Rosville was a county town. The courts were held there, and its society was adorned with several lawyers of note who had law students, which fact was to the lawyers' daughters the most agreeable feature of their fathers' profession. It had a weekly market day and an annual cattle show. I saw a turnout of whips and wagons about the hitching-posts round the green of a Tuesday the year through, and going to and from school met men with a bovine smell. Caucuses were prevalent, and occasionally a State Convention was held, when Rosville paid honor to some political hero of the day with banners and brass bands. It was a favorite spot for the rustication of naughty boys from Harvard or Yale. Dr. Price had one or two at present who boarded in his house so as to be immediately under his purblind eyes, and who took Greek and Latin at the Academy. Social feuds raged in the Academy coteries between the collegians and the natives on account of the superior success of the former in flirtation. The latter were not consoled by their experience that no flirtation lasted beyond the period of rustication. Dr. Price usually had several young men fitting for college also, which fact added more piquancy to the provincial society. In the summer riding parties were fashionable, and in the winter county balls and cotillion parties; a professor came down from Boston at this season to set up a dancing school, which was always well attended. The secular concerns of life engaged the greatest share of the interests of its inhabitants; and although there existed social and professional dissensions, there was little sectarian spirit among them and no religious zeal. The rich and fashionable were Unitarians. The society owned a tumble-down church; a mild preacher stood in its pulpit and prayed and preached, sideways and slouchy. This degree of religious vitality accorded with the habits of its generations. Surrey and Barmouth would have howled over the Total Depravity of Rosville. There was no probationary air about it. Human Nature was the infallible theme there. At first I missed the vibration of the moral sword which poised in our atmosphere. When I felt an emotion without seeing the shadow of its edge turning toward me, I discovered my conscience, which hitherto had only been described to me. There were churches in the town beside the Unitarian. The Universalists had a bran-new one, and there was still another frequented by the sedimentary part of the population--Methodists.