relative, he soon had a class of some twenty young ladies between the unusual hours of five and seven in the morning! It does not take a very vivid imagination to picture the vivacity of these twenty young ladies, the becomingness of their simple but pretty gowns, and the zest with which each studied; nor, on the other hand, the ill-concealed, bantering interest of the big brothers of the same,—asking perhaps, now and then, with mock gravity, if mother thought Patty would be so prompt every morning at five o'clock if old Parson Browning were the teacher!

But whatever might have been the dominant interest of the young ladies, "Master Hale" was quite as practical in his teaching in the early hours of the day as with the boys in the later classes. An uncle of his, Samuel Hale, was for many years at the head of the best private school in New Hampshire, numbering among his pupils some of the leaders in Revolutionary times. To him, September 24, 1774, Nathan wrote a letter from which we give the following extracts:

"My own employment is at present the same that you have spent your days in. I have a school of thirty-two boys, about half Latin, the rest English. The salary allowed me is 70 £ per annum. In addition to this I have kept, during the summer, a morning school, between the hours of five and seven, of about 20 young ladies for which I have received 6s [shillings] a scholar, by the quarter. Many of the people are gentleman of sense and merit. They are desirous that I would continue and settle in the school, and propose a considerable increase in wages. I am much at a loss whether to accept their proposals. Your advice in this matter, coming from an uncle and from a man who has spent his life in the business, would, I think, be the best I could possibly receive. A few lines on this subject and also to acquaint me with the welfare of your family ... will be much to the satisfaction of

Your most dutiful Nephew,
Nathan Hale."

A letter to Enoch Hale, containing allusions to the excited feeling in the colony at this time, runs as follows:

New London, Sept. ^8th. 1774.

Dear Brother.

I have a word to write and a moment to write it in. I received yours of yesterday this morning. Agreeable to your desire I will endeavour to get the cloth and carry it on Saturday. I have no news. No liberty-pole is erected or erecting here; but the people seem much more spirited than they did before the alarm. Parson Peters of Hebron, I hear, has had a second visit paid him by the sons of liberty in Windham. His treatment, and the concessions he made I have not as yet heard. I have not heard from home since

I came from there.

Your loving Brother
Nathan Hale.

M^r. E. Hale. Lyme.

A letter from Hale to his friend the senior Dr. Æneas Munson, of New Haven, has been mentioned. It runs as follows:

New London, November 30, 1774

Sir: I am very happily situated here. I love my employment; find many friends among strangers; have time for scientific study; and seem to fill the place assigned me with satisfaction. I have a school of more than thirty boys to instruct, about half of them in Latin; and my salary is satisfactory. During the summer I had a morning class of young ladies—about a score—from five to seven o'clock; so you see my time is pretty fully occupied, profitably, I hope to my pupils and to their teacher.

Please accept for yourself and Mrs. Munson the grateful thanks of one who will always remember the kindness he ever experienced whenever he visited your abode.

Your friend
Nathan Hale.

On one occasion, as Hale left his house after paying a visit, Dr. Munson observed, "That man is a diamond of the first water, calculated to excel in any station he assumes. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and last, though not least of his qualifications, a Christian."

The son of Dr. Munson (who bore his father's name), when an aged man, said: "I was greatly impressed with Hale's scientific knowledge, evinced during his conversation with my father. I am sure he was equal to André in solid acquirements, and his taste for art and talents as an artist were quite remarkable. His personal appearance was as notable. He was almost six feet in height, perfectly proportioned, and in figure and deportment he was the most manly man I have ever met. His chest was broad; his muscles were firm; his face wore a most benign expression; his complexion was roseate; his eyes were light blue and beamed with intelligence; his hair was soft and light brown in color, and his speech was rather low, sweet, and musical. His personal beauty and grace of manner were most charming.

"Why, all the girls in New Haven fell in love with him," continued Dr. Munson, "and wept tears of real sorrow when they heard of his sad fate. In dress he was always neat; he was quick to lend a helping hand to a being in distress, brute or human; was overflowing with good humor, and was the idol of all his acquaintances."

Young masters of schools, public or private, unmarried and attractive, usually rank next in popularity to other professional men,—ministers, lawyers, or doctors, as the case may be,—and a boy of nineteen, the object of as much attention as Nathan Hale must have received, might well be pardoned if his head had been slightly turned, in thus becoming the admired teacher of a large class of young ladies. One special mark of stability of character appears to have characterized this young man in a greater degree than is always the case at the present day. Detached as he was, as he supposed irrevocably, from the woman he loved, he appears to have carried himself with almost middle-aged dignity, and, what is not a little to his credit, even his intimate friends among his classmates could not, by the most delicate cross-questioning, draw from him anything suggesting more than a pleasant interest in any of the young ladies with whom he was thrown in contact.

A letter that will be given in its proper place shows his courteous and cordial interest in the little city he left when he entered the army; yet it is rather a noteworthy fact that one of his classmates, writing to him during his camp life, had to suggest that, as the young ladies he had taught were always inquiring when he had heard from "Master," it would doubtless give them pleasure if he could find time to write some one of them a note with friendly messages to others, to show that he still remembered them.

Many young men would hardly have needed such a suggestion. But Nathan Hale, so far as we can learn, while given to warm friendships among his classmates, and to the cultivation, while in New Haven, Haddam, and New London, of the society of the best families, appears, from the beginning, to have taken life seriously. Disappointed in the love of the one woman for whom he cared, he had turned with sincere absorption to the work to which he felt himself called before entering on the theological course it is thought that his father had planned for him.

There is further evidence of Hale's notable gifts as a teacher. Colonel Samuel Green, who had been a pupil of Hale in New London, said of him, in oldtime phrase: "Hale was a man peculiarly engaging in his manners—these were mild and genteel. The scholars, old and young, were attached