Serella Carlillian, Editor.
No. 1. Marbury, Wednesday, July 15th, 18—. Vol. I.
DELL'S COMPOSITION.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Dell Ripley, "next Friday is Composition Day, and I've got to write a composition. What subject shall I take, mamma?"
"Are there not any subjects in your school composition-book?" asked Mrs. Ripley, a pleasant looking lady of apparently thirty-five.
"Yes'm, but not any I want. Oh, it seems to me that I saw a book up-stairs in the garret with something about compositions in it," and, shaking back her floating curls, the little girl bounded from the room. She ran up the garret stairs, and then began to look for the book. At last she found it, and eagerly opened it, and, as she opened it, a paper fluttered to the floor.
She picked it up, and saw the name "Amy Willard" on it. "Why," she thought, "it's something of Aunt Amy's," and she read it. It was a composition.
"Joan of Arc," cried Dell, "splendid subject, and splendid composition. I wish I could write one as nice."
"Why not take this one?" asked the tempter. Then there was a very long struggle in Dell's heart, but the tempter conquered, and Dell carried the composition down to her own room to copy it. When she had finished it, she read it over, trying to think that it sounded just like any of her own, and that no one would ever know it.
"It sounds just like mine," she said, trying to get rid of that uneasy feeling. "I guess I'll just change this sentence and that one."