lks. The grounds were broken, and
John Effingham had turned the irregularities to good account, by
planting and leading paths among them, to the great amusement of the
lookers-on, however, who, like true disciples of the Manhattanese
economy, had already begun to calculate the cost of what they termed
grading the lawns, it being with them as much a matter of course to
bring pleasure grounds down to a mathematical surface, as to bring a
rail-road route down to the proper level.

Through these paths, and among the irregularities, groves, and
shrubberies, just mentioned, the party began to stroll; one group
taking a direction eastward, another south, and a third westward, in
a way soon to break them up into five or six different divisions.
These several portions of the company ere long got to move in
opposite directions, by taking the various paths, and while they
frequently met, they did not often re-unite. As has been already
intimated, Eve and Paul were alone, for the first time in their
lives, under circumstances that admitted of an uninterrupted
confidential conversation. Instead of profiting immediately, however,
by this unusual occurrence, as many of our readers may anticipate,
the young man continued the discourse, in which the whole party had
been engaged when they entered the gate that communicated with the
street.

"I know not whether you felt the same embarrassment as myself, to-
day, Miss Effingham," he said, "when the orator was dilating on the
glories of the republic, and on the high honours that accompany the
American name. Certainly, though a pretty extensive traveller, I have
never yet been able to discover that it is any advantage abroad to be
one of the 'fourteen millions of freemen.'"

"Are we to attribute the mystery that so long hung over your birth-
place, to this fact," Eve asked, a little pointedly.

"If I have made any seeming mystery, as to the place of my birth, it
has been involuntary on my part, Miss Effingham, so far as you, at
least, have been concerned. I may not have thought myself authorized
to introduce my own history into our little discussions, but I am not
conscious of aiming at any unusual concealments. At Vienna, and in
Switzerland, we met as travellers; and now that you appear disposed
to accuse me of concealment, I may retort, and say that, neither you
nor your father ever expressly stated in my presence that you were
Americans."

"Was that necessary, Mr. Powis?"

"Perha