by dreary introspective
nonsense about their feelings and aspirations, and all the rest of it;
while the world must even then have gone on its way, and dug and sewed
and baked and built and carpentered round about these useless--animals."

"There!" said the old man, reverting to his dry sulky manner again.
"There's eloquence! I suppose you like it?"

"Yes," said I, very emphatically.

"Well," said he, "now the storm of eloquence has lulled for a little,
suppose you answer my question?--that is, if you like, you know," quoth
he, with a sudden access of courtesy.

"What question?" said I. For I must confess that Ellen's strange and
almost wild beauty had put it out of my head.

Said he: "First of all (excuse my catechising), is there competition in
life, after the old kind, in the country whence you come?"

"Yes," said I, "it is the rule there." And I wondered as I spoke what
fresh complications I should get into as a result of this answer.

"Question two," said the carle: "Are you not on the whole much freer,
more energetic--in a word, healthier and happier--for it?"

I smiled. "You wouldn't talk so if you had any idea of our life. To me
you seem here as if you were living in heaven compared with us of the
country from which I came."

"Heaven?" said he: "you like heaven, do you?"

"Yes," said I--snappishly, I am afraid; for I was beginning rather to
resent his formula.

"Well, I am far from sure that I do," quoth he. "I think one may do more
with one's life than sitting on a damp cloud and singing hymns."

I was rather nettled by this inconsequence, and said: "Well, neighbour,
to be short, and without using metaphors, in the land whence I come,
where the competition which produced those literary works which you
admire so much is still the rule, most people are thoroughly unhappy;
here, to me at least most people seem thoroughly happy."

"No offence, guest--no offence," said he; "but let me ask you; you like
that, do you?"

His formula, put with such obstinate persistence, made us all laugh
heartily; and even the old man joined in the laughter on the sly.
However, he was by no means beaten, and said presently:

"From all I can hear, I should judge that a young woman so beautiful as
my dear Ellen yonder would have been a lady, as they called it in the old
time, and wouldn't have had to wear a few rags of silk as she does now,
or to have browned herself in the sun as she has to do now. What do you
s