University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

My interview with Opportunity Newcome remained a
secret between those who first knew of it. The evening
service in St. Andrew's was attended only by the usual congregation,
all the curiosity of the multitude seeming to have
been allayed by the visit in the morning. The remainder
of the day passed as usual, and, after enjoying a pleasant
even-tide, and the earlier hours of the night in the company
of the girls, I retired early to bed, and slept profoundly until
morning. My uncle Ro partook of my own philosophical
temper, and we encouraged each other in it by a short conversation
that occured in his room before we respectively
retired to rest.

“I agree with you, Hugh,” said my uncle, in reply to a
remark of my own; “there is little use in making ourselves
unhappy about evils that we cannot help. If we are to be
burnt up and stripped of our property, we shall be burnt up
and stripped of our property. I have a competency secured
in Europe, and we can all live on that, with economy, should
the worst come to the worst.”

“It is a strange thing, to hear an American talk of
seeking a refuge of any sort in the old world!”

“If matters proceed in the lively manner they have for
the last ten years, you'll hear of it often. Hitherto, the rich
of Europe have been in the habit of laying by a penny in
America against an evil day; but the time will soon come,

unless there is a great change, when the rich of America will
return the compliment, in kind. We are worse off than if
we were in a state of nature, in many respects; having our
hands tied by the responsibility that belongs to our position
and means, while those who choose to assail us are under a
mere nominal restraint. They make the magistrates, who
are altogether in their interests; and they elect the sheriffs
who are to see the laws executed. The theory is, that the
people are sufficiently virtuous to perform all these duties
well; but no provision has been made for the case in which
the people themselves happen to go astray, en masse.”

“We have our governors and masters at Albany, sir.”

“Yes, we have our governors and servants at Albany,
and there they are! There has not been the time, probably,
since this infernal spirit first had its rise among us, that a
clear, manly, energetic, and well-principled proclamation,
alone, issued by the Governor of this State, would not have
aroused all the better feelings of the community, and put
this thing down; but, small as would have been that tribute
to the right, it has never been paid, and, until we drop double-distilled
patriots, and have recourse again to the old-fashioned,
high-principled gentlemen for offices of mark, it never will
be done. Heaven preserve me from extra-virtuous, patriotic,
and enlightened citizens; no good ever comes of them.”

“I believe the wisest way, sir, is to make up our minds
that we have reached the point of reaction in the institutions,
and be ready to submit to the worst. I keep the `revolver'
well primed, and hope to escape being burnt up at least.”

After a little more such discourse, we parted and sought
our pillows, and I can say that I never slept more soundly
in my life. If I did lose my estate, it was what other men
had suffered and survived, and why might not I as well as
another? It is true, those other men were, in the main, the
victims of what are called tyrants; but others, again, had
certainly been wronged by the masses. Thousands have
been impoverished in France, for instance, by the political
confiscations of the multitude, and thousands enriched by illgotten
gains, profiting by the calamities of those around
them; and what has happened there might happen here.
Big words ought to pass for nothing. No man was ever a
whit more free because he was the whole time boasting of

his liberty, and I was not now to learn that when numbers
did inflict a wrong, it was always of the most intolerable
character. Ordinarily, they were not much disposed to this
species of crime; but men in masses were no more infallible
than individuals. In this philosophic mood, I slept.

I was awoke next morning by John's appearing at my
bedside, after having opened the shutter of my windows.

“I declare to you, Mr. Hugh,” began this well-meaning,
but sometimes officious servant, “I don't know what will
come next at Ravensnest, now the evil spirit has got uppermost
among the inhabitants!”

“Tut, tut, John—what you call the evil spirit is only the
`Spirit of the Institutions;' and is to be honoured, instead
of disliked.”

“Well, sir, I don't know what they calls it, for they talks
so much about the hinstitutions in this country, I never can
find out what they would be at. There was a hinstitution
near where I lived in my last place, at the West End, in
Lon'on, and there they taught young masters to speak and
write Latin and Greek. But hinstitutions in Hamerica must
mean something, for them as doesn't know any more Latin
than I do seems to be quite hintimate with these Hamerican
hinstitutions. But, Mr. Hugh, would you, could you, believe
the people committed parricide last night?”

“I am not at all surprised at it, for, to me, they have
seemed to be bent on matricide for some time, calling the
country their mother.”

“It 's hawful, sir—it 's truly hawful, when a whole people
commits such a crime as parricide! I know'd you would
be shocked to hear it, Mr. Hugh, and so I just came in to
let you know it.”

“I am infinitely obliged to you for this attention, my
good fellow, and shall be still more so when you tell me all
about it.”

“Yes, sir, most willingly, and most unwillingly, too.
But there 's no use in 'iding the fact; it 's gone, Mr. Hugh!”

“What is gone, John? — Speak out, my good fellow; I
can bear it.”

“The pew, sir—or, rather that beautiful canopy that covered
it, and made it look so much like the Lord Mayor's seat

in Guildhall. I 'ave hadmired and honoured that canopy,
sir, as the most helegant hobject in this country, sir.”

“So they have destroyed it at last, have they? Encouraged
and sustained by an expression of public sentiment, as
proclaimed in a meeting that had a chairman and secretary,
they have actually cut it down, I suppose?”

“They have, sir; and a pretty job they 've made of it.
There it stands, up at Miller's, hover his pig-pen!”

This was not a very heroic termination of the career of
the obnoxious canopy; but it was one that made me laugh
heartily. John was a little offended at this levity, and he
soon left me to finish my toilet by myself. I dare say,
many of the honest folk of Ravensnest would have been as
much surprised as John himself, at the indifference I manifested
at the fate of this dignified pew. But, certainly, so
far as my own social elevation, or social depression, were
concerned, I cared nothing about it. It left me just where I
was—neither greater nor otherwise; and as for any monuments
to let the world know who my predecessors had been,
or who I was at that moment, the country itself, or the part
of it in which we dwelt, was sufficient. Its history must
be forgotten, or changed, before our position could be mistaken;
though I dare say, the time will come when some
extremely sublimated friend of equality will wish to extinguish
all the lights of the past, in order that there may not
exist that very offensive distinction of one man's name
being illustrated, while another man's name is not. The
pride of family is justly deemed the most offensive of all
pride, since a man may value himself on a possession to
which he has not the smallest claim in the way of personal
merit, while those of the highest personal claims are altogether
deprived of an advantage, to the enjoyment of which
ancestors alone have created the right. Now, the institutions,
both in their letter and their spirit, do favour justice,
in this particular, as far as they can; though even they are
obliged to sustain one of the most potent agents to such distinctions,
by declaring, through the laws, that the child
shall succeed to the estate of the father. When we shall
get every thing straight, and as it ought to be, in this progressive
country, Heaven only knows; for I find my tenants
laving stress on the fact that their fathers have leased my

lands for generations, while they are quite willing to forget
that my fathers were the lessors all the while.

I found all four of the girls on the piazza, breathing the
air of as balmy a summer morning as a bountiful nature
ever bestowed. They had heard of the fate of the canopy,
which affected them differently, and somewhat according to
temperament. Henrietta Coldbrooke laughed at it violently,
and in a way I did not like; your laughing young lady
rarely having much beyond merriment in her. I make
all allowance for youthful spirits, and a natural disposition
to turn things into fun; but it was too much to laugh at this
exploit of the anti-renters, for quite half an hour together.
I liked Anne Marston's manner of regarding it better. She
smiled a good deal, and laughed just enough to show that
she was not insensible to the effect of an absurdity; and
then she looked as if she felt that a wrong had been done.
As for Patt, she was quite indignant at the insult; nor was
she very backward in letting her opinions be known. But
Mary Warren's manner of viewing the affair pleased me
best, as indeed was fast getting to be the fact with most of
her notions and conceits. She manifested neither levity nor
resentment. Once or twice, when a droll remark escaped
Henrietta, she laughed a little; a very little, and involuntarily,
as it might be — just enough to prove that there was
fun in her — when she would make some sensible observation,
to the effect that the evil temper that was up in the
country was the true part of the transaction that deserved
attention; and that she felt this as well as saw it. Nobody
seemed to care for the canopy — not even my excellent
grandmother, in whose youth the church had been built,
when distinctions of this sort were more in accordance with
the temper and habits of the times, than they are to-day. I
had been on the piazza just long enough to note this difference
in the manner of the girls, when my grandmother
joined us.

“Oh! grandmother, have you heard what those wretches
of `Injins,' as they are rightly named, have been doing with
the canopy of the pew?” cried Patt, who had been at the
bedside of our venerable parent, and kissed her an hour before:
“they have torn it down, and placed it over the pen
of the pigs!”

A common laugh, in which Patt herself now joined, interrupted
the answer for a moment, old Mrs. Littlepage herself
manifesting a slight disposition to make one of the
amused.

“I have heard it all, my dear,” returned my grandmother,
“and, on the whole, think the thing is well enough
gotten rid of. I do not believe it would have done for Hugh
to have had it taken down, under a menace, while it is perhaps
better that it should no longer stand.”

“Were such things common, in your youth, Mrs. Littlepage?”
asked Mary Warren.

“Far from uncommon; though less so in country than in
town churches. You will remember that we were but recently
separated from England, when St. Andrew's was
built, and that most of the old colonial ideas prevailed among
us. People, in that day, had very different notions of social
station, from those which now exist; and New York was,
in a certain sense, one of the most, perhaps the most aristocratical
colony in the country. It was somewhat so under
the Dutch, republicans as they were, with its patroons; but
when the colony was transferred to the English, it became
a royal colony at once, and English notions were introduced
as a matter of course. In no other colony was there as
many manors, perhaps; the slavery of the south introducing
quite a different system there, while the policy of Penn
and of New England, generally, was more democratic. I
apprehend, Roger, that we owe this anti-rent struggle, and
particularly the feebleness with which it is resisted, to the
difference of opinion that prevails among the people of New
England, who have sent so many immigrants among us,
and our own purely New York notions.”

“You are quite right, my dear mother,” answered my
uncle, “though New Yorkers, by descent, are not wanting
among the tenants, to sustain the innovation. The last act
either from direct cupidity, or to gain popularity with a set:
whereas, as I view the matter, the first are influenced by
the notions of the state of society from which either they
themselves, or their parents, were directly derived. A very
large proportion of the present population of New York is
of New England origin. Perhaps one-third have this extraction,
either as born there, or as the sons or grandsons

of those who were. Now, in New England generally, great
equality of condition exists, more especially when you rise
above the lower classes; there being very few, out of the
large trading towns, who would be deemed rich in New
York, and scarcely such a thing as a large landholder, at
all. The relation of landlord and tenant, as connected with
what we should term estates, is virtually unknown to New
England; though Maine may afford some exceptions. This
circumstance is owing to the peculiar origin of the people,
and to the fact that emigration has so long carried off the
surplus population; the bulk of those who remain being able
to possess freeholds. There is a natural antipathy in men
who have been educated in such a state of society, to anything
that seems to place others in positions they do not,
and cannot occupy themselves. Now, while the population
of New York may be one-third, perhaps, of New England
descent, and consequently more or less of New England
notions, a much larger proportion of the lawyers, editors of
newspapers, physicians, and active politicians, are of that
class. We think little, and talk little of these circumstances;
for no nation inquires into its moral influences, and what I
may call its political statistics, less than the Americans;
but they produce large consequences.”

“Am I to understand you, sir, to say that anti-rentism is
of New England origin?”

“Perhaps not. Its origin was probably more directly
derived from the devil, who has tempted the tenants as he is
known once to have tempted the Saviour. The outbreak
was originally among the descendants of the Dutch, for they
happened to be the tenants, and, as for the theories that
have been broached, they savour more of the reaction of
European abuses, than of anything American at all; and
least of all of anything from New England, where there is
generally a great respect for the rights of property, and unusual
reverence for the law. Still, I think we owe our
greatest danger to the opinions and habits of those of New
England descent among us.”

“This seems a little paradoxical, uncle Ro, and I confess
I should like to hear it explained.”

“I will endeavour so to do, and in as few words as possible.
The real danger is among those who influence legislation.

Now, you will find hundreds of men among us, who
feel the vast importance of respecting contracts, who perceive
much of the danger of anti-rentism, and who wish to see it
defeated in its violent and most offensive forms, but who
lean against the great landlords, on account of those secret
jealousies which cause most men to dislike advantages in
which they do not share, and who would gladly enough see
all leases abolished, if it could be done without a too violent
conflict with justice. When you talk with these men, they
will make you the common-place but unmeaning profession
of wishing to see every husbandman the owner in fee of his
farm, instead of a tenant, and that it is a hardship to pay
rent, and quantities of such twaddle. Henry the Fourth, in
a much better spirit, is said to have wished that each of his
subjects had “une poule dans son pôt,” but that wish did
not put it there. So it is with this idle profession of wishing
to see every American husbandman a freeholder. We all
know such a state of society never did exist, and probably
never will; and it is merely placing a vapid pretension to
philanthropy in the fore-ground of a picture that should
rigidly represent things as they are. For my part, I am
one of those who do not believe that this or any other country
would be any the better for dispensing with landlords and
tenants.”

“Mr. Littlepage!” exclaimed Mary Warren, “you surely
do not mean that competency widely diffused, is not better
than wealth in a few hands, and poverty in a great many!”

“No, I shall not go as far as that; but, I do say that
what this country most wants just now, is precisely the class
that is connected with the independence of character and
station, the leisure with its attendant cultivation and refinement,
and the principles as well as taste that are connected
with all.”

“Principles! Mr. Littlepage!” added my uncle's sweet
interlocutor; “my father would hardly uphold that, though
he agrees with you in so much of what you say.”

“I do not know that. I repeat the word principles; for,
when you have a class of men, who are removed from a
large range of temptations, without being placed above public
opinion, you get precisely those who are most likely to uphold
that sort of secondary, but highly useful morals, which

are not directly derived from purely religious duties.
Against the last I shall not say one word, as it comes from
the grace, which is of the power of God, and is happily as
accessible to the poor as to the rich, and more too; but, of
men as they are, not one in a hundred regulates his life by
a standard created under such impulses; and even when they
do, the standard itself is, in some degree, qualified by the
ordinary notions, I apprehend. The Christian morality of an
East Indian is not identical with that of a Puritan, or that
of a man of highly cultivated mind, with that of one who
has enjoyed fewer advantages. There is one class of principles,
embracing all those that are adverse to the littlenesses
of daily practice, which is much the more extended among
the liberal-minded and educated, and it is to that set of principles
I refer. Now we want a due proportion of that class
of men, as our society is getting to be organized; of those
who are superior to meannesses.”

“All this would be deemed atrociously aristocratic, were
it told in Gath!” exclaimed Patt, laughing.

“It is atrociously common sense, notwithstanding,” answered
my uncle, who was not to be laughed out of anything
he felt to be true; “and the facts will show it. New
England early established a system of common schools, and
no part of the world, perhaps, has a population that is better
grounded in intelligence. This has been the case so long
as to put the people of Connecticut and Massachusetts, for
instance, as a whole, materially in advance of the people of
any other State, New York included; although, by taking
the system from our eastern brethren, we are now doing
pretty well. Notwithstanding, who will say that New England
is as far advanced, in many material things, as the
middle States. To begin with the kitchen—her best cookery
is much below that of even the humbler classes of the true
middle States' families: take her language for another test,
it is provincial and vulgar; and there is no exaggeration in
saying that the labouring classes of the middle States, if not
of New England origin, use better English than thousands
of educated men in New England itself. Both of these peculiarities,
as I conceive, come from the fact that in one
part of the country there has been a class to give a tone
that does not exist in the other. The gentlemen of the larger

towns in the east have an influence where they live, no
doubt; but in the interior, as no one leads, all these matters
are left to the common mind to get along with, as well as it
can.”

“Aristocratic, sir—rank aristocracy!”

“If it be, has aristocracy, as you call it, which in this
instance must only mean decided social position, no advantages?
Is not even a wealthy idler of some use in a nation?
He contributes his full share to the higher civilization that
is connected with the tastes and refinements, and, in fact,
he forms it. In Europe they will tell you that a court is
necessary to such civilization; but facts contradict the
theory. Social classes, no doubt, are; but they can exist
independently of courts, as they can, have, do, and ever will,
in the face of democracy. Now, connect this class with the
landed interest, and see how much your chances for material
improvement are increased. Coke, of Norfolk, probably
conferred more benefit on the husbandry of England
than all the mere operatives that existed in his time. It is
from such men, indeed, from their enterprise and their
means, that nearly all the greater benefits come. The fine
wool of America is mainly owing to Livingston's connection
with land; and if you drive such men out of existence, you
must drive the benefits they confer with them. A body of
intelligent, well-educated, liberalized landlords, scattered
through New York, would have more effect in advancing
the highest interests of the community than all the `small
potato' lawyers and governors you can name in a twelvemonth.
What is more, this is just the state of society in
which to reap all the benefits of such a class, without the
evils of a real aristocracy. They are and would be without
any particular political power, and there is no danger
of corn-laws and exclusive legislation for their benefit. Rich
and poor we must have; and let any fair-minded man say
whether he wish a state of things in which the first shall
have no inducement to take an extended interest in real
estate, and the last no chance to become agriculturists, except
as hired labourers?”

“You do not mince matters, uncle Ro,” put in Patt, “and
will never go to Congress.”

“That may be, my dear; but I shall retain my own self-respect

by fair dealing. What I say I mean, while many
who take the other side do not. I say that, in a country
like this, in which land is so abundant as to render the evils
of a general monopoly impossible, a landed gentry is precisely
what is most needed for the higher order of civilization,
including manners, tastes, and the minor principles,
and is the very class which, if reasonably maintained and
properly regarded, would do the most good at the least risk
of any social caste known. They have always existed in
New York, though with a lessening influence, and are the
reason, in my judgment, why we are so much before New
England in particular things, while certainly behind that
quarter of the country in many others that are dependent
on ordinary schooling.”

“I like to hear a person maintain his opinions frankly
and manfully,” said my grandmother; “and this have you
done, Roger, from boyhood. My own family, on my father's
side, was from New England, and I subscribe to a
great deal that you say; and particularly to the part that
relates to the apathy of the public to this great wrong. It
is now time, however, to go to the breakfast-table, as John
has been bowing in the door, yonder, for the last minute or
two.”

To breakfast we went; and, notwithstanding incendiaries,
anti-rentism, and canopies of pig-pens, a merry time we had
of it. Henrietta Coldbrooke and Anne Marston never came
out with more spirit, though in their several ways, than each
did that morning. I believe I looked a little surprised, for
I observed that my uncle stole occasional glances at me,
that seemed to say — “there, my fine fellow, what do you
think of that, now?” whenever either of his wards uttered
anything that he fancied cleverer than common.

“Have you heard, ma'am,” asked my uncle Ro of my
grandmother, “that we are to have old Sus and Jaaf here
at the Nest, shortly, and both in grand costume? It seems
the red-men are about to depart, and there is to be smoking
of pipes, and a great council, which the Trackless fancies
will be more dignified if held in front of the house of his
pale-face friends, than if held at his own hut.”

“How did you ascertain that, Roger?”

“I have been at the wigwam, this morning, and have the

fact directly from the Onondago, as well as from the interpreter,
whom I met there. By the way, Hugh, we must
shortly decide what is to be done with the prisoners, or we
shall have writs of habeas corpus served on us, to know
why we detain them.”

“Is it possible, uncle Ro,” for so his wards called him
habitually — “to rescue a gentleman from the gallows by
marrying him?” asked Henrietta Coldbrooke, demurely.

“That is so strange a question, that as a guardian I feel
curious to hear its meaning.”

“Tell — tell at once, Henrietta” — said the other ward,
urging her companion to speak. “I will save your blushes,
and act as your interpreter. Miss Coldbrooke was honoured
by Mr. Seneca Newcome with this letter, within the last
twenty-four hours; and, it being a family matter, I think it
ought to be referred to a family council.”

“Nay, Anne,” said the blushing Henrietta, “this is hardly
fair — nor am I sure that it would be quite lady-like in me
to suffer that letter to be generally known — particularly
known to you, it certainly is, already.”

“Perhaps your reluctance to have it read does not extend
to me, Henrietta?” said my uncle.

“Certainly not, sir; nor to my dear Mrs. Littlepage, nor
to Martha—though I confess that I cannot see what interest
Mr. Hugh can have in the subject. Here it is; take it and
read it when you please.”

My uncle was pleased to read it on the spot. As he proceeded,
a frown collected on his brow, and he bit his lip,
like one provoked as well as vexed. Then he laughed, and
threw the letter on the table, where no one presumed to
molest it. As Henrietta Coldbrooke was blushing all this
time, though she laughed and seemed provoked, our curiosity
was so great and manifest, that my grandmother felt
an inclination to interfere.

“May not that letter be read aloud, for the benefit of all?”
she asked.

“There can be no particular reason for concealing it,”
answered uncle Ro, spitefully. “The more it is known,
the more the fellow will be laughed at, as he deserves to
be.”

“Will that be right, uncle Ro?” exclaimed Miss Coldbrooke,

hastily. “Will it be treating a gentleman as
he—”

“Pshaw! — it will not be treating a gentleman, at all.
The fellow is, at this moment, a prisoner for attempting to
set an inhabited house on fire, in the middle of the night.”

Henrietta said no more; and my grandmother took the
letter, and read it for the common benefit. I shall not copy
the effusion of Seneca, which was more cunning than philosophical;
but it contained a strong profession of love,
urged in a somewhat business manner, and a generous offer
of his hand to the heiress of eight thousand a-year. And
this proposal was made only a day or two before the fellow
was `taken in the act,' and at the very time he was the most
deeply engaged in his schemes of anti-rentism.

“There is a class of men among us,” said my uncle, after
everybody had laughed at this magnificent offer, “who do
not seem to entertain a single idea of the proprieties. How
is it possible, or where could the chap have been bred, to
fancy for an instant that a young woman of fortune and
station, would marry him, and that, too, almost without an
acquaintance. I dare say Henrietta never spoke to him ten
times in her life.”

“Not five, sir, and scarcely anything was said at either
of those five.”

“And you answered the letter, my dear?” asked my
grandmother. “An answer ought not to have been forgotten;
though it might have properly come, in this ease, from
your guardian.”

“I answered it myself, ma'am, not wishing to be laughed
at for my part of the affair. I declined the honour of Mr.
Seneca Newcome's hand.”

“Well, if the truth must be said,” put in Patt, drily, “I
did the same thing, only three weeks since.”

“And I so lately as last week,” added Anne Marston,
demurely.

I do not know that I ever saw my uncle Ro so strangely
affected. While everybody around him was laughing heartily,
he looked grave, not to say fierce. Then he turned
suddenly to me, and said—

“We must let him be hanged, Hugh. Were he to live
a thousand years he would never learn the fitness of things.”

“You'll think better of this, sir, and become more merciful.

The man has only nobly dared. But I confess a
strong desire to ascertain if Miss Warren alone has escaped
his assaults.”

Mary—pretty Mary—she blushed scarlet, but shook her
head, and refused to give any answer. We all saw that her
feelings were not enlisted in the affair in any way; but
there was evidently something of a more serious nature connected
with Seneca's addresses to her than in connection
with his addresses to either of the others. As I have since
ascertained, he really had a sort of affection for Mary; and
I have been ready to pardon him the unprincipled and impudent
manner in which he cast his flies towards the other
fish, in consideration of his taste in this particular. But
Mary herself would tell us nothing.

“You are not to think so much of this, Mr. Littlepage,”
she cried, so soon as a little recovered from her confusion,
“since it is only acting on the great anti-rent principle, after
all. In the one case, it is only a wish to get good farms
cheap—and in the other, good wives.”

“In the one case, other men's farms — and in the other,
other men's wives.”

“Other men's wives, certainly, if wives at all,” said Patt,
pointedly. “There is no Mr. Seneky Newcome there.”

“We must let the law have its way, and the fellow be
hanged!” rejoined my uncle. “I could overlook the attempt
to burn the Nest House, but I cannot overlook this. Fellows
of his class get everything dessus dessous, and I do not
wonder there is anti-rentism in the land. Such a matrimonial
experiment could never have been attempted, as between
such parties, in any region but one tainted with anti-rentism,
or deluded by the devil.”

“An Irishman would have included my grandmother in
his cast of the net; that 's the only difference, sir.”

“Sure enough, why have you escaped, my dearest mother?
You, who have a fair widow's portion, too.”

“Because the suitor was not an Irishman, as Hugh intimated,—I
know no other reason, Hodge. But a person so
devoted to the ladies must not suffer in the cruel way you
speak of. The wretch must be permitted to get off.”

All the girls now joined with my grandmother in preferring
this, to them, very natural petition; and, for a few

minutes, we heard of nothing but regrets, and solicitations
that Seneca might not be given up to the law. “Tender mercies
of the law” might not be an unapt way to express the
idea, as it is now almost certain that the bigger the rogue,
the greater is the chance of escape.

“All this is very well, ladies; mighty humane and feminine,
and quite in character,” answered my uncle; “but,
in the first place, there is such a thing as compounding
felony, and its consequences are not altogether agreeable;
then, one is bound to consider the effect on society in general.
Here is a fellow who first endeavours to raise a flame in the
hearts of no less than four young ladies; failing of which,
he takes refuge in lighting a fire in Hugh's kitchen. Do
you know, I am almost as much disposed to punish him for
the first of these offences as for the last?”

“There 's a grand movement as is making among all the
redskins, ma'am,” said John, standing in the door of the
breakfast parlour, “and I did n't know but the ladies, and
Mr. Littlepage, and Mr. Hugh, would like to see it. Old
Sus is on his way here, followed by Yop, who comes grumbling
along after him, as if he did n't like the amusement
any way at all.”

“Have any arrangements been made for the proper reception
of our guests this morning, Roger?”

“Yes, ma'am. At least, I gave orders to have benches
brought and placed under the trees, and plenty of tobacco
provided. Smoking is a great part of a council, I believe,
and we shall be ready to commence at that as soon as they
meet.”

“Yes, sir, all is ready for 'em,” resumed John. “Miller
has sent an 'orse cart to bring the benches, and we 've provided
as much 'baccy as they can use. The servants 'opes,
ma'am, they can have permission to witness the ceremony.
It is n't often that civilized people can get a sight at real
savages.”

My grandmother gave an assent, and there was a general
movement, preparatory to going on the lawn to witness the
parting interview between the Trackless and his visiters.

“You have been very considerate, Miss Warren,” I
whispered Mary, as I helped her to put on her shawl,” in

not hetraying what I fancy is the most important of all
Seneca's love secrets.”

“I confess these letters have surprised me,” the dear girl
said thoughtfully, and with a look that seemed perplexed.
“No one would be apt to think very favourably of Mr.
Newcome; yet it was by no means necessary to complete
his character, that one should think as ill as this.”

I said no more,—but these few words, which appeared to
escape Mary unconsciously and involuntarily, satisfied me
that Seneca had been seriously endeavouring to obtain an
interest in her heart notwithstanding her poverty.