"When you travel," said my instructor, "you must not be too modest and retiring. You must always help yourself to the best things that come within your reach, as if you considered them yours, as a matter of course. If you only act as if you think yourself a person of consequence, you will be treated as such. But if you stand one side, and seem to think that anything is good enough for you, every one will be sure to think so too. It is as much as saying that you don't think yourself of much importance. Others, of course, will conclude that you ought to be the best judge, and that you are a sort of nobody, who may be disposed of to suit anybody's convenience." Now as these items of advice were given as the result of the experience of those who had seen a great deal of the world, and as I was very ready to admit my own ignorance, I resolved to lay up these hints for future service, when I should travel again. The time came, at length, for another journey. The stage, which passed regularly through our village once a day, accommodating those who wished to go north one day, and those who wished to go south the next, picked me and my baggage up, at my father's door. A very young lady, an acquaintance of mine, and two stranger gentlemen, were the only passengers besides myself, until we reached the next town, five miles distant, where we stopped to change horses. When we got into the coach again, at this place, we found a new passenger safely stowed away in one corner of the back seat. This passenger was an old lady, of a class sometimes found in our country villages, who are aunts to everybody, and claim the greater part of the younger portion of the community as sheer boys and girls. It seems the driver was one of her boys, and, on account of his being so nearly related, she claimed a free passage. She was already _there_, and the driver had to choose between these two things--either to admit her claim, or to turn her out. He wisely concluded to make a virtue of necessity. It would not answer to be rude to Aunt Polly, he thought. Some of the other nephews and nieces might think him cruel. But there was another question to be settled. She had possession of the back seat. This would hardly do on the strength of a free ticket, when it was claimed by those who had paid their passage. "You must get up, Aunt Polly," said the driver, "and let these ladies have the back seat." But Aunt Polly, alas! declared, in the most positive manner, that she _could not_ ride on the middle seat. "Yes you _can_," said the driver, "and you _must_; so get up."