Silas Peckham was a thorough Yankee, born on a windy part of the coast, and reared chiefly on salt-fish.

Everybody knows the type of Yankee produced by this climate and diet: thin, as if he had been split and dried; with an ashen kind of complexion, like the tint of the food he is made of; and about as sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as the other is to the taste.

Silas Peckham kept a young ladies' school exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle,--for the simple, unadorned purpose of making just as much money in just as few years as could be safely done.

Mr.Peckham gave very little personal attention to the department of instruction, but was always busy with contracts for flour and potatoes, beef and pork, and other nutritive staples, the amount of which required for such an establishment was enough to frighten a quartermaster.

Mrs.Peckham was from the West, raised on Indian corn and pork, which give a fuller outline and a more humid temperament, but may perhaps be thought to render people a little coarse-fibred.