ber the time when I did not know their use; and as a friend of mine, who very early entered the state of matrimony, replied to some chronological question, "She came into the world married" so I cannot affirm, from any positive recollection, that I did not come into it knitting. The employment has always been pleasant to me, as more friendly to meditation than the needle, and requiring less abstract attention. Through life I have found it economical and agreeable to knit stockings for myself, my family, and friends. To produce twenty pair annually, after I became a housekeeper, and had more feet to cover, was no uncommon circumstance, for it agreeably employed those fragments of time which might otherwise have been lost, and was likewise a form of charity peculiarly acceptable to the poor, in our cold and variable climate.
Asking to be forgiven for this episode in favor of an almost obsolete occupation among ladies, I return to my happy childhood. Nothing was so entirely fascinating as to be permitted to aid my father in the horticultural pursuits which he so practically understood. Believing it for my health to be much in the open air, and loving ever to have me by his side, I was encouraged to drop the peas in their long-drawn furrows, and deposit the golden maize in its hillock-bed. So, the fair blossoms of one, and the tasselled sheath of the other, were watched by me through all their stages, as developments in which I had a right to be interested. I was
