I adopted the desperate expedient of wearing my winter bonnet out of the proper season. Oh, how I scrutinized the girls, as they entered the omnibus, to see how many still wore their winter bonnets! Several obligingly did so, but their number became daily less. At last I was driven from the burrow—or trench—of that velvet bonnet and obliged to come out into the open. A few times I tremblingly wore the huge round hat—the only one in the stage. Once or twice I took refuge in the Cambridge street-cars—but here lurked the danger of Harvard students with their critical eyes. At last I boldly put on the Sunday blue bonnet. What if it did fade and wither from too frequent exposure? At least I should be saved from wearing the despised round hat!
Even then, however, there were exceptions to this sumptuary law, practised in Cambridge itself, had I only known it.
It was perhaps in this very year, 1858, that Charles Francis Adams, Jr., then a student at Harvard, drew upon himself a remonstrance from his fellows on account of his headgear, to which he made the following reply:
_“An Adams can wear any sort of hat he wishes.”_
His fellow-student, my brother-in-law, related this story to me many years afterward, in a grieved spirit. I assured, him that Charles Francis Adams, Jr., was right. Certain families of the Hub possessed at that date a prescriptive right to dress as they pleased, every one knowing who they were.
Young Mr. Adams, far from showing conceit, was simply illumining the way for us all in the direction of personal independence.
The Agassiz School was held in the professor’s own pleasant house on Quincy Street, Cambridge, very near Harvard College. Probably the older girls were conscious of this fact, but I was too young to bear it much in mind. The students whom I met occasionally in the street seemed to me great and august beings. Time, however, brings its revenges. In later life, when my sons were undergraduates, I had occasion to revisit Cambridge. The students no longer inspired me with awe; whether they were afraid of me or not I cannot say.
In his charming wife Professor Agassiz had a most efficient helpmeet who entered into all his plans and followed his work with loving zeal and intelligence. Mrs. Agassiz, who survived her husband for many years, was a very charming woman. She had a noble and whole-souled nature, which one fancied was contagious, for the moment at least. I think it would have been impossible to do a mean thing while in her company.