University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Madame Roland has left it on record—let any
woman who fancies she may soar above the natural
sphere of her sex, remember who it is that makes
this boast—that she never neglected the details of
housewifery, and she adds, that though at one period
of her life she had been at the head of a laborious and
frugal establishment, and at another, of an expensive
and complicated one, she had never found it necessary
to devote more than two hours of the twenty-four
to household cares. While we have this illustrious
woman before us, as evidence in the case, we
would venture to intimate, in opposition to the vulgar
and perhaps too lightly received opinion, that
talents are as efficient in housewifery as in every
other department of life; and that, cæteris paribus,
she who has most mind will best administer her domestic
affairs, whether her condition obliges her,
like the pattern Jewish matron, to `rise early and
work diligently with her own hands,' or merely to
appoint the labors of others.

If our opinion be not heresy, we would commend
it to the consideration of scholars, and men of
genius, and all that privileged class, (privileged in
every thing else,) who have been supposed to be

condemned by their own elevation to choose an humble,
grubbing companion for the journey of life, at
best not superior to Johnson's beau-ideal of a female
travelling companion.

But to return to our heroine. Her happy genius
had rode out the storm threatened in the morning,
by her trusty Becky, and she saw the dinner hour
draw nigh with a tranquillity that can only be inspired
by the delightful certainty that, to use the
technical phrase, all is going on well. She was in
the parlor with Miss Layton, and awaiting her
guests, when Judge Upton, who, true as a lover to
his mistress, never broke `the thousandth part of a
minute in the affair' of a dinner, arrived. After the
most precise salutations to each and all, he expressed
his great satisfaction in being punctual. `He had
done, what indeed he seldom did, risked a failure
in this point. He must own, that with a certain
divine, he held punctuality to be the next virtue to
godliness; but it had been impossible for him to dispense
with attending the funeral of general Smith's
lady. The general expected it; such a respectable
person's feelings should not be aggravated on so
afflicting an occasion. He must own he had been
uncommonly gratified; the general behaved so
well; he bore his loss like a general.'

Miss Clarence suppressed, as nearly as she might,
a smile at the conjugal heroism of a `training-day'
general, and asked Mrs. Upton why Mrs. Layton
was not with her.

Mrs. Upton's volubility, which had emitted in low
rumblings such tokens of her presence, as are heard
from a bottle of beer before the ejection of the cork
gives full vent to the thin potation, now overflowed,

“Oh my dear,” said she, “Mrs. Layton chose
to come on horseback with Mr. Edmund Stuart,
our English visiter. Don't be frightened, Emilie,
dear, husband's horses are remarkably gentle; indeed
he never keeps any others, for he thinks dangerous
horses very unsafe. Oh, Mr. Clarence, by
the way, do you know we must change our terms.
Mr. Stuart says that it is quite vulgar in England
to say, we ride, when we go in a carriage. We
must call a ride a drive—only think! He says we
cannot conceive how disagreeable Americanisms are
to English ears.”

“My dear madam,” replied Mr. Clarence, who
was rather sensitive on the subject of Anglo-criticism,
“do let us remember that in America we
speak to American ears, and if any terms peculiar
to us have as much intrinsic propriety as the English,
let us have the independence to retain them.”

“Oh! certainly, certainly,” said the good lady,
who had no thought of adventuring in the thorny
path of philological discussion, “husband says he
don't see why ride is not as proper as drive, especially
for those who don't drive. But girls, I must
tell you before Mr. Stuart comes, that he is remarkably
genteel even for an Englishman. He is the son
of Sir William Stuart, and, of course, you know,
will be a lord himself.” Our republican matron
was not learned in the laws that regulate the descent
of titles; but, in blessed unconsciousness of
her ignorance, she proceeded: “I was determined
he should see Clarenceville, for, as husband says, it
is all important he should form favorable opinions
of our country.”

“Why important?” asked Mr. Clarence, in one
of those cold and posing tones that would have
checked a less determined garrulity than Mrs. Upton's.
But her impetus was too strong to be resisted,
and on she blundered. “Oh, I don't know exactly,
but it is, you know. He is to pass six
months in the United States, and he is determined
to see every thing. He has already been from
Charleston to Boston. Only think, as husband
says, what a perfect knowledge he will have of the
country.”

“Does he propose,” asked Mr. Clarence, “to
enlighten the public with his observations?”

“Write a book of travels, you mean, sir? Oh,
I have no doubt of it, and that made me in such a
fever to have him see the girls. Girls, you must be
on the qui vive The dinner party will be described
at full length. Your dinners, Gertrude, are always
in such suberb style. Husband told Mr. Stuart he
did not believe they were surpassed in England.”
Gertrude blushed when she thought of the disasters
of the larder, and the miscellaneous dinner preceded
by such a silly flourish of trumpets. “Oh,
don't be alarmed, Gertrude, dear,” continued the
good lady, “I am sure it will be just the thing,
and then you know a beauty and a fortune,”
glancing her little glassy eye, with ineffable gratulation
from Emilie, to Gertrude, “a beauty and a
fortune will give the party such eclat! Oh, I
should have given up, if any thing had happened
to prevent our coming. The children gave me
such a fright this morning! Thomas Jefferson fell
down stairs; but he is a peculiar child about falling,

always comes on his feet, like a cat. Benjamin
Franklin is very different. He has never had but
one fall in his life, so husband calls it `Ben's fall,'
like `Adam's fall,' you know; very good, is not it?”
That solemn, responsible person, `husband,' whose
sententious sayings were expanded like a drop of
water into a volume of steam, by that wonderful
engine, his wife's tongue, was solemnly parading the
piazza, his watch in his hand, and his eye fixed on
the avenue, while with lengthening visage he groaned
in spirit under that misery for which few country
gentlemen have one drop of patience in their souls
—a deferred dinner.

“Oh, there they come!” he was the first to announce,
and after the slight bustle of dismounting,
&c., and a whisper from Mrs. Upton of `do your
prettiest, girls,' Mrs. Layton entered the drawing-room,
her arm in Mr. Stuart's, who with his hat
under his other arm, his stiff neckcloth, and
starched demeanor, looked the son of an English
baronet at least. His stately perpendicularity was
the more striking, contrasted with the grace and
elasticity of Mrs. Layton's movements. This lady
deserves more than a transient glance.

Mrs. Layton was somewhere on that most disagreeable
stage of the journey of life, between thirty
and forty—most disagreeable to a woman who has
once enjoyed the dominion of personal beauty; for
at that period she is most conscious of its diminution.
If ever woman might, Mrs. Layton could
have dispensed with beauty, for she had, when she
pleased to command them, graceful manners, spirited
conversation, and those little feminine engaging

ways, that though they can scarcely be defined or
described, are irresistibly attractive. But never
were the arts that prolong beauty more sedulously
studied than by this lady. She owed much to the
forbearance of nature, who seemed to shrink from
spoiling what she had so exquisitely made. Her
eyes retained the clearness and sparkling brilliancy
of her freshest youth. Her own profuse, dark
hair was artfully arranged to shelter and display
her fine intellectual brow, and the rose on her
cheek, if too mutable for nature, claimed indulgence
for the exquisite art of its imitation. She was yet
within the customary term of deep mourning for a
sister, and as she was not of a temper to crusade
against any of the forms of society, her crape and
bombasin were in accordance with its sternest requisitions;
but their sombre and heavy effect was
skilfully relieved by brilliant and becoming ornaments.
Like the Grecian beauty who sacrificed her
tresses at her sister's tomb, she took care that the
pious offering should not dominish the effect of her
charms. Mrs. Layton resembled a Parisian artificial
flower, so perfect in its form, coloring, and arrangement,
that it seems as if nothing could be more
beautiful, unless perchance the eye falls on a natural
rose, and beholds His superior and divine art whose
`pencil' paints it, and `whose breath perfumes.'
Such a contrast was Emilie Layton to her mother.
There was an unstudied, child-like grace in every
attitude and movement, the dew of youth was on
her bright lip, and her round cheek was tinged
with every passing feeling.

Mrs. Layton presented her English acquaintance

to Miss Clarence and her father, and returned their
salutations with an air of graceful self-possession that
showed she was far too experienced to feel a sensation
from entering a country drawing-room. Her
brow contracted for an instant as she kissed her
daughter, and whispered, “I see you are going to
be my own dear girl, Emilie.” Emilie turned
away, and her mother's scrutiny was averted by the
outbreaking of Mrs. Upton's ever ready loquacity.
“Would you think, Mr. Clarence,” she asked,
“that Grace Layton and I were girls together. I
don't deny I have a trifling advantage of you,
Grace, dear; but, as husband says, when I die, you
will shake in your shoes.”

“Do, Miss Clarence,” interposed Mrs. Layton,
“convince our friend Mrs. Uupton, that such familiarity
with time is quite rustic and barbarous
Time is as obsolete in civilized life as his grim personification
in the primer. We never talk of
time in good society, Mrs. Upton.”

“Not talk of time!” retorted her good-natured
contemporary, “that's odd for a married woman.
Old maids are always particular about their ages,
but it's no object for us; besides, as husband says,
children are a kind of mile-stones that measure the
distance you have travelled. That was quite
clever of husband—was not it? Husband,” she
continued, stretching her neck out of the window,
and addressing her better half, “when was it you
made that smart comparison, of children to mile-stones?”

“Children to mile-stones! what are you talking
about, my dear?”

“Oh, I remember, it was not you—it was”—but
on drawing in her head she perceived no one was
listening to her. Mrs. Layton, unable as she confessed,
any longer to endure the odious flapping of
time's wings, had adroitly turned the conversation.
“What are those pictures you are studying, Mr.
Stuart?” she asked.

The gentleman colored deeply, and replied,
“Some American representations of naval engagements,
madam.”

“And if the British lion were the painter he would
have reversed the victory?” said the lady archly.

Miss Clarence felt that the rites of hospitality demanded
the interposition of her shield: “That
picture,” she said, “does not harmonzie well with
our rural scenery, but my father values it on account
of the artist, who is his particular friend.”

“An ingenious young person, no doubt,” replied
the traveller, with an equivocal emphasis on the
word ingenious, and a supercilious curl of his lip.

“Oh, remarkably ingenious,” exclaimed Mrs.
Upton, “by the way, Gertrude, dear, where is
Louis Seton to-day?”

“Confined to his room by indisposition,” replied
Miss Clarence, without hesitation, or blushing.

“Hem—hem—hem”—thrice repeated the vulgar
little lady, who like other vulgar people thought
the intimation of something particular between any
marriageable parties always agreeable to a young
lady. Miss Clarence looked deaf, and Mrs. Upton
was baffled; but she good-humoredly continued “I
do wish, Mr. Stuart, you could have seen the young
gentleman who painted that picture. Husband

thinks him an uncommon genius, almost equal to
that celebrated American who is such a famous
painter—I forget his name—I do believe husband
is right, and I am losing my memory; but at any
rate I remember the interesting anecdote about him
—I forget exactly who told it to me, but I believe it
was husband—however, that is of no consequence—
yet it is so provoking to forget—if I could only
remember when I heard it.”

“Oh, never mind when,” exclaimed Mrs. Layton,
“tell the story, Mrs. Upton. We shall never forget
when we heard it.”

“Well, he was born—oh, where was he born?
you remember, Gertrude, dear?”

“If you mean West, I believe he was born in
Pennsylvania.”

Oh, yes, it was West; now I remember all about
it—it was husband told me—his parents were
wretchedly poor; wer'nt they, Gertrude, dear?”

“Too poor, I believe, to educate him.”

“Oh, yes; that is just what husband told me—
and being too poor, and being born, as it were, a
painter, he invented colors—or brushes—which was
it, Gertrude, dear?”

“Neither, I believe,” replied Gertrude, suppressing
a smile, and glad of an opportunity to shelter
Mrs. Upton's ignorance, and save her friends from
her farther garrulity, she proceeded to relate the
well known story of West having made his first
brush from the hairs of a cat's tail, and of his
having, instructed by the Indians, compounded his
first colors from the vegetable productions of the
wilds around him. Mr. Stuart took out his tablets

apparently to note down the particulars Miss Clarence
had related. “I beg your pardon,” he said,
“have the goodness again, Miss Clarence, to tell
me the name of the painter of whom you spoke.”

“West.”

“West! ah, the same with our celebrated artist.”

“Is there an English artist of that name?” asked
Mrs. Layton, with seeming good faith.

“Indeed is there, madam, an exceeding clever
person too, Sir Benjamin West; his name is known
throughout Europe, though it may not have reached
America yet, owing probably to the ignorance of
the fine arts here. My eldest brother received
with the estate two of his finest productions. One
of the happy effects of our law of entail, is that it
fosters genius by preserving in families the chef
d'œuvres of the arts. It is much to be regretted,”
he continued turning to Mr. Clarence, “that your
legislators have deemed this law of primogeniture
incompatible with your republican institutions. It
is an unfortunate mistake, which will for ever retard
your advance in the sciences, arts, and manners.”[1]

“Do manners go with the estate? How can
that be?” asked Mrs. Upton in all simplicity.
Whatever replies to this question might have been
suggested by the presence of the unportioned younger
son, they were suppressed by the common instincts
of good breeding, and dinner fortunately being announced,

the party repaired to the dining-room,
where we shall leave them to the levelling process
of satisfying appetites whetted to their keenest edge
by an hour's delay of a country dinner. Perhaps,
in confirmation of the assertion already made of
Miss Clarence' housewifery, it should be stated,
that there was not a dish on table of which Mrs.
Upton did not taste, and ask a receipt.

The dinner being over, Mrs. Layton, evidently
anxious for some private conversation with her
daughter, proposed a stroll in the wood.

She arranged the party according to her own
wishes. “Mr. Clarence,” she said, “you are, I
believe, condemned to some business discussions
with the judge. Mrs. Upton, Miss Clarence, I am
sure, will give you a quiet seat in the library, and her
receipt book. Miss Clarence, you will do Mr.
Stuart the honor to point out to him the beauties of
an American forest; and Emilie shall be my Ariadne.
I wish,” she added in a voice spoken alone
to Miss Layton's ear, “that like her you were
dreaming of love.”

“Pshaw! mother,” replied Emilie. There was
nothing in her words, but there was something in
her manner and looks that abated her mother's
hopes. She had, however, too much at stake to
leave any art untried to achieve her object; and
when, after an hour's walk, Miss Clarence again
met the mother and daughter, Emilie's cheek was
flushed, and her eyes red with weeping. Her practised
mother veiled her own feelings, and inquired
of Mr. Stuart, with as much carelessness as if she

had thought of nothing else since they parted, “how
he liked an American forest?”

“With such a companion,” he replied, courteously
bowing to Miss Clarence, “quite agreeable, but in
itself monotonous.”

“A quality, I presume,” answered Mrs. Layton,
“peculiar to American forests. But, my dear girls,
where are you going?—spare me a little longer
from the din of Mrs. Upton's tongue. I had as lief
be doomed to turn the crank of a hand-organ. My
dear Miss Clarence, you must not be all Emilie's
friend. Sit down on this rustic bench with me, and
let Emilie show Mr. Stuart the pretty points of
view about the place. He has come forty miles to
see the lake, or the fair lady of the lake,” she whispered,
as the gentleman withdrew with Miss Layton.
“I see everywhere about your place, Miss Clarence,”
continued Mrs. Layton, plucking a honey-suckle
from a luxuriant vine that embowered the
seat where she had placed herself, “indications of
the refinement of your taste. Flowers have always
seemed to me the natural allies and organs of a delicate
and sensitive spirit. I admire the oriental
custom of eliciting from them a sort of hieroglyphic
language, to express the inspirations of love—love,
`the perfume and suppliance of a moment,' so beautifully
shadowed forth in their sweet and fleeting
life. I see you do not agree with me.”

“Not entirely. Flowers have always seemed to
me to be the vehicle of another language: to express
their Creator's love, and, if I may say so, his
gracious and minute attention to our pleasures.
Their beauty, their variety, their fragrance, are

gratuities, for no other purpose, as far as we can
see, but to gratify our senses, and through those
avenues to reach the mind, that by their ministry
may communicate with the Giver. To me the
sight of a flower is like the voice of a friend. You
smile, but I have great authority on my side. Why
was it that the French heroine and martyr could
exclaim, `J'oublie l'injustice des hommes, leurs sottises,
et mes maux avec des livres et des fleurs,' but
because they conveyed to her the expression of a
love that made all mortal evils appear in their
actual insignificance.”

“Bless me, my dear Miss Clarence! how seclusion
in a romantic country does lead one to refine and spin
out pretty little cobweb systems of one's own. Now
my inference would have been that Madame Roland's
books and flowers helped her to forget cabals and
guillotines, and perhaps I should have come as near
the truth as you. You are a very Swedenborgian
in your exposition of nature. However, you
have no mawkish, parade sentiment, and your hidden
and spiritual meanings certainly exalt flowers
above mere ministers to the senses. But how did
we fall into this flourishing talk? I detained you
here to make a confession to you.”

“A confession to me!”

“Yes; you know I told you you must be my
friend as well as Emilie's.” `Ah,' thought Gertrude,
`she is going to confide to me poor Emilie's
affair. I will have the boldness to give her my real
opinion.' Mrs. Layton proceeded, “I must be
frank with you, Miss Clarence—frankness is my
nature. I have wronged you.”

“Wronged me, Mrs. Layton?”

“Yes, my dear Miss Clarence, in the tenderest
point in which a woman can be injured; but do not
be alarmed, the injury is not irreparable. You
recollect the day you called on me at Mrs. Upton's
with that woe-begone, love-stricken devotee of
yours?”

“Mr. Seton?”

“Yes, Mr. Seton. Now spare me that sentimental,
rebuking look. I will not be irreverent to
the youth, though I know better than to give credit
to the gossip of Goody Upton, and her cummers
about you. His love-passages, poor fellow, will
never lead to your hymeneal altar. But to my
confession. You must know that on the aforesaid
day I had a fit of the blues, and I saw every thing,
even you, through a murky cloud. To speak literally,
(ergo disagreeably,) I did not perceive one of
your charms.”

“Oh, is that all, Mrs. Layton?—woman as I am,
I can pardon that.”

“All! no, if it were, I would not have mentioned
it, for one woman's opinion of another is a mere bagatelle.
Idleness, you know, is the parent of all
sin. I had nothing to do, and moved and incited
thereto by the demon of ennui, I sat down and described
you to one of my correspondents as you had
appeared to my distempered vision.”

“And is that all?”

“Yes, that is all; but that you may know the
whole head and front of my offending I must show
you my cerrespondent's reply.”

“Do so—that may make a merit of my pardon.”

Mrs. Layton took a letter from her reticule, but
before she opened it she said, “I must premise in
my own justification, not to conciliate you, that
when I met you to-day you seemed perfectly transformed
from the little demure lady you appeared at
first. I feel now as if I had known you a year and
could interpret every look of your expressive face.
Something had happened this morning—I am sure
of it—to give a certain elevation to your feelings. I
`would not flatter Neptune for his trident, nor Jove
for his power to thunder.' I could not flatter you, Miss
Clarence, and it is no flattery to say your beauty is
of that character which Montesquieu pronounces the
most effective. It results from certain changes and
flashes of expression—it produces the emotion of
surprise. When you speak and show those brilliant
teeth of yours, your face is worth all the rose and
lily beauties in Christendom. You remind me of
Gibbon's description of Zenobia—do you remember
it?”

“No; I seldom remember a description of personal
beauty.”

“I never forget it. You have not been enough
in the world to learn that beauty is the sine qua non
to a woman—a young woman—unless, indeed, she
has fortune.”

“We are graduated by a flattering scale, truly!”

“Yes, my dear girl, but you may as well know
it; there is no use in going hoodwinked into society!
But now for our document.” Mrs. Layton
unfolded Gerald Roscoe's letter, which our readers
have already perused, and read aloud from the passage
beginning, `Is it natural depravity,' and ending

with the anecdote of Miss Eunice Peabody.
When she had finished reading, `a comely little body,
amiable and rather clever,' “is a quotation from
my letter,” she said, “and was my libellous description
of you, Miss Clarence.”

“Libellous! Mrs Layton. I declare to you
after your frightful note of preparation it sounds
to me quite complimentary; but who is the gentleman
to whom I have this picturesque introduction?”

“Ah! there's the rub. He is undoubtedly the
most attractive young man in New York—the prince
of clever fellows; and, honored am I in the fact—
my selected, and favorite, and most intimate friend.”

`Oh!' thought Gertrude, `Emilie said Roscoe
was her mother's most intimate friend,' and the pang
that shot through her heart at this recollection was
evident in her face, for Mrs. Layton paused a moment
before she added—“Gerald Roscoe.” At
this confirmation of her mental conjectnre, Gertrude
involuntarily covered her face with her hands, and
then, disconcerted to the last degree at having betrayed
her sensations, she said, half articulately,
something of her being taken by surprise at the
mention of Gerald Roscoe's name, that he was her
father's friend, but she concluded with hoping Mrs.
Layton would not think she cared at all about it.
But Mrs. Layton was quite too keen and sagacious
an observer to be imposed on for a moment by such
awkward hypocrisy as Gertrude's. She saw she
did care a great deal about it, and giving a feminine
interpretation to her emotion, and anxious to efface
every unpleasant impression from her mind, she said
in her sweetest manner, “I enjoy in anticipation

Roscoe's surprise when he shall see you. It will be
quite a coup de théatre. On the whole, Gertrude—
I must call you Gertrude—dear Gertrude—I think
I may claim to have done you a favor. I have prepared
Roscoe's mind for an agreeable surprise, and
for the still more agreeable feeling that his taste is
far superior to mine—that to him belongs the merit
of a discoverer, and as he is after all but a man, he
will enjoy this, and I shall enjoy particularly your
triumph over his first impressions.”

`Ah,' thought Gertrude, `those impressions will
never be removed, I shall be paralyzed, a very Eunice
Peabody, if ever I meet him.' But she smiled
at Mrs. Layton's castle-building, and though she
assured that lady that nothing was more improbable
than that she should ever encounter Gerald Roscoe,
as he never left town, and she never went there, yet
she did find something very agreeable in Mrs. Layton's
perspective; and being human and youthful, she
was not insensible to the flatteries addressed to her
by the most fascinating woman she had ever seen.

Mrs. Layton's expressions of admiration were not
all flattery. There was something in Gertrude that
really excited her imagination. She saw she was of
a very different order from the ordinary run of well-bred,
well-informed, decorous, pleasing young ladies—a
class particularly repulsive and tiresome to
Mrs. Layton. She foresaw that Miss Clarence, far
removed as she was from being a beauty would, set
off by the éclat of fortune, become a distingué whenever
she appeared in society, and she took such
measures to ingratiate herself as she had found most
generally successful. She had shown Roscoe's letter

to manifest and enhance the value of her changed
opinion. She spared no pains to efface the impression
the letter evidently left on Gertrude's mind.
She taxed all her arts of pleasing—talked of herself,
alluded to her faults, so eloquently, that the
manner was a beautiful drapery that covered up and
concealed the matter. She spoke with generous
confidence of the adverse circumstances of her matrimonial
destiny, and Gertrude, in her simplicity,
not doubting that she was the sole depository of this
revelation, felt a secret self-gratulation in the qualities
that had elicited so singular a trust, and the
tenderest sympathy with the sufferer of unprovoked
wrongs. Then Mrs. Layton again reverted to
Roscoe, the person of all others of whom Gertrude
was most curious to hear. She had a kind of dot
and line art in sketching characters, and with a few
masterly touches presented a vivid image. She
spoke of society; and its vanities, excitements and
follies, like bubbles catching the sun's rays, kindled
in the light of her imagination.

Gertrude listened and felt that her secluded life
was a paralyzed, barren existence. Her attention
was rivetted and delighted till they were both aroused
by the footsteps of a servant, who came to say
that Judge Upton's carriage was at the door. Half
way to the piazza they were met by Mrs. Upton.
“Gertrude, dear,” she said, “I hope you will excuse
our going rather early. You know I am an
anxious mother, and the Judge is so important at
home—but we have had a charming day! I am
sure Mr. Stuart has been delighted. I asked him if
he had ever seen any thing superior to Clarenceville

as a whole, and I assure you he did not say
yes. Indeed, sub rosa, (you understand, between
you and I,) I do think you have made a conquest.”

“Do not, I entreat you, Mrs. Upton, ask the
gentleman whether I have or not.”

“Oh no, my dear soul; do you think I would
do any thing so out of the way? I understand a
thing or two; but I do long to know which will
carry the day, you or Emilie—fortune versus—
as husband says—versus beauty. One thing I am
certain of, we shall all be in the book.”

“Not all,” said Mrs. Layton, and added in a
whisper to Gertrude, “who but Shakspeare could
have delineated Slender?”

Gertrude was surprised and disappointed at finding
Emilie on the piazza, prepared to return with
her mother; but there was no opportunity for expostulation.
Judge Upton stood at the open carriage
door, as impatient as if a council of war were
awaiting his arrival at home, and the ladies were
compelled to abridge their adieus.

When Mr. Clarence had made his last bow to
his departing guests, he seated himself on the
piazza. “There goes our English visiter, Gertrude,”
said he, “enriched no doubt with precious
morceaus for his diary. Judge Upton will represent
the class of American country-gentlemen, and
his miscellaneous help-meet will sit for an American
lady. I heard him ask Mrs. Upton, who has, it
must be confessed, an anomalous mode of assorting
her viands,” (Mr. Clarence spoke with the disgust
of a dyspeptic rather than a Chesterfieldian,)
“whether it were common for the Americans to eat

salad with fish? Notwithstanding her everlasting
good nature, she was a little touched at his surveillance,
and for once replied without her prefix `husband
says,' that she supposed we had a right to eat
such things together as pleased us best.”

“It is unfortunate,” said Gertrude, “that travellers
should fall into such hands.”

“No, no, Gertrude; it makes no difference with
such travellers. They come predetermined to find
fault—to measure every thing they see by the English
standard they carry in their minds, and which
they conceive to be as perfect as those eternal patterns
after which some ancient philosophers supposed
the Creator to have fashioned the universe. I
had a good deal of conversation with this young
man, and I think he is about as well qualified to describe
our country, and judge of its real condition,
as the fish are to pass their opinion on the capacities
and habitudes of the birds. I do not mean
that ours is the superior condition, but that we are
of different elements. It does annoy me, I confess,
excessively, that such fellows should influence the
minds of men. I do not care so much about the
impression they make in their own country, as the
effect they have in ours, in keeping alive jealousies,
distrusts, and malignant resentments, and stirring
up in young minds a keen sense of injustice, and a
feeling of dislike bordering on hatred to England—
England, our noble mother country. I would have
our children taught to regard her with filial veneration—to
remember that their fathers participated in
her high historic deeds—that they trod the same
ground and breathed the same air with Shakspeare,

and Milton, and Locke, and Bacon. I would have
them esteem England as first in science, in literature,
in the arts, in inventions, in philanthropy, in
whatever elevates and refines humanity. I would
have them love and cherish her name, and remember
that she is still the mother and sovereign of
their minds.”

“But my dear, dear father, you are giving England
the supremacy and preference over our own
country.”

“Our country! she speaks for herself, my child;
if there were not a voice lifted throughout all this
wide spread land of peace and plenty, yet how `loud
would be the praise!' I do not wish to hear her
flattered by foreigners, or boasted or lauded by our
own people. Nor do I fear, on her account, any
thing that can be said by these petty tourists, who,
like noisome insects, defile the fabric they cannot
comprehend.”