TEMPLE PLACE 13 
his seven children, a task shared by the mother of the 
family with cheerful serenity. 
Temple Place was a court, connected with Wash- 
ington Street only by a flight of steps leading down 
to a short and narrow pavement that opened on the 
thoroughfare. The name of Temple Place came from 
the Masonic Temple, a substantial stone building 
fronting on Tremont Street. In this temple there 
was a hall used for concerts, and many were the 
delightful hours we spent there making our first ac- 
quaintance with the best music, for our household 
was devoted to music. Lizzie and Mary sang delight- 
fully together, and each younger child was expected 
to play or sing or do both to add to the domestic 
_ pleasure. 
This taste for music led to many valuable friend- 
ships, and I often wonder how all these amateurs 
learned to sing and play so well. I fancy that there 
was a convenient supply of political exiles who 
brought the fine arts of Europe to New England. 
Exiles were greatly in fashion in the early nineteenth 
century, and I remember one who taught my sisters 
and their friends to sing some of the noble Italian 
compositions sung in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. 
This was Signor Gambardella, a man of versatile tal- 
ents. He painted several beautiful portraits during 
his stay in Boston, and became famous in later years 
after his return to Europe, as assistant of Lord Ross 
in his astronomical studies and in the making of his 
wonderful telescope. 
But, however acquired, there was much talent for 
