about her gentle face, the teacher and "housemother" so dearly beloved of the girls for her unusual attainments, her quick insight and tender sympathy, she whose flying visits were among the greatest joys" of Mrs. Wheaton's later days.

And so the procession interminably comes and goes. Black coats were in it, for many men of note, of affairs, of distinction, have had to do with Wheaton Seminary, and have consulted and visited at the Wheaton Mansion, but always in this house I see an endless shadowy train of women, the very crown and flower of old New England.

CHAPTER IV

EARLY LIFE IN NORTON

MRS. WHEATON must have been married almost immediately upon leaving school, for her wedding day was June 25, 1829, and yet her name appears in the catalogue published in January, 1830, of the Young Ladies' High School in Boston. This was one of the very best of all the good schools for which Boston has always been noted. Among the 168 names of the catalogue a large majority are those of well-known old Boston families, famed quite as much for their solidity of character as for their wealth and culture. The prospectus of the school shows that a sound English education was its first desideratum, though Professors were employed in French, Italian, Spanish, music, and dancing, these branches being counted as extras. The price of tuition was $80 a year — a very high price for those days. The regulations are such as to be a guarantee that the pupils would receive the best training both in character and habits. It is remarked, "The government of the school is strictly one of laws. The rules and regulations were formed by a committee, selected by the

scholars themselves." It is also said, "No scholars are required to go through the whole course; and few will be able to do so unless they begin at a very early age, and are constant in their attendance." This last clause seems rather severe, since school kept twelve months in the year, with no vacations. In those pre-normal-school days, it is significant that there was in the school a class of young ladies preparing to teach, and that these young ladies were given practice in teaching in the school itself. As this was at about the time when the monitorial system of teaching was greatly in favor in this country, it would seem that the Lancasterian plan was in some measure adopted by the school.

That Eliza Chapin's course at this school had a strong influence in moulding the course later adopted at Wheaton Seminary there can be little doubt.

On coming to Norton, she was received into a family of wealth and culture. Judge Wheaton, her husband's father, was a man of national reputation. Graduating from Harvard College, he had studied for the ministry; but this profession proving injurious to his health, he afterwards became a lawyer, and as such gained both fame and wealth, for he had "with intellectual strength of a very high order, acute legal knowledge and untiring application to his professional duties." He sat for

seven years in the Massachusetts Legislature, and represented his district in Congress for eight years. In 1810, under Governor Gore, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas; and in 1819, under Governor Brooks, Chief Justice of the Court of Sessions. He was an upright, benevolent man, but that he was undemonstrative is shown by a remark of his I have heard my mother quote: “I may have taken my daughter in my arms when an infant, but my son never." The doggerel of an irreverent boy, referring to “Old Judge Wheaton's under jaw," gives us an even livelier sense of his inflexibility than his fine, strong portrait at the Seminary; yet, inflexible as he must have been, no one can read the series of his brief letters, now to become the property of the Seminary, relating his experience for years in caring for the insane son of a friend living in England, without realizing the tenderness and self-sacrifice that accompanied his conscientious devotion to duty.

"In 1794, at the age of forty, he was married to his cousin, Miss Fanny Morey, daughter of Samuel Morey, Esq.," of Norton, with whom he lived for fifty-two years. Mrs. Wheaton outlived her husband but two or three years. We know less of her than of Judge Wheaton, but she must have been a woman who sympathized with him in his benevolent undertakings, for when the Seminary was

opened, she temporarily gave up her comfortable home "now the Mansion House - the large rooms being divided into two by partitions, for the use of boarders," and when the little church was built, she contributed to it from her private purse. In our own Mrs. Wheaton's early letters, the affectionate messages to "Mother Wheaton" show the same regard and respect for her that were evinced late in life whenever she referred to either "Father" or "Mother" Wheaton.

Of the four children of the elder Wheatons two died early, and at the time of Eliza Chapin's marriage only Laban Morey and his sister Eliza F. were living, the sister having married, in 1826, Woodbridge Strong, M. D., of Boston.

This was the family into which the slender young girl was now welcomed. Young and quiet as she was, she had such integrity of character and such dignity of bearing that it is clear she fully met the somewhat exacting standards maintained in it. There was no question that the family dignity would be safe in her hands. Indeed, when one of the townspeople, coming to her door, inquired familiarly for "Laban," - naturally enough, since he had been brought up side by side with him, her dismay was so great that it was remembered for three quarters of a century. Her influence over her husband was felt by all his friends to be enno