"But do you not read God's word the first thing you do in the morning?" asked Anna. "How can you know how to please him unless you learn what his will is from the Bible ?"

"Miss Palmer reads a prayer, and one of the lessons, every morning," replied Louisa, "but I never listen, nor know what they are about."

"And does Miss Palmer not question you whether you have understood what she has read ?"

"No, never. She is in a hurry to finish that we may get to our lessons-grammar, geography, French, scribbling, arithmetic, long division, and compound multiplication, and parsing and spelling, and jingle, jingle, on the piano-you are out of time, and you are out of tune, from the time you rise till you go to bed."

Anna could not help laughing.

"Do not laugh; she will hear you," said Louisa," and that will bring a lesson on laughing—about loud laughing, and vulgar laughing-and the polished smile, and the genteel laugh. Oh! if you heard how George can mimic Miss Palmer; but, goodness, there she is coming;" and Louisa quickly groped her way into bed; where she was scarcely laid, when Miss Palmer, with a candle in her hand, opened the door and looked in.

"Just got into bed, I perceive," said she, "and your clothes left scattered on the carpet;

pray Miss Louisa, just get up and put them in their proper place." Louisa was obliged to obey; but did so with so bad a grace-so slowly, and with such a cross expression on her countenance, that Miss Palmer, as a punishment, told her, that the first thing she should do next morning should be, to get a portion of the Bible by heart, to teach her to be of a better temper.

When Miss Palmer left the room, all remained perfectly quiet, and Anna remembered her I wish to pray, but she did not feel such confidence in God when she thought of him, as she had hitherto done since her Mamma's death; and when she began to ask him to forgive her for what she had done that was wrong, she felt that, during the last short time in which Louisa had been speaking to her, she had been led into what was very sinful, in joining in her laugh at the pains and trouble her governess was taking with her; and she prayed God, for Christ's sake, to forgive her, and then again she felt confidence in God as her Father in heaven; and she thought of her Mamma, and remembered how she used to teach her every thing in such a way that she loved to be taught. She remembered, too, how often her Mamma had told her that the only return she could make to those who took the trouble to instruct her, was to love them, and make it as easy as possible for them to teach her, by being attentive and obedient; and while

has shown that she knows how to be both kind

and polite."

"But will you really assist me?" asked Marianne, still clinging to Anna.

"Indeed I will, if you will tell me how I can." "Oh, come, come then," exclaimed Marianne joyfully.

"But I must first deliver my message to Miss Palmer," said Anna: and then she told her Aunt's wish that the children should be dressed, and ready to be sent for if Lady Alderston called; and then, though the little cousins could not have a moment to get acquainted with Anna, every thing must be stopt, and they sent off to the nursery, though already quite neatly dressed, to be decked out, that a stranger might perhaps say to their Mamma, "What nice children-what pretty children;" and forget the next moment that they were in existence.

Little Marianne was very anxious that Anna should go with her when she went to be dressed, but Miss Palmer said, "No, no, my dear; Miss Anna shall remain with me, and that will make you return the sooner ;" and poor little Marianne ran off to get dressed as fast as Kitty, one of the nursery-maids, would be prevailed on to assist her. In her absence, Miss Palmer asked Anna many questions.

66 May I ask how old you are, Miss Anna?" "I was nine about two months ago, Ma'am."

"Nine! You are very tall of your age.

Miss

Louisa is ten, and she is no taller I am sure. Have you begun music?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Mamma had been teaching me two years."

"Indeed! and French? can you speak it at all ?"

Anna answered Miss Palmer in French, that her Mamma had been teaching her that language also.

"Indeed!" repeated Mrs. Palmer, "and you seem to have got the pronunciation very correctly. But that is not in my department. Poor Mademoiselle, the French governess of your Cousins, got into such bad health as to be obliged to return to her own country. Mrs. Ross is in search of another; and in the mean time the children have a master. You have learnt dancing, I

"No, Ma'am, I never have."

"What! No dancing! That is very extraordinary."

Miss Palmer asked a great many more questions, and concluded, after Anna had answered them all, by saying, "Well, my dear, I hope to find it a pleasure to carry on your education. You seem to have been accustomed to regularity and obedience, which I too have always been accustomed to exact." She then kissed Anna affectionately; and the little orphan remembered

that God was her Father, and she thanked Him for making Miss Palmer love her.

When Jane and Marianne returned, Miss Palmer immediately set them to their lessons. Jane sat down to the piano-forte to practise, while Miss Palmer sat by to instruct her, and also to remind her how she ought to sit, and use her fingers, and how to place her feet, and her elbows, &c. As for poor Marianne, she was set on a high chair, the back of which was so made as to oblige her to hold her head and shoulders properly; and her poor little feet were placed in stocks, because her Mamma said she turned her toes in when she walked; and in this stiff attitude she was getting a lesson for her French master. Anna sat down by Marianne, and assisted her so much, that her little Cousin two or three times forgot, and threw her arms round her dear Cousin Anna's" neck to thank her; but every time she moved from the posture in which she had been placed, Miss Palmer added to her task, so that poor Marianne at last remembered Miss Palmer's instructions, to express what she felt by words. "You have a silly childish way, Miss Marianne," continued her governess, "of always putting your arms round one, crumpling one's ruff, and almost strangling those you love. You know your Mamma has often forbidden your doing so."

Poor little Marianne seemed to think she had