eved, disappointed, nay, shocked," said
Eve, "but, still she will not despair of the republic. None of our
respectable neighbours, in the first place, have shared in this
transaction, and that is something; though I confess I feel some
surprise that any considerable portion of a community, that respects
itself, should quietly allow an ignorant fragment of its own numbers,
to misrepresent it so grossly, in an affair that so nearly touches
its own character for common sense and justice."

"You have yet to learn, Miss Effingham, that men can get to be so
saturated with liberty, that they become insensible to the nicer
feelings. The grossest enormities are constantly committed in this
good republic of ours, under the pretence of being done by the
public, and for the public. The public have got to bow to that
bugbear, quite as submissively as Gesler would have wished the Swiss
to bow to his own cap, as to the cap of Rodolph's substitute. Men
will have idols, and the Americans have merely set up themselves."

"And you, cousin Jack, you would be wretched were you doomed to live
under a system less free. I fear you have the affectation of
sometimes saying that which you do not exactly feel."

Chapter XVII.

"Come, these are no times to think of dreams--
We'll talk of dreams hereafter."

SHAKSPEARE.

The day succeeding that in which the conversation just mentioned
occurred, was one of great expectation and delight in the Wigwam.
Mrs. Hawker and the Bloomfields were expected, and the morning passed
away rapidly, under the gay buoyancy of the feelings that usually
accompany such anticipations in a country-house. The travellers were
to leave town the previous evening, and, though the distance was near
two hundred and thirty miles, they were engaged to arrive by the
usual dinner hour. In speed, the Americans, so long as they follow
the great routes, are unsurpassed; and even Sir George Templemore,
coming, as he did, from a country of MacAdamized roads and excellent
posting, expressed his surprise, when given to understand that a
journey of this length, near a hundred miles of which were by land,
moreover, was to be performed in twenty-four hours, the stops
included.

"One particularly likes this rapid travelling," he remarked, "when it
is to bring us such friends as Mrs. Hawker."

"And Mrs. Bloomfield," added Eve, quickly. "I rest the credit of the
American females on Mrs. Bloomfield."

"More so, than on Mrs. Hawk