At twelve o’clock Mrs. Carlton and her sister took their seats among the audience, in the exhibition room. The usual exercises were completed, and it only remained for the compositions to be read aloud by the teacher. The first was a sentimental essay upon Friendship. Mr. Wentworth, the teacher, looked first surprised, then amused, then vexed as he read, while a gaily and fashionably dressed lady, who occupied a conspicuous place in the assembly, was observed to toss her head and fan herself with a very complacent air, while she met, with a nod, the conscious eyes of a fair and beautiful, but haughty looking girl of fifteen seated among the pupils. “By Angelina Burton,” said the teacher, as he concluded, and laying it aside without further comment, he took up the next—“Lines to a Favorite Tree,” by Catherine Sumner. It was short and simple, and ran as follows— Thy leaves’ lightest murmur, Oh! beautiful tree! Each bend of thy branches, The stately, the free, Each wild, wavy whisper, Is music to me. I gaze thro’ thy labyrinth, Golden and green, Where the light loves to linger, In glory serene, Far up, till yon heaven-blue Trembles between. I shut out the city, Its sight and its sound, And away, far away, For the forest I’m bound, For the noble old forest, Which ages have crowned! I lean on its moss banks, I stoop o’er its rills, I see, thro’ its vistas, The vapor-wreathed hills, And my soul with a gush Of wild happiness fills! I pine for the freshness, The freedom, the health, Which Nature can give me— My soul’s dearest wealth Is wasted in cities; Where only, by stealth, The mountain-born breezes Can fitfully play, Where we steal but a glimpse Of this glorious day, And but by the calendar, Learn it is May. But away with repining, I’ll study, from thee, A lesson of patience, Oh! noble, old tree! ’Mid dark walls imprisoned, Thou droop’st not like me; But strivest forever, Still up, strong and brave, ’Till in Heaven’s pure sunshine, Thy free branches wave! Oh! thus may _I_ meet it, No longer a slave! The next was a story, and Harriet Carlton’s eyes and cheeks changed color as she listened. It was the same, yet not the same! The incidents were hers, the sentiment more novel-like, and many a flowery and highly wrought sentence had been introduced, which she had never heard before.