We have had some talk
about it, your Aunt Silence and I, and it is all settled. Your aunt does
not feel very rich just now, or perhaps she would do more for you. She
has many pious and poor friends, and it keeps her funds low. Never mind,
my child, we will have it all arranged for you, and you shall begin the
year 1860 in Madam Delacoste's institution for young ladies. Too many
rich girls and fashionable ones there, I fear, but you must see some of
all kinds, and there are very good instructors in the school,--I know
one,--he was a college boy with me,--and you will find pleasant and good
companions there, so he tells me; only don't be in a hurry to choose
your friends, for the least desirable young persons are very apt to
cluster about a new-comer."

Myrtle was bewildered with the suddenness of the prospect thus held out
to her. It is a wonder that she did not bestow an embrace upon the
worthy old master. Perhaps she had too much tact. It is a pretty way
enough of telling one that he belongs to a past generation, but it does
tell him that not over-pleasing fact. Like the title of Emeritus
Professor, it is a tribute to be accepted, hardly to be longed for.

When the curtain rises again, it will show Miss Hazard in a new
character, and surrounded by a new world.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MYRTLE HAZARD AT THE CITY SCHOOL.

Mr. Bradshaw was obliged to leave town for a week or two on business
connected with the great land-claim. On his return, feeling in pretty
good spirits, as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call
at The Poplars. He asked first for Miss Hazard.

"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's
been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the city, to the big school, they've sint
her."

This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray Bradshaw,
for his feelings found utterance in one of the most energetic forms of
language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He next asked
for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw asked, in a
rather excited way, "Is it possible, Miss Withers, that your niece has
quitted you to go to a city school?"

Miss Silence answered, with her chief-mourner expression, and her
death-chamber tone: "Yes, she has left us for a season. I trust it may
not be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would
become a missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now.
Two whole years, from the age of four