There is no country whose system of female education is free from error. The elite of England and America select the fashionable boarding schools for their daughters to finish their studies in; where, unfortunately, the adornment of the person, and flippancy of manner, often supercede the adornment of the mind. Can parents reflect that the conclusion of a female’s education requires _their_ care the _most_, and that the dashing boldness of manners, too often learned at a fashionable school, is but the mask which covers ignorance, and bravados out the want of merit? How much less estimable is the character of such a female than the modest, timid, but firm being who has received and finished her education under the watchful guidance of that mother’s eye, whose anxious glance searches unto the soul of her charge, guarding it from evils that threaten and too often besiege the senses, till confusion and desolation leave the fair fabric a monument of ruins for parental fondness to mourn over. In France the convent is selected, in a measure secluded from the influence of fashion: there the mind is more unfettered by folly, and becomes prepared to receive necessary instruction. Hence they are more capable of encountering the vicissitudes of life, and prepared for that intercourse which French women are allowed in society. Thus their minds become strengthened; no nation has produced so many celebrated women as France. An English husband condemned for treason will be allowed to linger in prison, unless the entreaties and petitions of his wife and friends have sufficient influence to procure his release; if they fail, she sinks beneath the weight of her misfortunes, and an early grave yields repose to the bruised spirit: not so with the French woman; it awakens all the energies of her soul; every effort is made; every stratagem is resorted to; the prison doors though barred, are still accessible to love, artifice, and ingenuity, these combined, generally contrive to elude the vigilance of the keepers; thus Madame Lavalette, Roland, and several others, have given bright examples of what fortitude, education, and energy may achieve; thus the Bastille’s dungeons have been insufficient barriers to the influence of the French women. As time passed on, the aspect of Mr. Worthington’s affairs seemed to become less prosperous; day after day losses occurred, until at last his bankruptcy served to convince his wife that his admonitions had not been needless; remorse again visited the unhappy woman; she felt that her husband’s forbearance had been great; and determined that the neglect of her first born infant should be amply atoned for, by double attention to the second, whose birth was now at hand.