“If the place be as much changed as the road that leads to it,” returned la belle Barberie, glancing her dark eye, in vain, in the direction of the bay they had quitted, “I should scarcely venture an opinion on a subject of which I am obliged to confess utter ignorance.”

“Ah, woman is nought but vanities!  To see and to be seen, is the delight of the sex.  Though we are a thousand times more comfortable in this wood than we should be in walking along the water-side, why, the sea-gulls and snipes lose the benefit of our company!  The salt water, and all who live on it, are to be avoided by a wise man, Mr. Van Staats, except as they both serve to cheapen freight and to render trade brisk.  You’ll thank me for this care, niece of mine, when you reach the bluff, cool as a package of furs free from moth, and fresh and beautiful as a Holland tulip, with the dew on it.”

“To resemble the latter, one might consent to walk blindfold, dearest uncle; and so we dismiss the subject.  Francois, fais moi le plaisir de porter ce petit livre; malgre la fraicheur de la foret, j’ai besoin de m’evanter.”

The valet took the book, with an empressement that defeated the more tardy politeness of the Patroon; and when he saw, by the vexed eye and flushed cheek of his young mistress, that she was incommoded rather by an internal than by the external heat, he whispered considerately,—­

“Que ma chere Mademoiselle Alide ne se fache pas!  Elle ne manquerait jamais d’admirateurs, dans un desert.  Ah! si Mam’selle allait voir la patrie de ses ancetres!—­”

“’Merci bien, mon cher; gardez les feuilles, fortement fermees.  Il y a des papiers dedans.”

“Monsieur Francois,” said the Alderman, separating his niece, with little ceremony, from her nearly parental attendant, by the interposition of his own bulky person, and motioning for the others to proceed, “a word with thee in confidence.  I have noted, in the course of a busy and I hope a profitable life, that a faithful servant is an honest counsellor.  Next to Holland and England, both of which are great commercial nations, and the Indies, which are necessary to these colonies, together with a natural preference for the land in which I was born, I have always been of opinion, that France is a very good sort of a country.  I think, Mr. Francis, that dislike to the seas has kept you from returning thither, since the decease of my late brother-in-law?”

“Wid like for Mam’selle Alide, Monsieur, avec votre permission.”

“Your affection for my niece, honest Francois, is not to be doubted.  It is as certain as the payment of a good draft, by Crommeline, Van Stopper, and Van Gelt, of Amsterdam.  Ah! old valet! she is fresh and blooming as a rose, and a girl of excellent qualities!  ’Tis a pity that she is a little opinionated; a defect that she doubtless inherits from her Norman ancestors; since all of my family have ever been remarkable for listening to reason.  The Normans were an obstinate race, as witness the siege of Rochelle, by which oversight real estate in that city must have lost much in value!”