This little fairy had a natural genius for music, and though she was only four years old, she would sit for an hour at a time at the door of our room to hear me play on the flute, and would afterwards sing all the airs she picked up, with the sweetest voice in the world.

Humble as the calling of a tavern-keeper may be considered in England, it is looked upon in the United States, where Mrs. S—–­ was “raised,” as extremely respectable; and I have never met with women, in any class of society elsewhere, who possessed more of the good-feeling and unobtrusive manners which should belong to ladies than in the family of this worthy tavern-keeper.

When I contrast their genuine kindness and humanity with the haughty, arrogant airs assumed by some ladies of a higher standing in society from England who sojourned in their house at the same time with ourselves—­when I remember their insolent way of giving their orders to Mrs. S—–­, and their still more wounding condescension—­I confess I cannot but feel ashamed of my countrywomen.  All these patronising airs, I doubt not, were assumed purposely to impress the minds of those worthy people with an idea of their vast superiority.  I have sometimes, I confess, been a little annoyed with the familiarity of the Americans, Canadians as well as Yankees; but I must say that experience has taught me to blame myself at least as much as them.  If, instead of sending our youthful aristocracy to the continent of Europe, to treat the natives with contempt and increase the unpopularity of the British abroad, while their stock of native arrogance is augmented by the cringing complaisance of those who only bow to their superiority in wealth, they were sent to the United States, or even to Canada, they would receive a lesson or two which would be of infinite service to them; some of their most repulsive prejudices and peculiarities would soon be rubbed off by the rough towel of democracy.

It is curious to observe the remarkable diversity in the accounts given by recent emigrants to this country of their treatment, and of the manners and character of the people in the United States and in Canada.  Some meet with constant kindness, others with nothing but rudeness and brutality.  Of course there is truth in both accounts; but strangers from an aristocratical country do not usually make sufficient allowance for the habits and prejudices of a people of a land, in which, from the comparatively equal distribution of property, and the certain prosperity attendant on industry, the whole constitution of society is necessarily democratical, irrespectively of political institutions.  Those who go to such a country with the notion that they will carry everything before them by means of pretence and assumption, will find themselves grievously deceived.  To use a homely illustration, it is just as irrational to expect to force a large body through a small aperture.  In both cases they will meet with unyielding resistance.