"that ridicule sometimes is more sharply effective than direct denunciation ;" and I felt like seizing on the sharpest weapon I could find for cutting up the faults and defects in question. Yes, sir, I have noticed the inattention of the public to this subject for years; and I have the more wondered at it when I saw that improvements were going on in all other kinds of buildings. The people now are getting to have convenient and healthy houses for themselves. They also build very warm and well-contrived stables for their horses and other cattle. They have even, lately, built houses for their hogs, on new plans, which are well adapted to their purposes. But the houses for educating their children in never thought of!"

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-they are

"Will your school prove a troublesome one to govern?" asked Amsden, as they now left the house on their return. "O no," answered the other; "at least, I suspect not. You will find the scholars mischievous and noisy enough, no doubt, but not disposed to dispute your authority, I think. The difficulties you will have to encounter, before making any thing of your school, will be of a different, and, I really fear, of a worse character to overcome. You will find the school at the lowest ebb, flat, dead dead to all ambition, all inclination to study and learn. We have gone on the cheap-teacher system till our school has completely run down. And I have employed you to elevate it, Mr. Amsden.”

After Lincoln had taken Locke to the quarters he had engaged for him, and introduced him there, the two returned to the house of the former, where they found waiting for them an excellent supper, that was partaken with a keen appetite, and enlivened by a conversation of that easy, elevated, and sparkling character, which persons of intellect and attainments can always so easily get up, and which such only know how to appreciate and enjoy.

"If you, Mrs. Lincoln," said the doctor, rising from the

table and looking at his watch, as they finished their repast, "if you will entertain Mr. Amsden in my absence, I will now go out for an hour or two."

"Certainly," replied the lady; "but where do you think of going, husband? You know you may have urgent calls, when it will be necessary that you be found."

66 True," answered the former. 66 Well, I have my poor patient at the corner, up here, to visit; and then I think of calling at Carter's."

"Mr. Carter's family are not sick, are they?"

“No, wife; but I am going to make an effort to get some of those girls into Mr. Amsden's school. It would be not only for their own good, but it would be a triumph over their Professor of Gimcracks, which I should enjoy."

"You will hardly prevail on Mrs. Carter to listen to any thing of that kind, I fancy, sir.”

"As respects her own daughters, possibly not; but recollect there is a sprout there of a different stock, who has sense enough to see the difference between science and syllabubs."

"Ay; but to expect her to take such a course in despite the ridicule and sneers she would have to withstand from so many there, would be expecting considerable in a young lady of eighteen, you must remember."

"In an ordinary young lady it might be so. But she is not an ordinary young lady, and as I am well acquainted with her".

"What vanity, now!"

"Vanity or no vanity, I shall talk with her on the subject."

"And in vain."

"We shall see."

The lady playfully shook her head, and the doctor departed on his destination. But, instead of following, we will

precede the latter, a few moments, in his proposed visit, and introduce the reader to the family which had been the subject of the above discussion.

In a showily furnished apartment in the large house which we have before mentioned, sat a starchy-looking woman of perhaps forty, surrounded by four young ladies three of them her daughters, the other her husband's niece. One of the daughters was thrumming a guitar. The other two sat nearly facing each other, at the opposite ends of a large sofa, lazily lolling their heads and shoulders over the cushioned arms, while their feet met and intermingled in the middle. One was reading, with an occasional sigh, a fashionable English novel; the other, a volume of Byron's poems. By the side of a stand, which had been drawn up near the sofa to furnish light to the two readers, sat the niece, darning stockings. The daughters, all looking much alike, were of delicate forms and quite fair complexions, but they were leadeneyed beauties; and their trained countenances were sadly lacking in natural expression. The niece was a different looking person. Instead of the dawdling negligence exhibited in the ill-fitting, ill-matched, and gaudy apparel of the others, every article of her plain, but extremely neat dress, seemed exactly fitted, both by its color and fashion, to grace her small, compact, and elegantly turned figure. It was said by those who had noted her face at church, or when she sat listless, that her features were beautifully regular, and well shapen; but those with whom she had ever conversed, could never remember how that was; for the expression of her clear, wholesome, and smile-lit countenance so instantly caught and arrested the scanning eye, and called up the heart to blind it, that they either could never think to make the examination, or sufficiently succeed, if they attempted it, to enable them afterwards to say any thing decisive of the question. Her character, also, was as different from that of

her cousins just named, as was her appearance. Whenever she appeared abroad, she was greeted by all persons most noted for understanding, with recognitions of the most marked respect; and the eyes of the poor and lowly, as they followed her, spoke blessings. But still she did not dress like her cousins. She was not the daughter of the stylish Mrs. and the rich Mr. Carter, and the fashionable world said but little about her.

Presently the sharp jingle of the door-bell announced a visiter. The mother pulled up her high-starched ruff still higher. The daughter at the guitar stopped short in her thrumming, and assumed a graceful leaning attitude over her instrument; while the other two daughters suddenly righted themselves on the sofa, and fell to adjusting their deranged false curls with most commendable diligence. The less cumbered niece, who had none of these important duties to perform, at once laid down her work, rose, and was approaching the door with the view of ushering in the new comer, when her step was arrested by the interposing gesture and words of Mrs. Carter,

"No, no! let the servant do that-it's decidedly the most fashionable."

The other then quietly returned to her place, and fearlessly resumed her ungenteel employment.

In a moment the inner door was thrown open by the servant girl, and Dr. Lincoln entered, and made his compliments to the ladies.

"Why, you have made quite a mistake, doctor," said Miss Ann Lucretia, the elder Miss Carter, with a pretty simper, as she lightly tapped her white finger on a string of her guitar; we are not sick, only a little en dishabille, as you perceive."

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"Well, I felt quite endishable myself, an hour ago; but a

chance at a good dish of wife's toast for supper has overcome the feeling," said the doctor, with apparent honesty of

manner.

"Now how can you pretend to be so ignorant of elegant literature, doctor?" exclaimed Miss Angeline Louisa, gracefully flirting her novel in her delicate hands.

"Perhaps the doctor don't appreciate us, sister," lisped Miss Matilda Mandeville, the youngest of the three, a girl of about fifteen "few do, you know; at least Professor

Tilden says so."

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"O! indeed I do," replied the doctor, with a bow and deprecating smile. "I am always just so blundering. But now for business: I called to say to you, Mrs. Carter," he continued, turning to that lady-"that I have supplied with a good teacher our district school, which commences to-mor

The speaker paused, and the lady stared with a look which seemed plainly to say, "well, I wonder what I have to do with that?". "and I did not know but you would feel like patronizing the school a little," at length added the speaker.

"We do patronize it by paying half the taxes that support it, for aught I know; for I never troubled my head to inquire about the district school, I am sure - not but what it may be very useful for the lower classes," replied the lady, with great dignity.

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Certainly," said the other; "and I have sometimes known good families turn in their sons and daughters with good advantage to them. And I thought it possible that some of the young ladies here might be disposed to attend, for the sake of looking a little into the common sciences.”

'No, I thank you, doctor,” replied the elder sister, with an ineffable toss of the head, "we are quite satisfied with our present instructor, whose select academy, I believe, is allow ed to be very distingué."