in the whole domain of literature, and you will find some of the passages marked to arrest your attention.  In this age of rapid deviation from the standard rules that governed feminine deportment and education when I was a girl, many of the precepts and admonitions penned by the authors I have mentioned are derided and repudiated as ‘puritanical,’ ‘old-fashioned,’ ‘strait-laced,’ ‘stupid and prudish’; but if these indeed be faults, certainly in the light of modern innovations they appear ‘to lean to virtue’s side.’  In fashionable society, such as you are destined to meet at Mr. Palma’s, you will find many things that no doubt will impress you as strange, possibly wrong; but in all these matters consult the books I have selected for you, read your Bible, pray regularly, and under all circumstances hold fast to your principles.  Question and listen to your conscience, and no matter how keen the ridicule, or severe the condemnation to which your views may subject you, stand firm.  Moral cowardice is the inclined plane that leads to the first step in sin.  Be sure you are right, and then suffer no persuasion or invective to influence you in questions involving conscientious scruples.  You are young and peculiarly isolated, therefore I have given you a letter to my valued old friend Mrs. Mason, who will always advise you judiciously, if you will only consult her.  I hope you will devote as much time as possible to music, for to one gifted with your rare talent it will serve as a sieve straining out every ignoble discordant suggestion, and will help to keep your thoughts pure and holy.”

“I suppose there are wicked ways and wicked people everywhere, and it is not the fashion or the sinfulness that I am afraid of in New York, but the loneliness I anticipate.  I dread being shut up between brick walls:  no flowers, no grass, no cows, no birds, no chickens, none of the things I care for most.”

“But, my dear child, you forget that you have entered your fifteenth year, and as you grow older you will gradually lose your inordinate fondness for pets.  Your childish tastes will change as you approach womanhood.”

“I hope not.  Why should they?  When I am an old woman with white hair, spectacles, wrinkled cheeks, and a ruffled muslin cap like poor Hannah’s, I expect to love pigeons and rabbits, and all pretty white things, just as dearly as I do now.  Speaking of Hannah, how I shall miss her?  Since she went away, I shun the kitchen as much as possible,—­everything is so changed, so sad.  Oh! the dear, dear old-dead-and-gone-days will never, never come back to me.”

For some time neither spoke.  Mrs. Lindsay wept, the girl only groaned in spirit; and at length she said suddenly, like one nerved for some painful task: