that
would do what she has done; and I give the girls great credit for
sticking by her. Half the young men in town are desperate at the thought
of three such charming creatures thus exposing themselves to insult.
Your mother has only been sued."

"Sued! Whom does she owe, or what can she have done to have brought this
indignity on her?"

"You know, or ought to know, how it is in this country, Littlepage; we
must have a little law, even when most bent on breaking it. A downright,
straight-forward rascal, who openly sets law at defiance, is a wonder.
Then we have a great talk of liberty when plotting to give it the
deepest stab; and religion even gets to share in no small portion of our
vices. Thus it is that the anti-renters have dragged in the law in aid
of their designs. I understand one of the Rensselaers has been sued for
money borrowed in a ferry-boat to help him across a river under his own
door, and for potatoes bought by his wife in the streets of Albany!"

"But neither of the Rensselaers need borrow money to cross the ferry, as
the ferry-men would trust him; and no lady of the Rensselaer family ever
bought potatoes in the streets of Albany, I'll answer for it."

"You have brought back some knowledge from your travels, I find!" said
Jack Dunning, with comic gravity. "Your mother writes me that _she_ has
been sued for twenty-seven pairs of shoes furnished her by a shoemaker
whom she never saw, or heard of, until she received the summons!"

"This, then, is one of the species of annoyances that has been adopted
to bully the landlords out of their property?"

"It is; and if the landlords have recourse even to the covenants of
their leases, solemnly and deliberately made, and as solemnly guarantied
by a fundamental law, the cry is raised of 'aristocracy' and
'oppression' by these very men, and echoed by many of the creatures who
get seats in high places among us--or what _would_ be high places, if
filled with men worthy of their trusts."

"I see you do not mince your words, Jack."

"Why should I? Words are all that is left me. I am of no more weight in
the government of this State than that Irishman, who let you in just
now, will be, five years hence--less, for he will vote to suit a
majority; and, as I shall vote understandingly, my vote will probably do
no one any good."

Dunning belonged to a school that mingles a good deal of speculative and
impracticable theory, with a great deal of sound and just prin