mily to Europe it rested solely upon the singular fact that Mr.
Maynard did not go there in the expectation of marrying his daughter to
a nobleman. A Charleston merchant, whose house represented two honorable
generations, had, thirty years ago, a certain self-respect which did
not require extraneous aid and foreign support, and it is exceedingly
probable that his intention of spending a few years abroad had no
ulterior motive than pleasure seeking and the observation of many
things--principally of the past--which his own country did not possess.
His future and that of his family lay in his own land, yet with
practical common sense he adjusted himself temporarily to his new
surroundings. In doing so, he had much to learn of others, and others
had something to learn of him; he found that the best people had a
high simplicity equal to his own; he corrected their impressions that a
Southerner had more or less negro blood in his veins, and that, although
a slave owner, he did not necessarily represent an aristocracy. With a
distinguishing dialect of which he was not ashamed, a frank familiarity
of approach joined to an invincible courtesy of manner, which made even
his republican "Sir" equal to the ordinary address to royalty, he
was always respected and seldom misunderstood. When he was--it was
unfortunate for those who misunderstood him. His type was as distinctive
and original as his cousin's, the Englishman, whom it was not the
fashion then to imitate. So that, whether in the hotel of a capital,
the Kursaal of a Spa, or the humbler pension of a Swiss village, he was
always characteristic. Less so was his wife, who, with the chameleon
quality of her transplanted countrywomen, was already Parisian in
dress; still less so his daughter, who had by this time absorbed the
peculiarities of her French, German, and Italian governesses. Yet
neither had yet learned to evade their nationality--or apologize for it.

Mr. Maynard and his family remained for three years in Europe, his stay
having been prolonged by political excitement in his own State of
South Carolina. Commerce is apt to knock the insularity out of people;
distance from one's own distinctive locality gives a wider range to the
vision, and the retired merchant foresaw ruin in his State's politics,
and from the viewpoint of all Europe beheld instead of the usual
collection of individual States--his whole country. But the excitement
increasing, he was finally impelled to r