for eating; the reading of an interesting passage, the telling of an agreeable bit of news, or some pleasant saying of the children, (delicious original bon-mots there are among every set of juveniles,) or she had some visiter at hand (Lydia Sawyer, for instance, always welcome) to be admitted for a few moments. She avoided that danger in all country neighbourhoods, too much visiting, and she strictly withheld the bits of pudding, custards, sweetmeats, &c., which their kind-intentioned but misjudging friends sent in to Raymond.

"I wish we could get up a gruel-school," said the doctor, one day, as he saw Raymond taking with relish a cup of Mary's nice gruel," you should be the teacher, Mary. There is not one

woman in a hundred, old or young, who knows how to make decent gruel. Who taught you? And pray how do you make it ?" "My mother taught me, sir. I first sift the Indian meal through a fine shaker-sieve; a bit of muslin will answer, but the meal must be fine. I then wet it with a little cold water, and afterwards carefully stir it into my boiling water, so as to have no lumps. I never skim it. My mother says that takes off the nourishment. I boil it for half an hour, stirring it all the time. Of course I do not make it every time it is wanted, for sometimes, when I want it extra good, I boil and stir it a full hour, and then I put it away in a close vessel and in a cool place. For Raymond, or

for any one getting well, and free from fever, I put in a third wheat flour, and half milk. You see it is a very simple process, sir."

"Yes-simple enough. But it is to these simple processes that people will not give their attention."

Mary had the happiness of seeing Raymond sitting up before their parents returned, and when they drove into the great gate, and up the lane, he was in his rocking-chair by the window, watching for them. They had heard of his illness, and were most thankful to find him so far recovered. The doctor chanced to be present when they arrived. "O doctor," said Mrs. Bond, after the first greetings were over, shall I ever be grateful enough to you?"

66

"how

"I have done very little, Mrs. Bond," replied the honest doctor. "In Raymond's case, medicine could do little or nothing. Nature had been overtasked, and wanted rest and soothing. Under God, Raymond owes his recovery to Mary."

"O mother!" exclaimed Raymond, bursting into tears," she is the best sister in the world !"

"She is the best sister in the two worlds!" cried little Grace Bond, a child of five years old.

A source of true comfort and happiness is such a child, and such a sister as Mary Bond! a light in her parent's dwelling, and destined to be the central sun of a little system of her own.

You will perhaps ask, my young friends, how a girl of seventeen could understand nursing as well as if she were forty? Mary, to begin with,

had a quick perception of the feelings of others, and a generous nature, that made devotion to them easy to her. Her mother had taught her all that can be taught, and she had given her attention to the subject. She had studied it with as much assiduity as some girls study music or the fashions, and under a far higher impulse. Mary Bond's pursuits were directed by an ennobling sense of duty, and she was fast going on towards that high elevation, where duty and happiness become synonymous.

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CHAPTER XV.

MANNERS.

You have perhaps thought, my young friends, that manners were to be learned, to be imitated, or copied, as you would copy the fashion of a hat, or the cut of a cape.

Manners are too often considered as certain forms to be taught, as modes of conduct for which rules are to be made. Some of the Greek states maintained professors to teach manners, and we have heard of an English dame-school, which had this inscription over the door, "Sixpence for them that larns to read, and sixpence more for them as larns manners."

Is this making manners a distinct branch of education, consistent with their nature? Are they not the sign of inward qualities-a fitting expression of the social virtues? Are they not a mirror, which often does, and always should, truly reflect the soul? For instance, is not a person of mild temper gentle in manner? Has not another, of a bold and independent disposition, a forward and fearless manner? It has been well said that "real elegance of demeanour

springs from the mind, fashionable schools do but teach its imitation."

A celebrated French writer, (Tocqueville,) in apprising his readers that he uses the word "manners" in an extended sense, says, "I comprise under this term the whole moral and intellectual condition of a people." This is, perhaps, too broad a definition of manners, but as a general rule, in proportion as intellectual and moral education improve the mind and heart, they will improve the manners, for they are but the expression of mind and heart. Listen to what Mr. Locke says, in speaking of the education of a young person: "If his tender mind be filled with veneration for his parents and teachers, which consists in love and esteem, and a fear to offend them, and with respect and good will to all people, that respect will of itself teach those ways which he observes to be most acceptable."

This has not been the general view of manners. The Chinese have published an immense number of treatises on this subject. One of these treatises contains three thousand articles. Probably not more than one hundred of these three thousand would be of any use to the Chinese out of his own country, and these hundred-if there be so many are of universal application, because they are the sign of inward qualities.

Even our own country has produced as well as republished books containing codes of manThese proceed from modern antiques, who, unconscious of the state of society in which

ners.