This graceful little idyl at Graeme Park affords a pleasing contrast to the public life of the time, when heated political discussions upon the respective rights and wrongs of king and colonies were beginning to stir men's minds, North and South. Against the dark background of war and suffering soon to follow, it stands out in the clear spring air like a bit of Arcadia transported to the New World. So it must have appeared in the retrospect to Elizabeth Graeme, to whose later years many troubles came, whose marriage to Hugh Fergusson, against her father's wishes, seems to have brought her little happiness, and who solaced her lonely heart by her studies and translations, instead of, like Anne Bradstreet, stringing together rhymes upon children who gathered around her knees.

COLONIAL DAMES.

MRS. KNOWLES, the ingenious Quaker lady who outwitted Dr. Johnson in more than one tilt of words, illustrated her theories upon the education of women by citing the happy consequences of a woman's understanding the reason for the bursting of a pudding-bag, describing her as she "calms her maids by learned disquisitions and proceeds to make a fresh pudding out of the mixture; whereas the ignorant housewife thinks a hobgoblin is

in the pot, and gets into a perfect state of flurry."

Placing the question upon a higher ground than pudding-making, we find a Pennsylvania pedagogue, in 1765, proposing to teach young ladies “true spelling with the rules for pointing with propriety," urging upon them not to be discouraged on account of their age, or through fear of obtaining a spouse, as he has had "the honour to give the finishing stroke in education to several of the reputed fine accomplished ladies in New York, some of which were married within two, three and four years afterwards." Truly the ambitious instructor proved his right to be patronized!

All through the days of the settlement, whether learned or unlearned, women had been proving the superiority of mind over matter by the ingenuity and fertility of resource with which they overcame difficulties and brought comfort out of chaos. From that early and solitary Virginia witch, Grace Sherwood, who outwitted her, persecutors by swimming when she

was expected to sink, to the high-born and patriotic dames of North Carolina who banded themselves together to drink a decoction of raspberry leaves instead of tea until the odious tax should be taken off,* Colonial women faced perils and difficulties with unfailing heroism and patience. "To find a way or make one" seemed to be the motto of the hour. Danger developed latent courage, and emergency seemed to whet mother-wit to keener edge, as when Lydia Darrach set out upon her lonely walk through a country filled with the enemy's troops, or when Mrs. Philip Schuyler, hearing that the British soldiers were on their

*This association, formed in October, 1774, was presided over by Mrs. Penelope Barker, and joined by Mrs. Elizabeth King, Mrs. Sarah Valentine, Miss Isabella Johnston, a sister of Governor Johnston, of North Carolina, Mrs. Hoskins, and forty-six other women, who signed a paper which read as follows: "We the Ladys of Edenton do hereby solemnly engage not to Conform to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea, or that we the aforesaid Ladys will not promote ye wear of any manufacture from England, untill such time that all Acts which tend to enslave our Native Country shall be repealed."-"The Historic Tea Party of Edenton," by Richard Dillard.

way to Schuylerville to secure her absent husband's crop of grain, set fire to the fields with her own hands, rather than suffer such aid and comfort to fall to the share of the enemy; or as when Madam Hancock ordered all the stray cows on the Common to be milked because the Honorable John brought home to breakfast a larger company of officers than her larder could supply. Equally clever and prompt to take advantage of the situation was the Widow Nice, who, when the British officers quartered upon her at the Rising Sun Tavern complained of the butter, remarked that she could probably get better if she had a horse to ride out into the country in search of it. Being provided with a horse, the good lady took the precaution to secure some of her valuables in her saddle-bags, and, thus equipped, rode off upon her confiscated steed, to return no more until Philadelphia was in possession of the Continentals.

Well might Abigail Adams write from her Braintree home, where she lived in constant dread of hostilities and was often