Excerpt from Girlhood and Womanhood, or Sketches of My Schoolmates To one given to imaginative musing, there is no sight more interesting than a band of happy schoolmates. And as we look on them sporting in merriment, unconscious and unthinking of what is to befall them, how prone are we to sketch out their destiny by casting a. Visionary glance into futurity. We draw the coloring from our own experience, and our own joys or sor rows brighten or darken the picture of their coming histories. If we be hopeful in our nature and prosperous in life, we follow each little boy or girl through the successive scenes of their career, until one stands on a proud height of fame or fortune, and the other takes her place as a happy Wife and mother, sur rounded by all the blessings that a husband's love can procure. But if we have learned to look in saddened earnestness on all human destiny, through the medium of stern adversity and our own blighted hopes, than we will sigh deeply as we look on them and wish that they could always remain as they are, and never know what it is to live on to manhood and womanhood, to sustain the heavy burden of their multiplied cares and sorrows. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.