they _looked_. I suggested that
'the proof of the pudding was in the _eating_.' She was too obtuse
to take the hint. It is almost sacrilege to talk so about her; she
is Mrs. Smith's _model_ pupil, which, as I before informed you,
your humble servant is not. Jenny Dean and I are always getting
into trouble. Somehow, we've got a bad name, and our _slightest_
misdemeanor is noticed, so we think that we 'might as well be
killed for a sheep as a lamb:' in other words, if the camel's back
must be broken, it may as well be by a hundred-pound weight as a
feather.

'We have an Italian music-teacher, chiefly noticeable for his
length of limb, an exiled nobleman, of course. I hinted to Jenny a
doubt as to his nobility. She said, if he didn't belong to 'the
Brahmin caste,' he did to the _Bramah cast_, and that was the next
thing to it. He has become violently attached to the assistant
music-teacher, who is very thin. Now, he has been teaching us to
screech 'For Bonnie Annie Laurie.' Jenny persists in calling it,
For bony Annie Laurie. The gravity with which he each time corrects
her is amusing. Signor _executes_ to the admiration of patrons,
etc.; though music on those horrid pianos is rather like music on
the rack. Of the six inventoried, (see circular,) two are in the
garret, superannuated; two more ought to be; as for the remaining
two, on one of them your friend Bessie practices, and it is too
great a trial to her nerves to speak of them. You say that you have
music in your souls that I must learn to express for you; that you
can't turn a tune to save your life; that the attempt is like the
attempt to make a curve of straight lines, (you see how I remember
all you write or say.) If you were here, you would wish all the
melody of the institution _voiceless_, and that it wouldn't ooze
out at the finger-ends.

'As for drawing, (see circular,) this department, to save expense,
Mrs. Smith's _accomplished_ daughter has. She teaches crayoning and
pencilling--a few learn to daub in water-colors--but this she
rather discourages, as colored crayoning is much easier and quite
as _showy_--this is the word for everything here. Miss Smith also
teaches French--_Anglicized_. It is hardly worth while to mention
'the solids,' as these are shoved into a corner to give