The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

A HAPPY PERIOD OF MY LIFE.*2

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educational institution in that day of small things, and was
considered one of the best in New England. The theolog..
ical students of the Newton Divinity School spoke of it irreverently as the "rib factory,"' as many of the young theologolues obtained wives from the institution. The male
students of those demure days Just as inevitably gravitated
towards young women's schools as they do at the present
time.
Miss Whiting of Hingham, Mass., was the founder and
principal of the Seminary, and was cotemporary with Mary
Lyon, of Mount Holyoke Seminary. These two women
were personal friends, and so much alike in character as to
suggest duplicates of the same individuality. It was the
wish of Miss Whiting to found a school similar to that of
Mount Holyoke; but her friends and advisers, who contributed money to her project, disapproved of her plan so
entirely that she was obliged to accede to their wishes.
Rev. Rollin H. Neale, my beloved pastor and friend, persuaded my father that this particular school was well suited
to my needs; and I think he was right.
It was the happiest moment I had ever known when I
founfd myself inducted into the studious life of the seminary,
which throbbed with, indefinable aspirations of a noble order.
The. Faculty was composed of scholarly and lovable youngr
women, all intent on improvement, and on doing their best
for the pupils committed, to their care. I fell in love with
them all immediately, after my headlong fashion, and was
so unspeakably happy that I would not have thanked any
one for a ticket of admission to heaven. To meet Miss
Catherine Badgrer, the excellent teacher of astronomy, on a