er-linen, the pretty Lillie was educated as pleased Heaven.

Pretty girls, unless they have wise mothers, are more educated by the
opposite sex than by their own. Put them where you will, there is
always some _man_ busying himself in their instruction; and the burden
of masculine teaching is generally about the same, and might be
stereotyped as follows: "You don't need to be or do any thing. Your
business in life is to look pretty, and amuse us. You don't need to
study: you know all by nature that a woman need to know. You are, by
virtue of being a pretty woman, superior to any thing we can teach
you; and we wouldn't, for the world, have you any thing but what you
are." When Lillie went to school, this was what her masters whispered
in her ear as they did her sums for her, and helped her through her
lessons and exercises, and looked into her eyes. This was what her
young gentlemen friends, themselves delving in Latin and Greek and
mathematics, told her, when they came to recreate from their severer
studies in her smile. Men are held to account for talking sense.
Pretty women are told that lively nonsense is their best sense. Now
and then, an admirer bolder than the rest ventured to take Lillie's
education more earnestly in hand, and recommended to her just a little
reading,--enough to enable her to carry on conversation, and appear
to know something of the ordinary topics discussed in society,--but
informed her, by the by, that there was no sort of need of being
either profound or accurate in these matters, as the mistakes of a
pretty woman had a grace of their own.

At seventeen, Lillie graduated from Dr. Sibthorpe's school with a
"finished education." She had, somehow or other, picked her way
through various "ologies" and exercises supposed to be necessary for a
well-informed young lady. She wrote a pretty hand, spoke French with a
good accent, and could turn a sentimental note neatly; "and that, my
dear," said Dr. Sibthorpe to his wife, "is all that a woman needs, who
so evidently is intended for wife and mother as our little Lillie."
Dr. Sibthorpe, in fact, had amused himself with a semi-paternal
flirtation with his pupil during the whole course of her school
exercises, and parted from her with tears in his eyes, greatly to her
amusement; for Lillie, after all, estimated his devotion at just about
what it was worth. It amused her to see him make a fool of himself.

Of course, the next thing was--to be married; and