usually vented itself upon us. Being more susceptible than grammatical, the exclamation usually was, after a picturesque attitude of listening:
"There! it's them young treble."
However, it was not always them young treble. They knew it, and he also. It was safer to reprove us than to offend the more elevated part of his forces, whose irritability, if in proportion to the degree of musical genius, might chance to approach his own. So he accounted us a species of scapegoat. After a little seasoning, this ceased to trouble us. We knew that at heart he did not despise us, because, in other company, he spoke of us as his "nice, hopeful young birds." Considering his impatience as a constitutional infirmity, we were willing to act as a safety-valve for the benefit of the whole. Possibly our amiable philosophy might have been helped by the consciousness that the young gentlemen of our circle were in presence there, either as spectators or members of the choir. Certainly it did not impair our smiling endurance, or our powers of melody. The mutual influence of the sexes in the plastic period of youth has been long conceded. Where there is a right education, refinement, and piety, it is doubtless for good. Association with the excellent of our sex is a protection to young men from many temptations. I have observed that those who from early years have been most constantly in the society either of sisters or judicious female friends, attain a fuller de-
