ld you have loved the same man had he come to you with
a woodman's axe in his hand or a clerk's quill behind his ear? I
guess not."

"As to the woodman's axe, Wally, it is very well in theory; but--"

"Things good in theory, Caroline, will be good also when practised.
You may be sure of that. We dislike theory simply because our
intelligences are higher than our wills. But we will let that pass."

"Pray let it pass, Wally. Do not preach me sermons to-night. I am so
happy, and you ought to wish me joy."

"If wishing you joy would get you joy, I would wish it you while I
lived. I cannot be happy that you should be taken from us whither I
shall never see you again."

"But you are to come to us. I have told him so, and it is settled."

"No, dear; I shall not do that. What should I be in the glittering
halls of an English baron? Could there be any visiting less fitting,
any admixture less appropriate? Could I who have held up my voice
in the Music Hall of Lacedaemon, amidst the glories of the West, in
the great and free State of Illinois, against the corruption of an
English aristocracy,--could I, who have been listened to by two
thousand of my countrywomen,--and men,--while I spurned the unmanly,
inhuman errors of primogeniture,--could I, think you, hold my tongue
beneath the roof of a feudal lord!" Caroline Spalding knew that her
friend could not hold her tongue, and hesitated to answer. There had
been that fatal triumph of a lecture on the joint rights of men and
women, and it had rendered poor Wallachia Petrie unfit for ordinary
society.

"You might come there without talking politics, Wally," said
Caroline.

"No, Caroline; no. I will go into the house of no man in which the
free expression of my opinion is debarred me. I will not sit even
at your table with a muzzled tongue. When you are gone, Caroline,
I shall devote myself to what, after all, must be the work of my
life, and I shall finish the biographical history of our great
hero in verse,--which I hope may at least be not ephemeral. From
month to month I shall send you what I do, and you will not refuse
me your friendly criticism,--and, perhaps, some slight meed of
approbation,--because you are dwelling beneath the shade of a throne.
Oh, Caroline, let it not be a upas tree!"

The Miss Petries of the world have this advantage,--an advantage
which rarely if ever falls to the lot of a man,--that they are never
convinced of error. Men, let them be ever so m