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generally used for writing, being plainer and more easily formed than the usual square printing type. Having got the shape of these letters clearly fixed in her mind, she was now taught to make them herself. She had a frame, with a flat ruler which went from one side to the other, on which her hand rested to keep the line straight. There were little pegs at even distances down each side, and when she had written one line, she moved the ruler to the next peg below, and began another. A slate or a sheet of paper was fitted into the frame, and with this apparatus she was able, after a time, to write very well. At first, as we might expect, she made a great many blunders, leaving out words, and writing them one upon another; and sometimes forgetting to move the ruler, and so making sad work of the copy. But she did not make more blunders than most young beginners do, even with the use of their eyes, though her blunders were of a different sort to theirs. As she could not see when her pen required dipping, she generally wrote with a pencil, except when Mr. Ashton stood by, and dipped her pen for her. A happy day it was for Maud when she wrote her first

letter to her parents in India-a letter of her own composition, written in a firm and clear hand, and as clean and free from blots, young readers, as the very best letter you ever sent home to show your parents how you had improved in writing, and to announce the coming holidays.

Maud studied arithmetic in a somewhat similar way, making acquaintance with the figures by feeling their shape, and working the sums in her mind. She had a slate ruled into small squares, so that, by putting one figure in each square, she could keep the rows of figures perfectly even. She acquired the rudiments of geography, also, by means of her fingers. The outline of a country chosen for a lesson was printed on the pincushion, and the chief places in each marked by pins' heads. This came easy to her, and she associated each country in her mind with the shape of something that she was acquainted with; fancying Africa to be like an immense ham, and Italy like a long boot, kicking Sicily away from it; and so on with the others. French she learned to speak at first, without learning to read or write it. Mr. Ashton was a very good French scholar, and by hearing him she soon

acquired a sufficient knowledge of that language to enable her to converse in it. She wished, however, that after a time, when she had become tolerably perfect in her English studies, she might receive instruction in the same way in French reading and composition.

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But of all her pursuits, the one which she loved the most was that of music. She seemed to have a natural taste and inclination for that. They did not attempt to give her any instruction in this accomplishment-she was left to follow the bent of her own inclination. She would sit, often for hours together, before the piano in the drawing-room,-sometimes playing music that she. had learned by hearing others play it, and sometimes making up wild melodies of her own. was enough for her to hear a piece of music two or three times over, and if it were very easy, once would often be sufficient; she had it then in her memory, and could go through it without a mistake. It was as great a delight to her kind grandpapa to listen to her performances, as it was to her to execute them; and it was a reward to him for all his trouble with the pins and the cushion, when in the evening she sang to him, in

her sweet and unaffected manner, some of those many pretty songs that she always kept in her mind. Even unmusical Mrs. Jackson used often to linger in the hall to listen, and somehow it always made Mrs. Jackson cry; for, as she was wont to say, it brought to her mind the blessed angels in heaven, and always made her think of her poor dear lost Sally.

And so Maud's education went on from day to day, on a different plan to the usual mode of instruction, but answering, in her case, quite as useful a purpose, and showing that the mind may see, even though the body is blind.

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CHAPTER IV.

MARY GREEN AND HER GHOST-STORY.

"Darker it grew, and darker fears

Came o'er her troubled mind;

When now,-a short quick step she hears,

Come patting close behind."-R. BLOOMFIELD.

THERE was an old woman in Springfield, whose name was Mary Green, and at whose cottage Maud and Ellen used to be frequent visitors. She had once been a servant in a wealthy family which had occupied a mansion in the neighbourhood some years before, but all the members of which were now either dead or removed to a distance. Mary was the sole person in the place who kept their memory alive, and she talked as much about them as if they were still living near, in all their former wealth and display. This was very excusable in her, however, for she had been in their service from her youth to past middle age, and had been decently provided for by her old master before he died; as she would tell you, with many additions and digressions,

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