connection with the college, should she care to communicate them.

"It has been fortunate for me," answered Miss Hurribattle, "to have been
born with an activity of temperament that has kept me from that _maladie
des desabuses_ which, when the freshness of youth has passed, frequently
attacks ladies of some intellectual culture who do not marry. A strong
principle of self-assertion, that has long been characteristic of my
family, has left us unbound by that common propriety of sacrificing
our best happiness for the sake of appearing happy to the world. This
induced my father to quit Branton in pretty much the same spirit of
opposition with which Chatterton quitted Bristol. Disgusted with its
local celebrities, and chafing under the petty exactions and petty
gossip to which a sudden loss of fortune had exposed him, he left the
town without communicating to the neighbors his future destination. But
I will not poach upon our friend the Colonel's speciality, and give you
a family-history. It is sufficient to say that a year or two ago I
was led to interest myself in the Soggimarsh College as a ground
unincumbered by the old incredulities of man's best inspirations
which grow so thickly in what are called the highest
civilizations,--incredulities, indeed, which, in the fine figure of
Coleridge, are nothing but credulities after all, only seen from behind,
as they bow and nod assent to the habitual and the fashionable. But I
see you are wondering at the particular position in the Academy which
our catalogue assigns me, and you shall have the explanation. I have for
a long time been painfully impressed with the total neglect of physical
education by the women of America. It seems to me that no very important
moral advance can be achieved while the exquisite organism through which
our impressions come, and through which they should go forth again in
acts, is so perverted. I was very anxious that the Soggimarsh College
should distinctly recognize a correct physical training as being at
least as important as any branch of mental discipline. Accordingly, when
the titles of the professorships were under discussion, it seemed right
not to take my designation from the classes I instruct in history and
philosophy, but from the general gymnastic development of the female
members of the college, which it is likewise my duty to oversee. I know,
of course, that the prejudices of the public would hold me in greater
esteem as a teacher of s