“‘I am sorry I have offended you, Liddy,’ sais I, ‘but really now, how do you manage to teach all them things with hard names, for we never even heard of them at Slickville? Have you any masters?’
“‘Masters,’ said she, ‘the first one that entered this college would ruin it for ever. What, a man in this college! where the juvenile pupils belong to the first families—I guess not. I hire a young lady to teach rudiments.’
“‘So I should think,’ sais I, ‘from the specimen I saw at your door, she was rude enough in all conscience.’
“‘Pooh,’ said she, ‘well, I have a Swiss lady that teaches French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and an English one that instructs in music and drawing, and I teach history, geography, botany, and the sciences, and so on.’
“‘How on earth did you learn them all?’ said I, ‘for it puzzles me.’
“‘Between you and me, Sam,’ said she, ‘for you know my broughtens up, and it’s no use to pretend—primary books does it all, there is question and answer. I read the question, and they learn the answer. It’s the easiest thing in the world to teach now-a-days.’
“‘But suppose you get beyond the rudiments?’
“‘Oh, they never remain long enough to do that. They are brought out before then. They go to Saratoga first in summer, and then to Washington in winter, and are married right off after that. The domestic, seclusive, and exclusive system, is found most conducive to a high state of refinement and delicacy. I am doing well, Sam,’ said she, drawing nearer, and looking confidential in my face. ‘I own all this college, and all the lands about, and have laid up forty thousand dollars besides;’ and she nodded her head at me, and looked earnest, as much as to say, ‘That is a fact, ain’t it grand?’
“‘The devil you have,’ said I, as if I had taken the bait. ‘I had a proposal to make.’
“‘Oh,’ said she, and she coloured up all over, and got up and said, ‘Sam, won’t you have a glass of wine, dear?’ She intended it to give me courage to speak out, and she went to a closet, and brought out a tray with a decanter, and two or three glasses on it, and some frosted plum-cake. ‘Try that cake, dear,’ she said, ‘I made it myself, and your dear old mother taught me how to do it;’ and then she laid back her head, and larfed like anything. ‘Sam,’ said she, ‘what a memory you have; I had forgot all about the cherry-tree, I don’t recollect a word of it.’