out these big schemes and plan it all, had been able against so
great odds to carry out their project and prove to all unbelievers that it
was not only possible but practicable.

Marcia's brain was throbbing with the desire for progress. If she were a
man with money and influence she felt she would so much like to go out
into the world and make stupid people do the things for the country that
ought to be done. Progress had been the keynote of her upbringing, and she
was teeming with energy which she had no hope could ever be used to help
along that for which she felt her ambitions rising. She wanted to see the
world alive, and busy, the great cities connected with one another. She
longed to have free access to cities, to great libraries, to pictures, to
wonderful music. She longed to meet great men and women, the men and women
who were making the history of the world, writing, speaking, and doing
things that were moulding public opinion. Reforms of all sorts were what
helped along and made possible her desires. Why did not the people want a
steam railroad? Why were they so ready to say it could never succeed, that
it would be an impossibility; that the roads could not be made strong
enough to bear so great weights and so constant wear and tear? Why did
they interpose objections to every suggestion made by inventors and
thinking men? Why did even her dear father who was so far in advance of
his times in many ways, why did even he too shake his head and say that he
feared it would never be in this country, at least not in his day, that it
was impracticable?

The talk was very interesting to Marcia. She ate bits of her biscuit
without knowing, and she left her tea untasted till it was cold. The
younger of the two guests was talking. His name was Jervis. Marcia thought
she had heard the name somewhere, but had not yet placed him in her mind:

"Yes," said he, with an eager look on his face, "it is coming, it is
coming sooner than they think. Oliver Evans said, you know, that good
roads were all we could expect one generation to do. The next must make
canals, the next might build a railroad which should run by horse power,
and perhaps the next would run a railroad by steam. But we shall not have
to wait so long. We shall have steam moving railway carriages before
another year."

"What!" said David, "you don't mean it! Have you really any foundation for
such a statement?" He leaned forward, his eyes shining and his whole
at