It gave me peculiar sensations to find among my scholars so many large girls.  I have said that I had never been in the habit of running after the girls, and I never had.  I was one of those quiet young men who read poetry, buy pictures and statues, and play the flute on still, moonlight evenings.  Not that I was indifferent to female charms, or let beauty pass by unnoticed.  In fact, I was keenly alive to the beautiful in all its forms.  I had seen, in the course of my life, a great many handsome faces, which, in my quiet way, I had studied, when nobody was minding, comparing beauties, or imagining alterations for the better, just as if I had been studying a picture or a statue, and with no more fear of being myself affected.  Passing strange it was, that, exposed as I had been, I should have remained so long unscathed.  My time had not yet come.  But now dangers thickened around me, and I felt that Aunt Huldah knew the world, when she said it was a snare.  For, in glancing about the room carelessly, while taking the names, I could not but perceive that I was beset by perils on every side,—­perils from which there seemed no possible escape:  for no sooner did I turn resolutely away from a dove-like face in one corner than my eye was caught by a bright eye or a sweet smile in another; and the admiring glance which with reluctance I withdrew from a graceful figure was arrested by a well-shaped head or a rosy cheek.  One was almost a beauty, with her light curls and delicate pink cheeks; another was quite such:  her smile was bewitching, and her eyes were roguish.  But I soon found that there were other things to be attended to besides picking out the prettiest flowers in my winter bouquet.

I have intimated that my ideas regarding school-keeping were exceedingly vague.  Nevertheless, I had in the course of my studies picked out and put together a system for the instruction and management of youth.  This system I now proceeded to apply.

It is curious, as we trace back the current of our lives, to discover the multitude of whims, plans, and mighty resolves which lie wrecked upon the shore.  I cannot help smiling, as, in looking back upon my own life-stream, I discern the remains of my precious system lying high and dry among the rocks of that winter’s experience.  Yet I tried all ways to make it go.  I was like a boy with a new boat, who increases or lessens his ballast, now tries her with mainsail, foresail, topsail, jib, flying jib, and jibber jib, and now with bare poles,—­anything to make her float.  Each night I took my poor system home for repairs, and each morning, full of hope, tried to launch it anew in my school-room.  I have always felt that I wronged those scholars, that I learned more than I taught.  I have no doubt of it.

I, of course, as was then the custom, boarded round; and this method of obtaining nourishment, though savoring somewhat of the Arab or the common beggar, I, on the whole, enjoyed.  It gave me a much stronger interest in the children, seeing them thus in their own homes, where was so much love, so much solicitude for even the dullest of them.  Besides this, I came in contact with all sorts of curious people, found new faces to study.