[Illustration: CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. NO. 308. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1849. PRICE 1½_d._] THE HALF-BOARDER. BY MRS ALARIC A. WATTS. When a naturalist is desirous of describing any genus of peculiar interest in the world of nature, we generally find him selecting one of the kind as a specimen from which to draw his description of the whole race; satisfied that, although distinctions may exist in minor details between it and others of its species, the general characteristics will be found alike in all. In endeavouring to sketch the principal incidents in the history of a class whose trials seem peculiarly interesting, because coming at a period of life usually exempted from them, I have pursued a similar course; and though the career of my heroine may present features peculiar to itself, as must ever be the case with personal history, her experiences will, I believe, be found to differ in no essential particular from those of the great body of her sisterhood. It can hardly be deemed necessary perhaps to begin the biography of the half-boarder from the hour of her birth; it may be sufficient to state that she is usually the eldest daughter of parents of the middle class, depressed into comparative poverty either by misfortune or imprudence, but blessed with the inalienable advantage of belonging to 'a good family,' and being enabled to boast of relatives of consideration in the world. Her earliest years are too often passed amid all the horrors of genteel but biting penury; in witnessing, daily, cares that have become familiarised, though not lightened, to her by frequent recurrence; and sharing anxieties which, though studiously concealed from her, experience has enabled her to divine, without suggesting any means of alleviating. Her duties are sufficiently multifarious: she shares the labours of 'The little maid some four foot high,'