What there was of it; for I had not much strength to boast for many a day. Miss Pinshon tried her favourite recipe whenever she thought she saw a chance, and I did my best with it. But my education that winter was quite in another line. I could not bear much arithmetic. Bending over a desk did not agree with me. Reading aloud to Miss Pinshon never lasted for more than a little while at a time. So it comes, that my remembrance of that winter is not filled with school exercises, and that Miss Pinshon's figure plays but a subordinate part in its pictures. Instead of that, my memory brings back, first and chiefest of all, the circle of dark faces round the kitchen light wood fire, and the yellow blaze on the page from which I read; I, a little figure in white, sitting in the midst amongst them all. That picture--those evenings--come back to me, with a kind of hallowed perfume of truth and hope. Truth, it was in my lips and on my heart; I was giving it out to those who had it not. And hope--it was in more hearts than mine, no doubt; but in mine it beat with as steady a beat as the tickings of my little watch by my side, and breathed sweet as the flowers that start in spring from under the snow. I had often a large circle; and it was part of my plan, and well carried into execution, that these evenings of reading should supply also the place of the missing prayer-meeting. Gradually I drew it on to be so understood; and then my pieces of reading were scattered along between the prayers, or sometimes all came at first, followed by two or three earnest longer prayers from some of those that were present. And then, without any planning of mine, came in the singing. Not too much, lest, as Maria said, we should "make de folks upstairs t'ink dere war somethin' oncommon in de kitchen;" but one or two hymns we would have, so full of spirit and sweetness that often nowadays they come back to me, and I would give very much to hear the like again. So full of music, too. Voices untrained by art, but gifted by nature; melodious and powerful; that took different parts in the tune, and carried them through without the jar of a false note or a false quantity; and a love both of song and of the truth which made the music mighty. It was the greatest delight to me that singing, whether I joined them or only listened. One,--the thought of it comes over me now and brings the water to my eyes,--