_herself_ and _her daughters_: and she should have said so. Never, surely, was prosing, _bona fide_, printed prosing, to so little purpose. Again: "A mother should always possess ... _a firm principle_ of action." Does she need _but one_ firm principle of action? If so, it is to be hoped the next edition will say what that one is; for it must be valuable. A common blunder in the _times_ of the infinitive mood, occurs repeatedly in this book: "How I should have admired _to have gone_ to see her!" "It would have been a pity for us to _have followed_ his example, and thus have _lessened_," &c.--"must have ardently desired _to have been_ present"--"must have wished very much _to have seen_," &c. We cannot see the propriety of using the word "_admired_," as it is in one of these quotations. "Tell us if he did get in, and how he contrived to?" We protest against this fashion which our Yankee brethren are introducing, of making _to_, which is but the _sign_ of the infinitive, stand for the infinitive itself. This is one of the few cases, in which we are for _going the whole_. "He began to _practice_"--"I know it was not _him_"--"he _whom_ I told you was the first one"--"to respect, _was_ added admiration and love"--"this tax bore very _heavy_"--"soldiers _which_"--"your country has much to hope from you, both in _their_ counsels and in the field." These errors, a very moderate skill in orthography and syntax would have sufficed to avoid. Such a vulgarism as "_nowadays_," or such provincialisms as "pay _one single copper_," and "walked _back and forth_ the room," (meaning _to and fro_, or _backwards and forwards_ in the room) would not have occurred, if the author had remembered, that the _simplicity_ which suits children's minds, is altogether different from _vulgarity_. There is such a thing as _neat_ and _graceful_ simplicity in writing, as well as in dress and manners. "They had contemplated making some attack on the British, or at least to endeavor to destroy their shipping." Contemplated _to_ destroy! We will not further pursue this unwelcome task; pausing, short of the middle of the book, and having already passed over several faults without animadversion. Let the author be entreated to get the aid of some friend who is master (if she is not mistress) of grammar and taste enough, to reform these and the other errors of her little work, and then give us a new edition, calling in all the copies of the first, that are within her reach.--And now to our tale.