rs to
this additional confinement than five to the gymnasium or the
riding-school. And so, beset with snares on every hand, the poor little
well-educated thing can only pray the prayer recorded of a despairing
child, brought up in the best society,--that she might "die and go to
heaven and play with the Irish children on Saturday afternoons."

And the Sunday Schools cooeperate with the week-day seminaries in the
pious work of destruction. Dolorosus, are all your small neighbors hard
at work in committing to memory Scripture texts for a wager,--I have an
impression, however, that they call it a prize,--consisting of one
Bible? In my circle of society the excitement runs high. At any
tea-drinking, you may hear the ladies discussing the comparative points
and prospects of their various little Ellens and Harriets, with shrill
eagerness; while their husbands, on the other side of the room, are
debating the merits of Ethan Allen and Flora Temple, the famous
trotting-horses, who are soon expected to try their speed on our
"Agricultural Ground." Each horse, and each girl, appears to have
enthusiastic backers, though the Sunday-School excitement has the
advantage of lasting longer. From inquiry, I find the state of the field
to be about as follows:--Fanny Hastings, who won the prize last year, is
not to be entered for it again; she damaged her memory by the process,
her teacher tells me, so that she can now scarcely fix the simplest
lesson in her mind. Carry Blake had got up to five thousand verses, but
had such terrible headaches that her mother compelled her to stop, some
weeks ago; the texts have all vanished from her brain, but the headache
unfortunately still lingers. Nelly Sanborn has reached six thousand,
although her anxious father long since tried to buy her off by offering
her a new Bible twice as handsome as the prize one: but what did she
care for that? she said; she had handsome Bibles already, but she had no
intention of being beaten by Ella Prentiss. Poor child, we see no chance
for her; for Ella has it all her own way; she has made up a score of
seven thousand one hundred texts, and it is only three days to the fatal
Sunday. Between ourselves, I think Nelly does her work more fairly; for
Ella has a marvellous ingenuity in picking out easy verses, like Jack
Horner's plums, and valuing every sacred sentence, not by its subject,
but by its shortness. Still, she is bound to win.

"How is her health this summer?" I a