to gray hairs: he was kinder-loath to spoil a young body's pleasure, but he must own he did not like to see so much flourish in borrowed plumes; that, if he read the notice right, the young woman was to speak a piece of her own framing; he had no fault to find with the speaking; she spoke as smart as a lawyer; but he knew them words as well as the catechism, and if the school-master or the minister would please to walk to his house, which was hard by, they might read them out of an old Boston newspaper, that his woman, who had been dead ten years come independence, had pasted up by the side of his bed, to keep off the rheumatis."
The old man sat down; and Mr. Evertson, who had all along been a little suspicious of foul play, begged the patience of the audience, while he himself could make the necessary comparison. Mrs. Wilson, conscious of the possession of a file of old Boston papers, and well knowing the artifice was but too probable, fidgetted from one side of the pew to the other; and the conscience-stricken girl, on the pretence of being seized with a violent tooth-ach, left the church.
The teacher soon returned, and was very sorry to be obliged to say, that the result of the investigation had been unfavourable to the young lady's integrity, as the piece had, undoubtedly, been copied, verbatim, from the original essay in the Boston paper.
"He hoped his school would suffer no discredit from the fault of an individual. He should
