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