o, the young ladies could hardly have been mistaken for
Parisians, by a Committee of the French Academy. The German teacher also
taught a Latin class after his fashion,--benna, a ben, gahboot, ahead,
and so forth.

The master for the English branches had lately left the school for
private reasons, which need not be here mentioned,--but he had gone,
at any rate, and it was his place which had been offered to Mr. Bernard
Langdon. The offer came just in season,--as, for various causes, he was
willing to leave the place where he had begun his new experience.

It was on a fine morning that Mr. Bernard, ushered in by Mr. Peckham,
made his appearance in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute.
A general rustle ran all round the seats when the handsome young man
was introduced. The principal carried him to the desk of the young lady
English assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her.

There was not a great deal of study done that day. The young lady
assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine in which
the classes were engaged when their late teacher left, and which had
gone on as well as it could since. Then Master Langdon had a great many
questions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and some,
perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural under the
circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, with
its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally centring on him with
fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a young man
like Master Langdon, though he was not destitute of self-possession, as
we have already seen.

You cannot get together a hundred girls, taking them as they come, from
the comfortable and affluent classes, probably anywhere, certainly not
in New England, without seeing a good deal of beauty. In fact, we very
commonly mean by beauty the way young girls look when there is
nothing to hinder their looking as Nature meant them to. And the great
schoolroom of the Apollinean Institute did really make so pretty a show
on the morning when Master Langdon entered it, that he might be pardoned
for asking Miss Darley more questions about his scholars than about
their lessons.

There were girls of all ages: little creatures, some pallid and
delicate-looking, the offspring of invalid parents,--much given to
books, not much to mischief, commonly spoken of as particularly good
children, and contrasted with another sort, g