rs. Leverett.

CHAPTER III

AUNT PRISCILLA

There was quite a discussion about a school.

Uncle Win had an idea Doris ought to begin high up in the scale. For
really she was very well born on both sides. Her father had left
considerable money, and in a few years second-cousin Charles' bequest
might be quite valuable, if Aunt Priscilla did sniff over it. There was
Mrs. Rawson's.

"But that is mostly for young ladies, a kind of finishing school. And in
some things Doris is quite behind, while in others far advanced. There
will be time enough for accomplishments. And Mrs. Webb's is near by,
which will be an object this cold winter."

"I shouldn't like her to forget her French. And perhaps it would be as
well to go on with Latin," Cousin Adams said.

Mrs. Leverett was a very sensible woman, but she really did not see the
need of Latin for a girl. There was a kind of sentiment about French; it
had been her mother's native tongue, and one did now and then go to
France.

There had been a good deal of objection to even the medium education of
women among certain classes. The three "R's" had been considered all
that was necessary. And when the system of public education had been
first inaugurated it was thought quite sufficient for girls to go from
April to October. Good wives and good mothers was the ideal held up to
girls. But people were beginning to understand that ignorance was not
always goodness. Mrs. Rawson had done a great deal toward the
enlightenment of this subject. The pioneer days were past, unless one
was seized with a mania for the new countries.

Mrs. Leverett was secretly proud of her two married daughters. Mrs.
King's husband had gone to the State legislature, and was considered
quite a rising politician. Mrs. Manning was a farmer's wife and held in
high esteem for the management of her family. Betty was being inducted
now into all household accomplishments with the hope that she would
marry quite as well as her sisters. She was a good reader and speller;
she had a really fine manuscript arithmetic, in which she had written
the rules and copied the sums herself. She had a book of "elegant
extracts"; she also wrote down the text of the Sunday morning sermon and
what she could remember of it. She knew the difference between the
Puritans and the Pilgrims; she also knew how the thirteen States were
settled and by whom; she could answer almost any question about the
French, the Indian, and the R