city of New York advert to their incapacity in this respect, as an impediment to their assistance of the poor; and ascribe to the fact that the daughters of his own parishioners did not know how to sew, the impossibility of their giving the most valuable species of help to the women of the needier classes, whose condition could hardly be more effectually improved than by acquiring such useful knowledge.  I have known young American school girls, duly instructed in the nature of the parallaxes of the stars, but, as a rule, they do not know how to darn their stockings.  Les Dames du Sacre Coeur do better for their high-born and well-bred pupils than this.]

I was so elated with my own part of this performance that I then and there determined to put into execution a plan I had long formed of endowing the little boat in which I take what the French call my walks on the water, with cushions for the back and seat of the benches usually occupied by myself and Mr. ——­; so putting on my large straw hat, and plucking up a paper of pins, scissors, and my brown holland, I walked to the steps, and jumping into the little canoe, began piecing, and measuring, and cutting the cushions, which were to be stuffed with the tree moss by some of the people who understand making a rough kind of mattress.  My inanimate subject, however, proved far more troublesome to fit than my living lay figure, for the little cockle-shell ducked, and dived, and rocked, and tipped, and curtseyed, and tilted, as I knelt first on one side and then on the other fitting her, till I was almost in despair; however, I got a sort of pattern at last, and by dint of some pertinacious efforts—­which, in their incompleteness, did not escape some sarcastic remarks from Mr. ——­ on the capabilities of ‘women of genius’ applied to common-place objects—­the matter was accomplished, and the little Dolphin rejoiced in very tidy back and seat cushions, covered with brown holland, and bound with green serge.  My ambition then began to contemplate an awning, but the boat being of the nature of a canoe—­though not a real one, inasmuch as it is not made of a single log—­does not admit of supports for such an edifice.

I had rather a fright the other day in that same small craft, into which I had taken S——­, with the intention of paddling myself a little way down the river and back.  I used to row tolerably well, and was very fond of it, and frequently here take an oar, when the men are rowing me in the long boat, as some sort of equivalent for my riding, of which, of course, I am entirely deprived on this little dykeland of ours; but paddling is a perfectly different process, and one that I was very anxious to achieve.  My first strokes answered the purpose of sending the boat off from shore, and for a few minutes I got on pretty well; but presently I got tired of shifting the paddle from side to side, a manoeuvre which I accomplished very clumsily and slowly, and yet, with all my precautions,