Page:Letters of Life.djvu/236

224 Monitress. This implied the reception of a certificate in my best chirography, a seat at my side as vice-regent, and the privilege of inviting some of her friends to pass the forenoon in our school-room. The exercises differed from those of any other day in the week, and after our stated religious worship, commenced with the recitation of poetry and prose, to which I attached great importance, and in which they were thought by competent judges to excel. The right of selection was accorded to them, subject to my approval, and I was often both surprised and delighted at the accuracy of taste they evinced. Their style of elocution, not ambitious of rhetorical flourish, was required to be deliberate, distinct, and perfectly feminine. How admirably many of them entered into the spirit of the author! Methinks I still hear the sweet tones of some of the younger ones repeating the favorite hymns of Addison:

or,

or his almost inspired version of the Twenty-third Psalm.

A lovely creature, with flowing, flaxen curls, a daughter of Mrs. Thomas Chester, who gave in unequalled intonations the ode of Henry Kirke White: