hoved her to bear a good deal
from the elder. Miss Petrie was honest, clever, and in earnest. We
in England are not usually favourably disposed to women who take a
pride in a certain antagonism to men in general, and who are anxious
to shew the world that they can get on very well without male
assistance; but there are many such in America who have noble
aspirations, good intellects, much energy, and who are by no means
unworthy of friendship. The hope in regard to all such women,--the
hope entertained not by themselves, but by those who are solicitous
for them,--is that they will be cured at last by a husband and
half-a-dozen children. In regard to Wallachia Petrie there was not,
perhaps, much ground for such hope. She was so positively wedded to
women's rights in general, and to her own rights in particular, that
it was improbable that she should ever succumb to any man;--and where
would be the man brave enough to make the effort? From circumstances
Caroline Spalding had been the beloved of her heart since Caroline
Spalding was a very little girl; and she had hoped that Caroline
would through life have borne arms along with her in that contest
which she was determined to wage against man, and which she always
waged with the greatest animosity against men of the British race.
She hated rank; she hated riches; she hated monarchy;--and with
a true woman's instinct in battle, felt that she had a specially
strong point against Englishmen, in that they submitted themselves
to dominion from a woman monarch. And now the chosen friend of her
youth,--the friend who had copied out all her poetry, who had learned
by heart all her sonnets, who had, as she thought, reciprocated all
her ideas, was going to be married,--and to be married to an English
lord! She had seen that it was coming for some time, and had spoken
out very plainly, hoping that she might still save the brand from
the burning. Now the evil was done; and Caroline Spalding, when she
told her news, knew well that she would have to bear some heavy
reproaches.

"How many of us are there who never know whether we sell ourselves
or not?" said Wallachia. "The senator who longs for office, and who
votes this way instead of that in order that he may get it, thinks
that he is voting honestly. The minister who calls himself a teacher
of God's word, thinks that it is God's word that he preaches when
he strains his lungs to fill his church. The question is this,
Caroline;--wou