ions, to accompany her father to the city to finish her education.

They journeyed in a stage-coach from the village of ----, which, in the
course of a few hours, conveyed them amid the tumultuous din of the busy
metropolis. The female seminary to which Alida repaired was pleasantly
situated in the western part of the town, where the refreshing and
salubrious breezes of the Hudson rendered it a healthy and desirable
situation at all seasons of the year.

Although her father had only performed his duty in placing his child
once more at school, yet it was at a greater distance from the paternal
roof than formerly, and when he returned again to his residence, he felt
his situation more lonely than ever, and he could scarcely reconcile
himself to the loss of her society.

All was novel-like in the city to Alida, where she at once saw so many
different objects to excite alternately her surprise, curiosity, and
risibility, and where she experienced so many different sensations,
arising from the sudden transition in being removed from scenes of
uninterrupted tranquillity to those of gaiety and pleasure, of crowded
streets and riotous entertainments, of obsequious beaux and dashing
petits maitres, and where all appeared to her one continued scene of
business and confusion, scarcely reconcileable.

In the meantime her mind became engrossed by various new occupations.
Among her favourite studies was the French language, which, at this
period, was considered as one of the necessary appendages to female
education, when scarcely any new work could be read without a regret to
those who did not understand it. Music, dancing, and drawing occupied
her time alternately, and while these different amusements afforded a
pleasing variety, they animated her mind anew with the powers of
exertion that had been excited by early impressions--that whatever she
attempted to learn, to be assiduous to learn it well, and that a mere
superficial knowledge, in any science or accomplishment, was by no means
desirable.

All her studies and amusements had their regular arrangements, and due
application gave her many advantages over those of her own age, while it
expanded her mind in a greater degree, and facilitated her progress in
learning, and gave more ready improvement to her understanding and
native capacities.

Her only surviving brother, whose name was Albert, had been a merchant
in the city a number of years, and he still continued to live am