In the morning, as soon as the breakfast things were done and the men folks had gone to the cloth-factory, Mrs. Martineau would marshal her daughters in the sitting-room to sew.  And there they sewed for four hours every forenoon for more than four years; and as they sewed some one would often read aloud to them, for Mrs. Martineau believed in education—­education gotten on the wing.

Sewing-machines and knitting-machines have done more to emancipate women than all the preachers.  Think of the days when every garment worn by men, women and children was made by the never-resting hands of women!

And as the girls in that thrifty Norwich household sewed and listened to the reader, they occasionally spoke in monotone of what was read—–­all save Harriet:  Harriet sewed.  And the other girls thought Harriet very dull, and her mother was sure of it, and called her stupid, and sometimes shook her and railed at her, endeavoring to arouse her out of her lethargy.

Harriet has herself left on record somewhat of her feelings in those days.  In her child-heart there was a great aching void.  Her life was wrong—­the lives about her were wrong—­she did not know how, and could not then trace the subject far enough to tell why.  She was a-hungered, she longed for tenderness, for affection and the close confidence that knows no repulse.  She wanted them all to throw down their sewing for just five minutes, and sit in the silence with folded hands.  She longed for her mother to hold her on her lap so, that she could pillow her head on her shoulder with her arms about her neck, and have a real good cry.  Then all her troubles and pains would be gone.

But the slim little girl never voiced any of these foolish thoughts; she knew better.  She choked back her tears and leaning over her sewing tried hard to be “good.”

“She is so stupid that she never listens to what one reads to her,” said her mother one day.

One of that family still lives.  I saw him not long ago and talked with him face to face concerning some of the things here written—­Doctor James Martineau, ninety-two years old.

The others are all dead now—­all are gone.  In the cemetery at Norwich is a plain, slate slab, “To the Memory of Elizabeth Martineau, Mother of Harriet Martineau.” * * * And so she sleeps, remembered for what?  As the mother of a stupid little girl who tried hard to be good, but didn’t succeed very well, and who did not listen when they read aloud.

* * * * *

It seems sometimes that there is no such thing as a New Year—­it is only the old year come back.  These folks about us—­have they not lived before?  Surely they are the same creatures that have peopled earth in the days agone; they are busy about the same things, they chase after the same trifles, they commit the same mistakes, and blunder as men have always blundered.