sensible and energetic young college-graduate who would be willing and
fully competent to take his place.

So, at the expiration of the appointed time, Bernard Langdon, late master
of the School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his departure from
that place for another locality, whither we shall follow him, carrying
with him the regrets of the committee, of most of the scholars, and of
several young ladies; also two locks of hair, sent unbeknown to payrents,
one dark and one warmish auburn, inscribed with the respective initials
of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne.




CHAPTER IV

THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE.

The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon had accepted came from the Board
of Trustees of the "Apollinean Female Institute," a school for the
education of young ladies, situated in the flourishing town of Rockland.
This was an establishment on a considerable scale, in which a hundred
scholars or thereabouts were taught the ordinary English branches,
several of the modern languages, something of Latin, if desired, with a
little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and rhetoric, to finish off with
in the last year, and music at any time when they would pay for it. At
the close of their career in the Institute, they were submitted to a
grand public examination, and received diplomas tied in blue ribbons,
which proclaimed them with a great flourish of capitals to be graduates
of the Apollinean Female Institute.