16 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
exquisite China paper on the wall, there would be a: circle 
of young people around the piano preparing hymns for the 
coming Sunday; for under my father’s direction they made 
the choir at the Nahant church, singing without accom- 
paniment and with perfect accuracy.” 
Of Elizabeth Cary herself, as she grew up in the sur- 
roundings afforded by Temple Place in winter and Nahant 
in summer, the most vivid picture that-we have is con- 
tained in Mrs. Curtis’s Memories. 
Lizzie was the second child born to my father and 
mother, and as there was not two years’ difference 
between her and her sister Mary, they grew up to- 
gether and the tie between them was very close. I 
remember at Mary’s death Lizzie said to me, “‘I have 
lost my twin.”’ Though unlike in appearance and char- 
acter there was one interest equally strong in both, 
and that was their love of music, which brought them 
the closer that Mary’s contralto and Lizzie’s soprano 
seemed made the one as companion to the other. 
Their music was partly from Italian operas, but with 
a mingling of English songs — and these were not 
English words set to music by German composers, but 
simply romantic love stories. I remember especially 
a favorite which was often asked for, in which the 
first verse ended: “Sister, since I saw thee last, O’er 
thy brow a shade has passed.”’ The second wound up 
with, ‘‘Gentle sister, thou hast loved”’; and the climax 
was reached with, “Sister, thou hast loved in vain.” 
This was among what you might call the “popular” 
songs of that day. Another cheerful one of the kind 
