All the girls rose—some of them in a little confusion—to greet their schoolmistress. Miss McPherson was a tall Scotch lady, with silvery-white hair put up under a matronly sort of lace cap, bright eyes, and a somewhat commanding presence. She was handsomely dressed, as usual, in her rich black silk and white muslin handkerchief, with a large gold watch in her belt, to which were attached a bunch of seals and a thick gold chain of Indian workmanship. This was her invariable costume, except that in winter she wore a soft gray shawl. She was followed by her niece, Miss Jessy McPherson, a slim lady, not quite so young as she had been, but still pretty and blooming, and dressed with much more regard to the fashion than her aunt. Another teacher entered by the opposite door, and the three took their places on the platform at one end of the room. Miss Jessy read part of a chapter in the New Testament, Miss McPherson made a short prayer, and then the lessons were begun. Miss McPherson had been educated at one of the best schools in Edinburgh, and finished at a Scotch convent in Paris. She had come to America with her father at the close of the revolution. Captain McPherson sold out his commission in the army and bought land in New Jersey, hoping to make an estate for his daughter; but his farming was not very successful, and he soon died. Miss McPherson, as soon as the first desolation of her loss was over, began to look about her to see what she was to do. She was not long in deciding. She sold the land which she could not cultivate, bought a house in the growing town of Cohansey, and set up a ladies' school. She taught French and Italian thoroughly—though, it must be owned, with something of a Scotch accent—needle work, plain and ornamental, flower work, feather work, and numberless other works. She also taught the then popular art of reading, writing and spelling the English language correctly by the aid of Mr. Lindley Murray's "Grammar," * and some geography and history by the aid of Mr. Pinnock's "Catechisms." She also taught—and that without extra charge—very excellent manners and sound religion and morality, so that her school might be considered a good one, though metaphysics formed no part of its course, and even such an elementary and old-fashioned book as "Mrs. B.'s Conversations on Chemistry" had never entered its walls. * I have seen an old school prospectus in which was advertised "The English grammar taught by Mr. Lindley Murray's new method, with three cases only." Miss McPherson prospered, or, as she would have preferred to say, "was prospered," from the first. She was soon enabled to enlarge her house, take a few boarders, and send for her orphan niece, Miss Jessy, who was earning a hard living as a governess in the north of England.