Three generations

238 THE THIRD GENERATION
ing responsibility, and the relinquishment in a large
measure of the happy equal companionships and light-
hearted joys dear to young hearts. But the result of
the school was worth it, for my father told my mother
after bidding us good-bye the first time they visited
us that it was the happiest day of his life, since he had
seen that their daughters could provide for themselves,
and so were safe in the unknown future.
We were in our native town, among our own and
our father's and mother's friends. Our pupils were for
the most part the daughters of the ministers, bankers,
doctors, writers, or lawyers, such as my father had
been, and of the neighbouring farmers, like my grand-
father. These pupils, taking them as a whole, were
innocent young girls, with good principles, well
trained, and well guarded from evil. Individual girls
were occasionally rebellious, but no difficulty in
managing classes was found. The members were,
as a rule, of fair average intelligence. The two I
reckoned the cleverest — very clever children — died
while still quite young, but certainly not from head
work — they were two healthy, happy children, belong-
ing to different families. Each child might be an
infant phenomenon, nobody could prevent that ; but
their simple lessons were not the trouble to them that
the lessons were to companions with less ability, and
the pair were as great at play as at work. The one
little girl died, strange to say, in a fit of apoplexy,
after a trifling cold ; the other died in the course of
an attack of scarlet fever. The suggestion made as
to the cause of the deaths, as of those of many other
gifted children, was that an abnormal brain in early
life has a peculiar delicacy, apt to be developed and
heightened by any illness affecting the children, so