their newly-acquired agility to fly over all obstacles and swarm on
to the platform, while the ladies successfully lessened their
unusual bloom by staring wildly at one another and suggesting awful
impossibilities. The bustle subsided, as suddenly as it arose; and
Mr. Bopp, rather damp about the head and dizzy about the eye, but
quite composed, appeared, saying, with the broken English and
appealing manner which caused all the ladies to pronounce him "a
dear" on the spot,--

"I hope you will excoose me for making this lesson to be more short
than it should; but I have exercise nine hours this day, and being
just got well from a illness, I have not recover the strength I have
lost. Next week I shall be able to take time by the hair, so that I
will not have so much engagements in one day. I thank you for your
kindness, and say good-efening."

After a round of applause, as a last vent for their spirits, the
class dispersed, and Mr. Bopp was wrestling with a vicious pin as he
put on his collar ("a sure sign he has no ma to see to his buttons,
poor lamb!" thought Mrs. Fairbairn, watching him from afar); when
the sprightly young lady, accompanied by a lad the masculine image
of herself, appeared upon the platform, saying, with an aspect as
cordial as her words,--

"Good-evening, Professor. Allow me to introduce my brother and
myself, Dick and Dolly Ward, and ask you in my mother's name, to
come home with us; for the tavern is not a cosy place, and after all
this exertion you should be made comfortable. Please come, for Dr.
Turner always stayed with us, and we promised to do the honors of
the town to any gentleman he might send to supply his place."