and fashionable schools, he sincerely thought that few men did as
much for their children as he.

Of course, a lady from whom society expected so much as from Mrs.
Marsden could not give her time to her children. In the impressible
period of infancy and early childhood, Lottie and her brother, and
an invalid sister older than herself, had been left chiefly to the
charge of servants. But Mrs. Marsden's conscience was at rest,
for she paid the highest prices for her French and German nurses
and governesses, and of course "had the best," she said. Thus the
children lived in a semi-foreign atmosphere, and early caught a,
"pretty foreign accent," which their mamma delighted to exhibit in
the parlor; and at the same time they became imbued with foreign
morals, which they also put on exhibition disagreeably often. When
through glaring faults the stylish nursery-maid was dismissed, the
obliging keeper of the intelligence office around the corner had
another foreign waif just imported, who at a slightly increased sum
was ready to undertake the care, and he might add the corruption,
of the children in the most approved style. She was at once engaged,
and to this alien the children were committed almost wholly, while
Mrs. Marsden would tell her afternoon visitors how fortunate she
had been in obtaining a new nurse with even a "purer accent." The
probabilities were that her doubtful accent was the purest thing
about her. Sometimes, as the results of this tutelage grew more
apparent, even Mrs. Marsden had misgivings. But then her wealthiest
and most fashionable neighbors were pursuing the same course with
precisely the same results; and so she must be right.

If Lottie had been born pellucid as a drop of dew, as some claim,
she would not have remained so long, even in the nursery, and as