Not unfrequently the ardent girl, happy in the confirmed affection of some equal in rank, looks exultingly towards the day when she may carry back from the savings' bank at Lowell a little dower to furnish out their little farm on the hill side, where the barberries grew, so deliciously red and sour, in her remembrance of childhood. _Thirdly_--there is a genuine patriotism in the tone of many of these productions, which is worthy the descendants of the stern freemen who, in the New England solitudes, looked tearfully back upon their father-land. The institutions under which these young women live are different from our own; but there is scarcely a particle of what we have been too apt to call republican arrogance. The War of Independence is spoken of as it ought to be by every American, with feelings of honest exultation. But that higher sentiments than those of military triumph mingle with the memory of that war, and render patriotism something far nobler than mere national pride, may be seen in the little poem which we gladly reprint, "The Tomb of Washington." The paper called "The Lock of Gray Hair" is marked by an honest nationality, which we would be ashamed not to reverence.--_Fourthly_--like all writers of good natural taste, who have not been perverted into mere imitators of other writers, they perceive that there is a great source of interest in describing, simply and correctly, what they have witnessed with their own eyes. Thus, some of the home pictures of these volumes are exceedingly agreeable, presenting to us manners and habits wholly different from our own, and scenes which have all the freshness of truth in their delineations.--The old stories, too, which they sometimes tell of past life in America, are equally interesting; and they show us how deeply in all minds is implanted the love of old things, which are tenderly looked back upon, even though they may have been swept away by what is real improvement.--_Lastly_--although there are necessarily in these volumes, as in every miscellany, some things which are tedious, and some puerile, mock sentimentalities and labored efforts at fine writing, we think it would be difficult upon the whole for a large body of contributors, writing under great indulgence, to produce so much matter with so little bad taste. Of pedantry there is literally none. The writers are familiar with good models of composition; they know something of ancient and modern history; the literature of England has reached them, and given a character and direction to their thoughts. But there is never any attempt to parade what they know; and we see they have been readers, only as we discover the same thing in the best educated persons, not in a display of their reading, but in a general tone which shows that cultivation has made them wiser and better.