There is another object to which I must direct your particular attention, since it assumes an important place in the relation of my story. Trace the road from where it leaves the east end of the bridge with an abrupt curve, sweeping around that magnificent grove of evergreens, passes the old mill, and turning to the east again for a short distance, threads its way along a grassy lane, and you arrive before a neat, commodious frame building, prettily white-washed in front, and hedged in by a rustic fence, with a little gate opening next the road. This was the dwelling of our schoolmistress, the remembrance of whom will ever be an oasis upon the deserts of memory--for to her I owe some of the most pleasurable moments of my boyhood existence. A more Christian-like spirit, a soul fraught with greater or intenser sympathies, and a mind less selfish in its manifestations, or imbued with more genial influences than hers, never existed within the compass of human being. As a teacher, she was firm, yet mild; as a neighbor, kind and obliging--in a word, her whole demeanor was such that the heart unconsciously awakened to affectionate regard. The dwelling of our schoolmistress was originally built, at her request, by a benevolent farmer, with the understanding between them that some future day should witness a transfer of ownership, and contains but three apartments--a large room, which, in the words of the old song, serves for "parlor, for kitchen, and hall," and two small chambers, but all as neat as hands can make them. Its white front, and massive stone chimnies, were completely embowered by a clump of superb maples, whose heavy branches twining their dark foliage, form a delightful arbor over the very entrance, from the first bursting forth of the tiny buds into perfect life and beauty, until autumn comes with its garment of mourning, and the sere and yellow leaves slowly forsake the limbs which have been their birth-place. A thicket of damask and white roses, lilac trees, and clusters of pale-blue clematis, with a wealth of other flowers, luxuriate beneath, where they receive just enough of the warm and rich sunshine that flashed through the woven shades upon them in the morning, and of the scented dew-drops which the wind shakes from the leaves above at nightfall, to make them the most beautiful flower-plot in all the neighborhood. At the back, a low shed, extending the whole length of the house, one corner projecting further than the rest, and covering a cool spring that gushes up, quick and bright, with a sweet impetuosity, and goes dancing merrily across the green meadow, bright and glorious in the sunlight, but sullen in the shade. The scenery around, too, is magnificent. Here spreads a vast and unbroken forest, whose mighty solitudes once echoed to the whar-whoop of the savage, and looked upon his horrid rites beneath a midnight moon, or scowling sky; and, in the dim distance loom the granite-based mountains, like