' that I 'd made a good investment."

Alfred could only smile good-humoredly at the speech, and the other went
on,--

"You Britishers begin by givin' us Yankees certain national traits
and habits, and you won't let us be anything but what you have already
fashioned us in your own minds. But, arter all, I'd have you to remember
we are far more like your people of a century back than you yourselves
are. We ain't as mealy-mouthed and as p'lite and as smooth-tongued as
the moderns. But if we 're plain of speech, we are simple of habit; and
what you so often set down as rudeness in us ain't anything more
than our wish to declare that we ain't in want of any one's help
or assistance, but we are able to shift for ourselves, and are
independent."

Quackinboss arose, as he said this, with the air of a man who had
discharged his conscience of a load. He had often smarted under what he
felt to be the unfair appreciation of the old doctor for America, and he
thought that by instilling sounder principles into his son's mind, the
seed would one day or other produce good fruit.

From this he led Alfred to talk of his plans for the future. It was his
father's earnest desire that he should seek collegiate honors in the
university which had once repudiated himself. The old man did not
altogether arraign the justice of the act, but he longed to see his
name once more in a place of honor, and that the traditions of his own
triumphs should be renewed in his son's.

"If I succeed," said Alfred, "it will be time enough afterwards to say
what next."

"You'll marry that gal, sir, and come out to the States. I see it all as
if I read it in a book."

Alfred shook his head doubtfully, and was silent.

"Well, I 'm a-goin' to Milan with Harvey Winthrop; and when I see the
country, as we say, I 'll tell you about the clearin'."

"You'll write to me too?"

"That I will. It may be that she won't have outright forgotten me, and
if so, she 'll be more friendly with me than an uncle she has never seen
nor known about. I 'll soon find out if her head's turned by all this
good luck, or if, as I hope, the fortune has fallen on one as deserved
it. Mayhap she 'll be for goin' over to America at once; mayhap she 'll
have a turn for doing it grand here, in Europe. Harvey Winthrop says she
'll have money enough to buy up one of these little German States, and
be a princess if she likes; at all events you shall hear, and then in
about a month hence lo