It was one of the most distinguished of our female merchants--Martha Buckminster Curtis--who planted, in Framingham, the first potatoes ever set in New England; and you will start to hear that our dear and honored friend Ann Bent entered on her business career so long ago as 1784, at the age of sixteen. She first entered a crockery-ware and dry-goods firm; but, at the age of twenty-one, established herself in Washington, north of Summer Street, where we remember her. She soon became the centre of a happy home, where sisters, cousins, nieces, and young friends received her affectionate care. The intimacy which linked her name to that of Mary Ware is fresh in all our minds. What admirable health she contrived to keep we may judge from the fact, that she dined at one brother's table on Thanksgiving Day for over fifty years. She was the valued friend of Channing and Gannett; and her character magnified her office, ennobled her condition, gave dignity to labor, and won the love and respect of all the worthy. Less than two years ago, at the age of ninety, she left us; but I wished to mention both her and Miss Kinsley in this connection, because they were the first women in our society to confer a merchantable value upon taste. Instead of importing largely themselves, they bought of the New-York importers the privilege of selection, and always took the prettiest and nicest pieces out of every case. As they paid for this privilege themselves, so they charged their customers for it, by asking a little more on each yard of goods than the common dealer. I know nothing for which it is pleasanter to pay than for taste. When time is precious (and to all serious people it soon becomes so), it is a comfort to go to one counter, sure that in ten minutes you can purchase what it would take a whole morning to winnow from the countless shelves of the town.