of strange and wonderful things brought by a sea-faring uncle, from the uttermost parts of the earth,--supplied moreover with what were exceedingly rare things in those days, a well-selected library, and a portfolio of fine engravings,--of all these things Mrs. Stowe tells us in one of her pleasantest letters, and adds, “The little white farm-house under the hill was a Paradise to us, and the sight of its chimneys after a day's ride was like a vision of Eden!”

Nearly two years passed by, and Harriet, now again in her father's house, wonders at “a beautiful lady, very fair, with bright-blue eyes, and soft auburn hair,” who comes into the nursery where she with her younger brothers are in bed, and kisses them, and tells them she loves them and will be their mother. This fair stranger was Dr. Beecher's second wife, Harriet Porter, of Portland, Maine; and of little Harriet she writes to her friends very handsomely: “Harriet and Henry . . . . are as lovely children as I ever saw, amiable, affectionate, and very bright.” She speaks also of “the great familiarity and great respect subsisting between parent and children,” and of the household as “one of great cheerfulness and comfort.” “Our domestic worship is very delightful. We sing a good deal, and have reading aloud as much as we can. It seems the highest happiness of the children to have a reading circle.” These observations afford us glimpses of that inner domestic life amid whose healthful and quickening influences Mrs. Stowe's child-life developed itself. Her sister Catharine writes of her when she was five years of age: “Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school all this summer, and has learned to read very fluently. She has committed to memory twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She has a remarkably retentive memory, and will make a good scholar.” She very early manifested a great eagerness for books, and “read everything she could lay ”