His Royal Highness then proceeded to luncheon, which is described by a most amiable Canadian correspondent who sent to his newspaper an account of it that I cannot forbear to copy.  You may believe what he says, or not, just as you choose:  “So interested was his Royal Highness in the proceedings that he stayed in the ring three and a half hours witnessing these trotting matches.  He was invited to take lunch in a little wooden shanty prepared for the Directors, to which he accordingly repaired, but whether he got anything to eat or not, I cannot tell.  After much trouble he forced his way to the table, which he found surrounded by a lot of ravenous animals.  And upon some half dozen huge dishes were piled slices of beef, mutton, and buffalo tongue; beside them were great jugs of lager beer, rolls of bread, and plates of a sort of cabbage cut into thin shreds, raw, and mixed with vinegar.  There were neither salt spoons nor mustard spoons, the knives the gentlemen were eating with serving in their stead; and, by the aid of nature’s forks, the slices of beef and mutton were transferred to the plates of those who desired to eat.  While your correspondent stood looking at the spectacle, the Duke of Newcastle came in, and he sat looking too.  He was evidently trying to look democratic, but could not manage it.  By his side stood a man urging him to try the lager beer, and cabbage also, I suppose.  Henceforth, let the New York Aldermen who gave to the Turkish Ambassador ham sandwiches and bad sherry rest in peace.”

Even that great man whose memory we love and revere, Charles Dickens, was not overkind to us, and saw our faults rather than our virtues.  We were a nation of grasshoppers, and spat tobacco from early morning until late at night.  This some of us undoubtedly did, to our shame be it said.  And when Mr. Dickens went down the Ohio, early in the ’40’s, he complained of the men and women he met; who, bent with care, bolted through silent meals, and retired within their cabins.  Mr. Dickens saw our ancestors bowed in a task that had been too great for other blood,—­the task of bringing into civilization in the compass of a century a wilderness three thousand miles it breadth.  And when his Royal Highness came to St. Louis and beheld one hundred thousand people at the Fair, we are sure that he knew how recently the ground he stood upon had been conquered from the forest.

A strange thing had happened, indeed.  For, while the Prince lingered in front of the booth of Dr. Posthelwaite’s church and chatted with Virginia, a crowd had gathered without.  They stood peering over the barricade into the covered way, proud of the self-possession of their young countrywoman.  And here, by a twist of fate, Mr. Stephen Brice found himself perched on a barrel beside his friend Richter.  It was Richter who discovered her first.

“Himmel!  It is Miss Carvel herself, Stephen,” he cried, impatient at the impassive face of his companion.  “Look, Stephen, look there.”