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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
206
Sometimes
an
Englishman,
who
was
studying
our
national
institutions,
would
call
and
have
a
friendly
talk
with
us
at
work.
Sometimes
it
was
a
traveler
from
the
South,
who
was
interested
in
some
way.
I
remember
one,
an
editor
and
author
from
Georgia,
who
visited
our
Improvement
Circle,
and
who
sent
some
of
us
"Offering"
contributors
copies
of
his
book
after
he
had
returned
home.
One
of
the
pleasantest
visitors
that
I
recall
was
a
young
Quaker
woman
from
Philadelphia,
a
school-teacher,
who
came
to
see
for
herself
how
the
Lowell
girls
lived,
of
whom
she
had
heard
so
much.
A
deep,
quiet
friendship
grew
up
between
us
two.
I
wrote
some
verses
for
her
when
we
parted,
and
she
sent
me
one
cordial,
charmingly-written
letter.
In
a
few
weeks
I
answered
it;
but
the
response
was
from
another
person,
a
near
relative.
She
was
dead.
But
she
still
remains
a
real
person
to
me;
I
often
recall
her
features
and
the
tone
of
her
voice.
It
was
as
if
a
beautiful
spirit
from
an
invisible
world
had
slipped
in
among
us,
and
quickly
gone
back
again.
It
was
an
event
to
me,
and
to
my
immediate
friends
among
the
mill-girls,
when
the
poet
Whittier
came
to
Lowell
to
stay
awhile.
I
had
not
supposed
that
it
would
be
my
good
fortune
to
meet
him;
but
one
evening
when
we
assembled
at
the
"Improvement
Circle,"
he
was
there.
The
"Offering"
editor,
Miss
Harriet
Farley,
had
lived
in
the
same
town
with
him,
and
they
were
old
acquaintances.
It
was
a
warm,
summer
evening.
I
recall
the
circumstance
that
a
number
of
us
wore
white
dresses;
also
that
I
shrank
back
into
myself,
and
felt
much
abashed
when
some
verses
of
mine
were
read
by
the
editor,--with
others
so
much
better,
however,
that
mine
received
little
attention.
I
felt
relieved;
for
I
was
not
fond
of
having
my
productions
spoken
of,
for
good
or
ill.
He
commended
quite
highly
a
poem
by
another
member
of
the
Circle,
on
"Pentucket,"
the
Indian
name
of
his
native
place,
Haverhill.
My
subject
was
"Sabbath
Bells."
As
the
Friends
do
not
believe
in
"steeple-houses,"
I
was
at
liberty
to
imagine
that
it
was
my
theme,
and
not
my
verses,
that
failed
to
interest
him.
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