with bow and curtsey to receive their tiny gilt prizes from a pile of duodecimos upon the teacher’s desk.  Indeed, the giving of rewards was carried to such an extent as to become a great drain upon the meagre stipend of the teacher.  Thus when in copper-plate handwriting we find in another six-penny volume the inscription:  “Benjamin H. Bailey, from one he esteems and loves, Mr. Hapgood,” we read between its lines the self-denial practised by Mr. Hapgood, who possibly received, like many other teachers, but seventy-five cents a week besides his board and lodging.

Other books afford a glimpse of children’s life:  the formal every-day routine, the plays they enjoyed, and their demonstration of a sensibility as keen as was then in fashion for adults.  The “History of a Doll,” lying upon the writer’s table, is among the best in this respect.  It was evidently much read by its owner and fairly “loved to pieces.”  When it reached this disintegrated stage, a careful mother, or aunt, sewed it with coarse flax thread inside a home-made cover of bright blue wall-paper.  Although the “History of the Pedigree and Rise of the Pretty Doll” bears no date, its companion story in the wall-paper wrapper has the imprint seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and this, together with the press-work, places it as belonging to the eighteenth century.  It offers to the reader a charming insight into the formality of many an old-fashioned family:  the deportment stiff with the starched customs of that day, the seriousness of their fun, and the sensibility among little maidens akin to that exhibited in the heroines of fiction created by Richardson and Fielding.

The chapter concerning “The Pedigree of the Doll” treats of finding a branch of a tree by a carver, who was desired by Sir John Amiable to make one of the best dolls in his power for his “pretty little daughter who was as good as she was pretty.”  The carver accordingly took the branch and began carving out the head, shoulders, body, and legs, which he soon brought to their proper shape.  “He then covered it with a fine, flesh-colored enamel and painted its cheeks in the most lively manner.  It had the finest black and sparkling eyes that were ever beheld; its cheeks resembled the blushing rose, its neck the lilly, and its lips the coral.”  The doll is presented, and the next chapter tells of “an assembly of little female gossips in full debate on the clothing of the doll.”  “Miss Polly having made her papa a vast number of courtesies for it, prevailed on her brother to go round to all the little gossips in the neighborhood, begging their company to tea in the afternoon, in order to consult in what mode the doll should be dressed.”  The company assembled.  “Miss Micklin undertook to make it a fine ruffled laced shift, Miss Mantua to make it a silk sacque and petticoat; and in short, every one contributed, in some measure, to dress out this beautiful creature.”