We found the family seated in the long room in which their boarders dined. To Mr. Sears they paid the most profound respect. Well they might, for without his recommendation they would have been without boarders. Hall was a tall, good humored, careless man. His wife was older than himself, tall too, but full of energy. He had two daughters, Harriet and Jane. Harriet was a quick, active, lively girl, and withal pretty, while Jane was lolling and lazy in her motions, and without either good looks or prettiness. The matter of my boarding was soon arranged, and it had become time for my father to depart. All this while the variety and excitement of the scene had somewhat relieved my feelings, but when my father bade me be a good boy and drove off, I felt as if the “last link” was indeed broken, and though I made every effort, from a sense of shame, to repress my tears, it was in vain, and they broke forth the wilder from their previous restraint. Harriet Hall came up instantly to comfort me. She took a seat beside me at the open window at which I was looking out after my father, and with a sweet voice, whose tones are in my memory yet, she told me not to grieve because I was from my friends; that I should soon see them again, and that she would think I feared they would not be kind to me if I showed so much sorrow. This last remark touched me, and while I was drying my eyes, one of the larger boys, a youth of eighteen or twenty, came up to the window—for the academy by this time had been dismissed for the evening—and said, “Ah, Miss Harriet, is this another baby who is crying for home?” In an instant my eyes were dried. I cast one glance at the speaker—he was a tall, slim, reckless looking fellow, named Prettyman—and from that day to this I have neither forgotten it, nor, I fear, forgiven him. In the night, when we retired to our rooms, I found that my bed was in a room with two others, Prettyman and a country bumpkin, by the name of Muzzy. As usual on going to bed, I kneeled down to say my prayers, putting my hands up in the attitude of supplication. I had scarcely uttered to myself the first words, “Our Father,” but to the ear that heareth all things, when Prettyman exclaimed— “He’s praying! ‘By the Apostle Paul!’ as Richard the Third says, that’s against rules. Suppose we cob him, Muzzy?” Muzzy laughed, and got into bed; and I am ashamed to say that I arose with the prayer dying away from my thoughts, and indignation and shame usurping them, and sneaked into bed, where I said my prayers in silence, and wept myself in silence to sleep. In the morning, with a heavy heart, and none but the kind Harriet to comfort me, I betook myself to the academy.