A Fair Barbarian

*In this manner Slowbridge received the shock which shook it to its foundations, and it was a shock from which it did not recover for some time. Before ten o’clock the next morning, everybody knew of the arrival of Martin Bassett’s daughter. The very boarding-school (Miss Pilcher’s select seminary for young ladies, *combining the comforts of a home,* as the circular said, *with all the advantages of genteel education*) was on fire with it, highly colored versions of the stories told being circulated from the *first class* downward, even taking the form of an Indian princess, tattooed blue, and with difficulty restrained from indulging in war-whoops,--which last feature so alarmed little Miss Bigbee, aged seven, that she retired in fear and trembling, and shed tears under the bedclothes; her terror and anguish being much increased by the stirring recitals of scalping-stories by pretty Miss Phipps, of the first class--a young person who possessed a vivid imagination, and delighted in romances of a tragic turn.*