Maria was blessed with kind and doting parents, who, in the plenitude of their regards for her welfare, were inexorably solicitous that her whole youth might be devoted to the acquirement of knowledge. Themselves ignorant of the common rudiments of education, of course they were incapable of selecting the best methods of instruction. Knowledge, they imagined, came from the school-house. It was manufactured there by some peripatetic old bachelor. To school, then, Maria must go, armed with a spelling-book, at first, and afterwards, an arithmetic: and at school the golden, unreturning hours of her youth rolled into the lap of oblivion, until time had notched her fourteenth year upon his dial. And now there was to be a change in her tuition. Arrangements were completed for her attendance at the high school in Brunswick, an interesting little village, some seventy-five miles distant. The day of departure, for the first time, from beneath the paternal roof, was an important event in her life. It was at hand. She bore it with but little apparent emotion, and brushed from her cheek but a single tear. “Adieu, ye pensive shades and early joys! I will not say farewell. They tell me there is a recompense for every sacrifice--but my swelling heart--” The remainder of the sentence was not uttered. The clock struck nine, and the rattling of wheels announced the coach for Brunswick. On this occasion it was full of passengers of high and low degree, from far and near--all strangers. The driver was belated and impatient. In a few moments all was in readiness, and Maria opened the wicket gate, which seemed to swing reluctantly upon its hinges, and entered the coach. Along they went, at full gallop, leaving grove, and meadow, and friend, and every cherished thing, behind. It was a July morning. The air was soft and fragrant, and merrily the birds rang out their joyful songs. Though ladened with heaviness of spirit, Maria could not but be pleased with the new sights that met her view, and the sounds that saluted her ears. “And this is the world, the great and wicked world, of which I have heard so much--so long desired to see. How enchanting! And how favored are they who can travel it all over! Such fortunes and pleasures are not mine; they never can be, for I am poor and helpless. But it must be so. Well, I will be contented with a humbler lot: there are millions who are even less fortunate. It is my destiny: I am satisfied.”