[Illustration: MARY ERSKINE'S FARM]


MARY ERSKINE


A Franconia Story,


BY THE AUTHOR OF THE ROLLO BOOKS.




NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS. FRANKLIN SQUARE.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by HARPER &
BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York.




PREFACE.


The development of the moral sentiments in the human heart, in early
life,--and every thing in fact which relates to the formation of
character,--is determined in a far greater degree by sympathy, and
by the influence of example, than by formal precepts and didactic
instruction. If a boy hears his father speaking kindly to a robin in