experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of
the house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary.
Its walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly,
quiet faces of books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair,
on one arm of which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his
Bible. Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner
with my favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as
I thus sat and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and
speaking from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I
vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite
beyond my little comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him
by question or remark.

"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the lower
shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering
the bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly,
social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles
of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were
Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on
Predestination, Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other
works of that kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day,
without even a hope of getting something interesting out of them. The
thought that father could read and understand things like these filled
me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to
know what it was all about.

"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth
to me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.