The school was dismissed, and a multitude of boys and girls came rushing out from the old frame building, and tore pell-mell down the streets of a country village, just like merry, care-naught mad-caps as they were. Of all ages and sizes were these little folks—they were the life and the care of a great many homes; some heirs of poverty, and some, but these were few, heirs of wealth—but each and all had brought with them into the world enough of love to secure for themselves a welcome place at the board, and by the hearth. They resembled very much any other congregation of children in the world—some of them remarkable for their stupidity, and presenting always to their teachers the same thick skulls, which it appeared nothing could penetrate—others again, quick at learning, to whom it was a relief for the weary Mentors to turn, and to whose mental wants they attended with a glad alacrity. But I am not going to generalize any more at this time; and shall only add to the foregoing remarks, that this school was a marvel in its way—the teachers prodigies in learning, and all the parents thought their young children’s acquirements actually verging on to the miraculous—which state of things, I will add as a P. S., is remarkably pleasant for all parties concerned. Is it not teachers, and parents, and you poor little scholars? Several girls, from nine to twelve years of age, were walking homeward leisurely, and talking loudly and earnestly on some important topic, as school-girls sometimes will, when a young boy, also one of the scholars, passed by them. With singular boldness he turned his handsome face full toward the little party as he passed, and one of the girls, whose name was Grace Germain, must have seen something remarkably expressive of somewhat in the boy’s black eyes, for very suddenly she seemed to have lost all interest in the conversation, in which, by the way, she had been one of the chief participators the moment before—and the little girl’s step grew slower and slower. Finally, taking one of her school-books from under her arm, Grace seemed all at once to be seized with a decidedly studious fit, (for the first time that week,) and then her shoe-strings must needs unloosen, and she must stop to fasten them, till at last, as might be expected, her companions were far beyond her in the homeward way, and she was left quite alone. When the child passed by a little lane her face became quite suddenly and unaccountably flushed, and Grace grew decidedly nervous in her movements, and she turned away her head, as though it were forbidden, and a sin for her to look down that narrow by-way where Dame Corkins and the little lame child lived.