e."

The old woman regarded Marble with more respect after this declaration;
for in that day, a travelled man was highly esteemed among us. In her
eyes, it was a greater exploit to have seen Amsterdam, than it would now
be to visit Jerusalem. Indeed, it is getting rather discreditable to a man
of the world not to have seen the Pyramids, the Red Sea, and the Jordan.

"My father loved it not the less, though he never saw the land of his
ancestors," resumed the old woman. "Notwithstanding the jealousy of the
Yankees, among us Dutch, and the mutual dislike, many of the former came
among us to seek their fortunes. They are not a home-staying people, it
would seem; and I cannot deny that cases have happened in which they have
been known to get away the farms of some of the Netherlands stock, in a
way that it would have been better not to have happened."

"You speak considerately, my dear woman," I remarked, "and like one that
has charity for all human failing."

"I ought to do so for my own sins, and I ought to do so to them of New
England; for my own husband was of that race."

"Ay, now the story is coming round regularly, Miles," said Marble, nodding
his head in approbation. "It will touch on love next, and, if trouble do
not follow, set me down as an ill-nat'red old bachelor. Love in a man's
heart is like getting heated cotton, or shifting ballast, into a
ship's hold."

"I must confess to it," continued our hostess, smiling in spite of her
real sorrows--sorrows that were revived by thus recalling the events of
her early life--"a young man of Yankee birth came among us as a
schoolmaster, when I was only fifteen. Our people were anxious enough to
have us all taught to read English, for many had found the disadvantage of
being ignorant of the language of their rulers, and of the laws. I was
sent to George Wetmore's school, like most of the other young people of
the neighbourhood, and remained his scholar for three years. If you were
on the hill above the orchard yonder, you might see the school-house at
this moment; for it is only a short walk from our place, and a walk that I
made four times a day for just three years."

"One can see how the land lies now," cried Marble, lighting a segar, for
he thought no apology necessary for smoking under a Dutch roof. "The
master taught his scholar something more than he found in the
spelling-book, or the catechism. We'll take your word about the
school-house, seeing it is out of