rather superior course of education, at the boardingschool of Miss Beach and Miss Saunders; and there she remained two years. I have in my hand the oldfashioned blank-book-its paper yellow with ageon the fly-leaf of which she had printed, in large clear letters, "Ann Jean Robbins's book, at the Ladies' Academy, Dorchester; July 20th, 1803."* One half of the book is taken up with sections, as they are called, describing the "Use of the Globes." And the fine, large, clear handwriting, the exact definitions of globes, spheres, properties of spheres, climates, circles, declinations, and ascensions, together with the perfect spelling, make me believe that the child of thirteen received excellent instruction at the Ladies' Academy; although she left school at sixteen, with few accomplishments, and no knowledge of languages except a small acquisition of French and Latin. Even these she valued through life simply because they had taught her the derivation of English words, and thereby enlarged her understanding of her own language. But she left school with that acquisition of intellectual taste and wisdom which two years of intercourse with such a woman as Miss Beach could not fail to impart.

Her room-mate at this school was a sweet, attractive, refined little girl, two years younger than herself, named Elizabeth Beach. When they went to their room the first night of their companionship, the little girl looked at her elder acquaintance with a dawning respect, as she was so large and tall, and to her eyes almost a woman. "Which side of the

She always wrote it Anne in later years.

AT THE DORCHESTER ACADEMY

35

bed shall I sleep, Miss Robbins?" she said deferentially. "Oh! it's perfectly immaterial to me which side you sleep," said Anne in her clear, ringing voice, "for I always sleep in the middle." The next morning, when seated around the breakfast-table, the other girls cating with the pewter spoons which were thought good enough for boarding-school children of that day and really were so-Anne cheerfully pulled a bright silver spoon out of her pocket, and began to eat her breakfast. "As long as there are silver spoons in the world" she said in an undertone "I shall cat with one; and, when there cease to be, I will put up with some inferior metal." When Anne left the Dorchester Academy her little room-mate and she were parted, and they never met but once again in the whole course of their lives. But, sixty years after those school-days ended, an accident, or rather the good hand of Providence, led me to occupy the next house to the dear old lady, Mrs. Richard Smith, my mother's early friend. She came to offer kindness to a stranger, because she was a stranger; and when our conversation revealed to her that I was the daughter of her old-time companion at the Dorchester Academy nothing could exceed her joy. She embraced my children with warmth, told them the little tales I have repeated above, and ended with saying, "Don't think, dear children, that your grandmother did not give me my full share of the bed, and more too. That was just her funny way of putting things. She was really the most generous girl in the whole school." During the two

years that we were permitted to enjoy the society of this lovely old lady we experienced untold pleasure in it, and have never ceased to mourn for her since death removed her.

On leaving school Anne Jean did not return to the home on Milton Hill where she was born. About the year 1805 the family removed to the Brush Hill farm, two miles and a half from Milton Hill, a place inherited by my grandmother and her sister, Aunt Forbes, and very dear to them from long and varied associations. As Brush Hill still remains the home of their children I cannot help wishing to preserve some record of its history, so dear to us all. The house at Brush Hill was erected in 1734 by Uncle Smith, a sugar-refiner in Brattle Square, Boston, who was twice married, but had no children. His last wife was the widow Campbell, formerly Miss Betsy Murray, who survived him, and afterwards became Mrs. Inman. She was the aunt of Elizabeth and Dorothy Murray, and they had passed their youth with her at Brush Hill, and were warmly attached to the place. Elizabeth afterwards married our grandfather Robbins; and Dorothy became the wife of a Scotch clergyman, named Forbes, and they were the grandparents of our cousins Robert Bennet and John M. Forbes.

A finer instance of the strength and durability of family attachments and friendships can hardly be found than those that were formed among the young people who were brought together at Brush Hill by the marriage of Uncle Smith, and which have been handed down to this present time from one generation to another. Uncle Smith's first wife,