My dear young friends,

Though released from the business of the school, the absence of your governess confines me to Amwell during the vacation.  I cannot better employ my leisure hours than in contributing to the amusement of you my kind pupils, who, by your affectionate attentions to my instructions, have rendered a life of labour pleasant to me.

    On your return to school I hope to have a fair copy ready to
    present to each of you of your own biographical conversations last
    winter.

Accept my thanks for the approbation you were pleased to express when I offered to become your amanuensis.  I hope you will find I have executed the office with a tolerably faithful pen, as you know I took notes each day during those conversations, and arranged my materials after you were retired to rest.

I begin from the day our school commenced.  It was opened by your governess for the first time, on the ——­ day of February.  I pass over your several arrivals on the morning of that day.  Your governess received you from your friends in her own parlour.

Every carriage that drove from the door I knew had left a sad heart behind.—­Your eyes were red with weeping, when your governess introduced me to you as the teacher she had engaged to instruct you.  She next desired me to show you into the room which we now call the play-room.  “The ladies” said she, “may play, and amuse themselves, and be as happy as they please this evening, that they may be well acquainted with each other before they enter the school-room to-morrow morning.”

The traces of tears were on every cheek, and I also was sad; for I, like you, had parted from my friends, and the duties of my profession were new to me, yet I felt that it was improper to give way to my own melancholy thoughts.  I knew that it was my first duty to divert the solitary young strangers:  for I considered that this was very unlike the entrance to an old established school, where there is always some good-natured girl who will shew attentions to a new scholar, and take pleasure in initiating her into the customs and amusements of the place.  These, thought I, have their own amusements to invent; their own customs to establish.  How unlike too is this forlorn meeting to old school-fellows returning after the holidays, when mutual greetings soon lighten the memory of parting sorrow!

    I invited you to draw near a bright fire which blazed in the
    chimney, and looked the only cheerful thing in the room.