atter,
as it is his duty to amend these faults; the traveler being bound in
justice to look at the good as well as the evil. But, according to my
companions, there was NOTHING good in America--the climate, the people,
the food, the morals, the laws, the dress, the manners, and the tastes,
were all infinitely worse than those they had been accustomed to. Even
the physical proportions of the population were condemned, without
mercy. I confess I was surprised at hearing the SIZE of the Americans
sneered at by POCKET-HANDKERCHIEFS, as I remember to have read that the
NOSES of the New Yorkers, in particular, were materially larger than
common. When the supercilious and vapid point out faults, they ever run
into contradictions and folly; it is only under the lash of the
discerning and the experienced, that we betray by our writhings the
power of the blow we receive.

{creaks = probably a typographical error--Cooper's manuscript read
"cracks"}

CHAPTER IX.

I might have been a fortnight in the shop, when I heard a voice as
gentle and lady-like as that of Adrienne, inquiring for
pocket-handkerchiefs. My heart fairly beat for joy; for, to own the
truth, I was getting to be wearied to death with the garrulous folly of
my companions. They had so much of the couturieres about them! not one
of the whole party ever having been a regular employee in genteel life.
Their niaisiries were endless, and there was just as much of the low
bred anticipation as to their future purchases, as one sees at the
balls of the Champs Elysee on the subject of partners. The word
"pocket-handkerchief," and that so sweetly pronounced, drew open our
drawer, as it might be, instinctively. Two or three dozen of us, all of
exquisite fineness, were laid upon the counter, myself and two or three
more of the better class being kept a little in the back ground, as a
skillful general holds his best troops in reserve.

{couturieres = dress makers; niaisiries = should read niaiseries,
French for silliness}

The customers were sisters; that was visible at a glance. Both were
pretty, almost beautiful--and there was an air of simplicity about
their dress, a quiet and unobtrusive dignity in their manners, which at
once announced them to be real ladies. Even the tones of their voices
were polished, a circumstance that I think one is a little apt to
notice in New York. I discovered, in the course of the conversation,
that they were the daughters of a gentleman o