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expressed and that she supposed to be entertained by a
considerable portion of the human family. Many of them
indeed she supposed she had held herself, till he assured her
she was quite mistaken, that it was really impossible, that
she had doubtless imagined she entertained them, but that
she might depend that, if she thought them over a little, she
would find there was nothing in them. When she answered
that she had already thought several of the questions in-
volved over very attentively he declared that she was only
another example of what he had often been struck with—
the fact that, of all the people in the world, the Americans
were the most grossly superstitious. They were rank Tories
and bigots, every one of them; there were no conservatives
like American conservatives. Her uncle and her cousin were
there to prove it; nothing could be more mediaeval than
many of their views; they had ideas that people in England
nowadays were ashamed to confess to; and they had the im-
pudence moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend
they knew more about the needs and dangers of this poor
dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and
owned a considerable slice of it—the more shame to him!
From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was
a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a
contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in
the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had
not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warbur-
ton to payone of the most precious privileges of an elder
brother. ‘I don’t think I shall pay any more,’ said her friend;
‘he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys unheard-

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