I was glad to see my mate on every account.  He relieved me from a great deal of irksome duty, and took charge of the ship, bringing his mother and Kitty; that very day, to live in the cabin.  I could perceive that the old woman was greatly surprised at the neatness she found in all directions.  According to her notions, a ship floated nearly as much in tar as in the water; and great was her pleasure in finding rooms almost (conscience will not allow me to say quite) as clean as her own residence.  For one whole day she desired to see no more than the ship, though it was easy to discover that the good woman had set her heart on the Dutch church and the lion.  In due time her son redeemed all his pledges, not forgetting the theatre.  With the last, good Mrs. Wetmore was astounded, and Kitty infinitely delighted.  The pretty little thing confessed that she should like to go every night, wondered what Horace Bright would think of it, and whether he would dare venture alone to a play-house, should he happen to come to York.  In 1803 this country was still in the palmy state of unsophistication.  There were few, scarcely any, strolling players, and none but those who visited the cities, properly so called, enjoyed opportunities of witnessing the wonders of paint, patch and candle-light, as auxiliary to the other wonders of the stage.  Poor little Kitty!  There was a day, or two, during which the sock and buskin wrought their usual effect on her female nature, and almost eclipsed the glories of Horace Bright, in her own bright eyes.

I could not refrain from accompanying Marble’s party to the museum.  In that day, this was a somewhat insignificant collection of curiosities, in Greenwich Street, but it was a miracle to the aunt and niece.  Even the worthy Manhattanese were not altogether guiltless of esteeming it a wonder, though the greater renown of the Philadelphia Museum kept this of New York a little in the shade.  I have often had occasion to remark that, in this republic, the people in the country are a little less country, and the people of the towns a good deal less town, than is apt to be the case in great nations.  The last is easily enough accounted for:  the towns having shot up so rapidly, and receiving their accessions of population from classes not accustomed to town lives from childhood.  Were a thousand villages to be compressed into a single group of houses, their people would long retain the notions, tastes and habits of villagers, though they would form a large town in the aggregate.  Such, in a measure, is still the fact with our American towns; no one of them all having the air, tone or appearance of a capital, while most of them would be paragons in the eyes of such persons as old Mrs. Wetmore and her grand-daughter.  Thus it was, that the Greenwich Street Museum gave infinite satisfaction to these two unsophisticated visitors.  Kitty was most struck with certain villainous wax-figures, works of art that were much on a level