“No, not until I was accused of doing it myself before the whole school.”

“Why did you not defend yourself on the spot?”

“I could not speak, neither did I know what to say.”

“Why have you allowed yourself to remain in such a false position for a whole week?”

“I do not know.”

“Suppose I had not found this out, did you intend to keep silent?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Did Miss ——­ ask you to do so?”

“Yes.”

I had been a great favorite with this teacher, but she was so disgusted with my stupidity, as she called my timidity, that she said: 

“Really, my child, you have not acted in this matter as if you had ordinary common sense.”

So little do grown people, in familiar surroundings, appreciate the confusion of a child’s faculties, under new and trying experiences.  When poor Miss ——­’s turn came to stand up before the whole school and take the burden on her own shoulders she had so cunningly laid on mine, I readily shed the tears for her I could not summon for myself.  This was my first sad lesson in human duplicity.

This episode, unfortunately, destroyed in a measure my confidence in my companions and made me suspicious even of those who came to me with appreciative words.  Up to this time I had accepted all things as they seemed on the surface.  Now I began to wonder what lay behind the visible conditions about me.  Perhaps the experience was beneficial, as it is quite necessary for a young girl, thrown wholly on herself for the first time among strangers, to learn caution in all she says and does.  The atmosphere of home life, where all disguises and pretensions are thrown off, is quite different from a large school of girls, with the petty jealousies and antagonisms that arise in daily competition in their dress, studies, accomplishments, and amusements.

The next happening in Troy that seriously influenced my character was the advent of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, a pulpit orator, who, as a terrifier of human souls, proved himself the equal of Savonarola.  He held a protracted meeting in the Rev. Dr. Beaman’s church, which many of my schoolmates attended.  The result of six weeks of untiring effort on the part of Mr. Finney and his confreres was one of those intense revival seasons that swept over the city and through the seminary like an epidemic, attacking in its worst form the most susceptible.  Owing to my gloomy Calvinistic training in the old Scotch Presbyterian church, and my vivid imagination, I was one of the first victims.  We attended all the public services, beside the daily prayer and experience meetings held in the seminary.  Our studies, for the time, held a subordinate place to the more important duty of saving our souls.