The last notes of the bell which duly summoned to their task the pupils of Madame Duvant's fashionable seminary had ceased, and in the school-room, recently so silent, was heard the low hum of voices, interspersed occasionally with a suppressed titter from some girl more mischievous than her companions. Very complacently Madame Duvant looked over the group of young faces, mentally estimating the probable gain she should receive from each, for this was the first day of the term, then with a few low-spoken words to the row of careworn, pale- faced teachers, she smoothed down the folds of her heavy gray satin and left the room, just as a handsome traveling-carriage stopped before the door. The new arrival proved to be a fashionably-dressed woman, who, with an air of extreme hauteur, swept into the parlor, followed by two young girls, one apparently sixteen and the other fourteen years of age. The younger and, as some would call her, the plainer looking of the two, was unmistakably a "poor relation," for her face bore the meek, patient look of a dependent, while the proud black eyes and scornfully curved lip of the other, marked her as the daughter of the lady, who, after glancing about the room and satisfying herself that the chairs, tables, and so forth, were _refined_, gave her name as "Mrs. Greenleaf, wife of the Hon. Mr. Greenleaf, of Herkimer county, N.Y." "I have come," said she, apparently speaking to Madame Duvant, but looking straight at the window, "I've come to place my daughter Arabella under your charge, and if she is pleased with your discipline, she will finish her education here--graduate--though I care but little for that, except that it sounds well. She is our only child, and, of course, a thorough education in the lower English branches is not at all necessary. I wish her to be highly accomplished in French, Italian, music, drawing, painting, dancing, and, perhaps, learn something of the old poets, so as to be able to talk about them a little, if necessary, but as for the other branches, such as geography, history, arithmetic, grammar, and the like, she can learn them by herself, and it is not my wish that she should waste her time over any thing so common. These will do for Mildred," and she glanced toward the _poor relation_, whose eyes were bent upon the carpet. "She is the child of my husband's sister, and we have concluded to educate her for a teacher, so I wish, you to be very thorough with her in all those stupid things which Arabella is not to study." Madame Duvant bowed, and Mrs. Greenleaf continued, "Last term they were at Bloomington Seminary, and, if you'll believe it, the principal insisted upon putting Arabella into the spelling-class, just because she didn't chance to spell every word of her first composition correctly! I dare say it was more Mildred's fault than hers, for she acknowledged to me that 'twas one of Mildred's old pieces that she found and copied."