As for rank, he could give that to his wife.  As for money, he had plenty of that also.  He wanted a woman that was not blasee with the world, that was not a fool, and who would respect him.  The more he thought of it, the more sure he was that he had seen none who pleased him so well as Caroline Spalding; and yet he was a little afraid of taking a step that would be irrevocable.  Perhaps the American Minister might express a wish to end his days at Monkhams, and might think it desirable to have Miss Petrie always with him as a private secretary in poetry!

’Between you and us, Mr Glascock, the spark of sympathy does not pass with a strong flash,’ said a voice in his ear.  As he turned round rapidly to face his foe, he was quite sure, for the moment, that under no possible circumstances would he ever take an American woman to his bosom as his wife.

‘No,’ said he; ‘no, no.  I rather think that I agree with you.’

‘The antipathy is one,’ continued Miss Petrie, ’which has been common on the face of the earth since the clown first trod upon the courtier’s heels.  It is the instinct of fallen man to hate equality, to desire ascendancy, to crush, to oppress, to tyrannise, to enslave.  Then, when the slave is at last free, and in his freedom demands equality, man is not great enough to take his enfranchised brother to his bosom.’

‘You mean negroes,’ said Mr Glascock, looking round and planning for himself a mode of escape.

’Not negroes only, not the enslaved blacks, who are now enslaved no more, but the rising nations of white men wherever they are to be seen.  You English have no sympathy with a people who claim to be at least your equals.  The clown has trod upon the courtier’s heels till the clown is clown no longer, and the courtier has hardly a court in which he may dangle his sword-knot.’

‘If so the clown might as well spare the courtier,’ not meaning the rebuke which his words implied.

’Ah h but the clown will not spare the courtier, Mr Glascock.  I understand the gibe, and I tell you that the courtier shall be spared no longer because he is useless.  He shall be cut down together with the withered grasses and thrown into the oven, and there shall be an end of him.’  Then she turned round to appeal to an American gentleman who had joined them, and Mr Glascock made his escape.  ’I hold it to be the holiest duty which I owe to my country never to spare one of them when I meet him.’

‘They are all very well in their way,’ said the American gentleman.

‘Down with them, down with them!’ exclaimed the poetess, with a beautiful enthusiasm.  In the meantime Mr Glascock had made up his mind that he could not dare to ask Caroline Spalding to be his wife.  There were certain forms of the American female so dreadful that no wise man would wilfully come in contact with them.  Miss Petrie’s ferocity was distressing to him, but her eloquence and enthusiasm were worse even than her ferocity.  The personal incivility of which she had been guilty in calling him a withered grass was distasteful to him, as being opposed to his ideas of the customs of society; but what would be his fate if his wife’s chosen friend should be for ever dinning her denunciation of withered grasses into his ear?