y telling them how much she needed their help, as examples of the
great good to be derived from her gymnastics. And the result was that
they had not only the amusement of the exercises to help them pass the
vacation, but also the benefit resulting from it, and the hope that
through them it would become a part of the school-life.

When Miss Ashton returned, she was not a little surprised at the gain
she so quickly recognized, nor was she slow in availing herself of its
aid.

She had always felt that nothing was more necessary for a good working
head than a perfect physical balance, and for that reason she allowed
and encouraged a greater amount of amusement, which was relaxation
from study, than was common in what is called a finishing school. It
was almost the only boast in which she indulged, that, during the
twenty years of her care of the academy as principal, she had never
had a case of fatal sickness, or, indeed, of any severe enough to
excite alarm.

During the fall she obliged the girls, as long as the weather would
allow, to spend hours every day in the open air, giving them their
choice of exercise,--walking, riding, boating, botanizing,
geologizing, any and every thing that would bring to them rest and
change. In winter there was dancing in the large hall, there were
compulsory gymnastics, there were skating on the pond, coasting on the
hills back of the academy, or, not so seldom as it might have been
supposed would be the case among girls, snowballing in the most
approved boy-fashion.

Indeed, once upon a time it was reported that, having come out, as she
generally made a point of doing whenever any amusement was going on,
to witness the sport, a girl more audacious than any of the others
ventured to throw a snow-ball in the direction of her august person,
and it was received with such a merry laugh, that another followed,
and another, and another, until she was as ermine-covered as if she
were dressed for a court reception; and not a girl among the laughing
crowd but loved her better and respected her more.

"My best recitations," she was often heard to say, "come after the
best frolics. Give me pupils with steady nerves, bright eyes, and
sweet, clear voices, and I will show you a school where they study
well, and the deportment is of the best.

"I am never so anxious about my girls as when the weather shuts them
in-doors, and the cold makes them want to hug the radiators."

It was on account of th