ought to have scorned such aid—but the times are altered; no man, no poor man stands in need of women's help now, as they have trades or employments that enable them to educate themselves. Only propose such a thing now, and see how it would be received; why a young man would think you intended to insult him. We pursue the plan so admirably begun in your day by the celebrated Fellenberg. When we return this way again, I will show you the work-shops attached to the college—the one we saw in Princeton."
"While we are thus far on the road, suppose that we go to New York," said Hastings, "I was bound thither when that calamity befell me. I wonder if I shall see a single house remaining that I saw three hundred years ago."
Edgar laughed—"You will see but very few, I can tell you," said he, "houses, in your day, were built too slightly to stand the test of one century. At one time, the corporation of the city had to inspect the mortar, lest it should not be strong enough to cement the bricks! And it frequently happened that houses tumbled down, not having been built strong enough to bear their own weight. A few of the public buildings remain, but they have undergone such changes that you will hardly recognize them. The City Hall, indeed, stands in the same place, but if you approach it, in the rear, you will find that it is of marble, and not freestone as the old Recorder says it was in your time. But since the two great fires at the close of the years 1835 and 1842 the city underwent great alterations."
"Great fires; in what quarter of the city were they? They must have been disasters, indeed, to be remembered for three hundred years."
"Yes, the first destroyed nearly seven hundred houses, and about fifteen millions of property; and the second, upwards of a thousand houses, and
