, and in good
riding; and they understand riding, those Epsom jockeys."

"Jockeys!" his wife repeated. "I don't want to hear you talk about
jockeys, Mr. Copley."

"I am not going to, my dear. I give up the field to Dolly."

"Mother, the first thing was the place. It is a most beautiful place."

"The race-ground?"

"No, no, mother; Mr. St. Leger's place. 'The Peacocks,' they call it."

"What do they give it such a ridiculous name for?"

"I don't know. Perhaps they used to have a great many peacocks. But the
place is the most beautiful place I ever saw. Mother, we were half an
hour driving from the lodge at the park gate to the house."

"The road so bad?"

"So _long_, mother; think of it; half an hour through the park woods,
until we carne out upon the great lawn dotted with the noblest trees
you ever saw."

"Better than the trees in Boston common? I guess not," said Mrs. Copley.

"Those are good trees, mother, but nothing to these. These are just
magnificent."

"I don't see why fine trees cannot grow as well on American ground as
on English," said Mrs. Copley incredulously.

"Give them time enough," put in her husband.

"Time!"

"Yes. We are a new country, comparatively, my dear. These old oaks here
have been growing for hundreds of years."

"And what should hinder them from growing hundreds of years over there?
I suppose the _ground_ is as old as England; if Columbus didn't
discover it all at once."

"The ground," said Mr. Copley, eyeing the floor between his
boots,--"yes, the ground; but it takes more than ground to make large
trees. It takes good ground, and favouring climate, and culture; or at
least to be let alone. Now we don't let things alone in America."

"I know _you_ don't," said his wife. "Well, Dolly, go on with your
story."

"Well, mother,--there were these grand old trees, and beautiful grass
under them, and cattle here and there, and the house showing in the
distance. I did not like the house so very much, when we came to it; it
is not old; but it is exceedingly handsome, and most beautifully
furnished. I never had such a room in my life, as I have slept in these
two nights."

"And yet you don't like it!" put in Mr. Copley.

"I like it," said Dolly slowly. "I like all the comfort of it; but I
don't think it is very pretty, father. It's very _new_."

"New!" said her father. "What's the harm of a thing's being new? And
what is the charm of its being old?"

"I don't know," said