It was an event to me, and to my immediate friends among the
mill-girls, when the poet Whittier came to Lowell to stay awhile.
I had not supposed that it would be my good fortune to meet him;
but one evening when we assembled at the "Improvement Circle," he
was there. The "Offering" editor, Miss Harriet Farley, had lived
in the same town with him, and they were old acquaintances.
It was a warm, summer evening. I recall the circumstance that a
number of us wore white dresses; also that I shrank back into
myself, and felt much abashed when some verses of mine were read
by the editor,--with others so much better, however, that mine
received little attention. I felt relieved; for I was not fond
of having my productions spoken of, for good or ill. He commended
quite highly a poem by another member of the Circle, on
"Pentucket," the Indian name of his native place, Haverhill. My
subject was "Sabbath Bells." As the Friends do not believe in
"steeple-houses," I was at liberty to imagine that it was my
theme, and not my verses, that failed to interest him.
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