n wild skins, sweeping Rome out of Gaul. Back in the dim
ages Richter's fathers must have defended grim Eresburg. And it seemed
to him that in the end the new Republic must profit by this rugged
stock, which had good women for wives and mothers, and for fathers men
in whose blood dwelt a fierce patriotism and contempt for cowardice.

This fancy of ancestry pleased Stephen. He thought of the forefathers of
those whom he knew, who dwelt north of Market Street. Many, though this
generation of the French might know it not, had bled at Calais and at
Agincourt, had followed the court of France in clumsy coaches to Blois
and Amboise, or lived in hovels under the castle walls. Others had
charged after the Black Prince at Poitiers, and fought as serf or noble.
in the war of the Roses; had been hatters or tailors in Cromwell's
armies, or else had sacrificed lands and fortunes for Charles Stuart.
These English had toiled, slow but resistless, over the misty Blue
Ridge after Boone and Harrod to this old St. Louis of the French, their
enemies, whose fur traders and missionaries had long followed the veins
of the vast western wilderness. And now, on to the structure builded by
these two, comes Germany to be welded, to strengthen or to weaken.

Richter put down his pipe on the table.

"Stephen," he said suddenly, "you do not share the prejudice against us
here?"

Stephen flushed. He thought of some vigorous words that Miss Puss
Russell had used on the subject of the Dutch.

"No," said he, emphatically.

"I am glad," answered Richter, with a note of sadness, in his voice.
"Do not despise us before you know more of us. We are still feudal in
Germany--of the Middle Ages. The peasant is a serf. He is compelled to
serve the lord of the land every year with so much labor of his hands.
The small farmers, the 'Gross' and 'Mittel Bauern', we call them, are
also mortgaged to the nobles who tyrannize our Vaterland. Our merchants
are little merchants--shopkeepers, you would say. My poor father, an
educated man, was such. They fought our revolution."

"And now," said Stephen, "why do they not keep their hold?"

Richter sighed.

"We were unused to ruling," he answered. "We knew not how to act--what
to do. You must remember that we were not trained to govern ourselves,
as are you of the English race, from children. Those who have been for
centuries ground under heel do not make practical parliamentarians. No;
your heritage is liberty--you