I
purchased, and which has been occasionally honored by your presence,
as well as by that of your beloved mamma. Several years passed, and the
widow was not unhappy; for my daughter, at my solicitation, gave up her
profession as a governess, and came to reside with me. In the meantime,
we happened to meet at the same party two individuals--gentlemen--who
had subsequently the honor of carrying off the mother and daughter
with flying colors. The one was Dr. Scareman, to whom Emily--my
dear, unfortunate girl, had the misfortune to get married. He was a
dark-faced, but handsome man--that is to say, he could bear a first
glance or two, but was incapable of standing anything like a close
scrutiny. He passed as a physician in good practice, but as the marriage
was--what no marriage ought to be--a hasty one--we did not discover,
until too late, that the practice he boasted of consisted principally in
the management of a mad-house. He is, I am sorry to say, both cruel and
penurious--at once a miser and a tyrant--and if his conduct to my child
is not kinder and more generous, I shall feel it my duty to bring her
home to myself, where, at all events, she can calculate upon peace and
affection. The doctor saw that Emily was beautiful--knew that she had
money--and accordingly hurried on the ceremony.

"Such is the history of poor Emily's marriage. Now for my own.

"Mr. Main waring was, like myself, a person who had been engaged
in educating the young. For many years he had conducted, with great
success, a boarding-school that soon became eminent for the number
of brilliant and accomplished men whom it sent into society and the
institutions of the country. Like me, he had saved money--like me
he lost his health, and like me his destiny conducted him to this
neighborhood. We met several times, and looked at each other with a
good deal of curiosity; he anxious to know what kind of animal an
old schoolmistress was, and I to ascertain with what tribe an old
school-master should be classed. There was something odd, if not
comical, in this scrutiny; and the best of it all was, that the more
closely we inspected and investigated, the more accurately did we
discover that we were counterparts--as exact as the two sides of a
tally, or the teeth of a rat-trap--with pardon to dear Mr. Mainwaring
for the nasty comparison, whatever may have put it into my head. He, in
fact, was an old school-master and a widower; I an old school-mistress
and a w