You must see my little place too. It's not in such
bad order, though I say it, and am but a country banker: but I'll back
my flowers against half the squires round--my Mary's, that is--and my
fruit too.--See, there! There's my lord's new schools, and his model
cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the size, than my
father's house had; and there's his barrack, as he calls it, for the
unmarried men--reading-room, and dining-room, in common; and a library
of books, and a sleeping-room for each."
"It seems strange to complain of prosperity," said Stangrave; "but I
sometimes regret that in America there is so little room for the very
highest virtues; all are so well off, that one never needs to give;
and what a man does here for others, they do for themselves."
"So much the better for them. There are other ways of being generous
besides putting your hand in your pocket, sir! By Jove! there'll be
room enough (if you'll excuse me) for an American to do fine things,
as long as those poor negro slaves--"
"I know it; I know it," said Stangrave, in the tone of a man who had
already made up his mind on a painful subject, and wished to hear no
more of it. "You will excuse me; but I am come here to learn what I
can of England. Of my own country I know enough, I trust, to do my
duty in it when I return."
Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place; and
pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran through
the flat park, past the great house with its Doric facade, which
the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet cell of the
Minchampstead recluses.
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