telligence may have made them in
the present--were, for a long time, faithful representatives of the
oddities, as well as of the virtues, of their fathers.

And, accordingly, we find the schoolmistress--being a descendant of the
Jason's-crew, who landed from the Argo-Mayflower, usually bearing a name
thus significant, and manifesting, even at her age, traits of character
justifying the compellation. What that age precisely _was_, could not
always be known; indeed, a lady's age is generally among indeterminate
things; and it has, very properly, come to be considered ungallant, if
not impertinent, to be curious upon so delicate a subject. A man has no
more right to know how many years a woman has, than how many skirts she
wears; and, if he have any anxiety about the matter, in either case, his
eyes must be the only questioners. The principle upon which the women
themselves proceed, in growing old, seems to be parallel to the law of
gravitation: when a stone, for example, is thrown into the air the
higher it goes the slower it travels; and the momentum toward Heaven,
given to a woman at her birth, appears to decrease in about the same
ratio.

We will not be so ungallant, then, as to inquire too curiously into the
age of the schoolmistress; but, without disparagement to her
youthfulness, we may be allowed to conjecture that, in order to fit her
so well for the duties of her responsible station (and incline her to
undertake such labors), a goodly number of years must needs have been
required. Yet she bore time well; for, unless married in the meanwhile,
at thirty, she was as youthful in manners, as at eighteen.

But this is not surprising: for, even as early as her twelfth year, she
had much the appearance of a mature woman--something like that noticed
in young quakers, by Clarkson[79]--and her figure belonged to that
rugged type, which is adapted to bear, unscathed, more than the ravages
of time. She was never above the medium height, for the rigid rule of
economy seemed to apply to flesh and blood, as to all other things
pertaining to her race; at all events, material had not been wasted in
giving her extra longitude--at the ends. Between the extremities, it
might be different--for she was generally very long-waisted. But this
might be accounted for in the process of _flattening out_: for like her
compeer, the schoolmaster, she had much more breadth than thickness. She
was somewhat angular, of course, and rather bony; bu