earned people; and this very
consciousness of superiority only served to embitter his position the
more. There were other sets, doubtless, who would have welcomed him
gladly, but either they were not sufficiently to his taste to attract
him, or he was in no mood to receive consolation from their sympathy. So
he had wandered alone, untouched by the charming scenery about him--a
man whom nobody cared for; and when Benson addressed him genially, and
in an exuberance of spirits threw his arm over the other's neck as they
walked side by side, the broker's heart seemed to expand towards the man
who had shown him even this slight profession of kindness, his
intelligent eyes lighted up, and he began to talk out cheerfully and
unassumingly all that was in him.

Harrison's own narrative of his personal prowess, as well as the
qualified panegyric pronounced upon him by Benson, had led Ashburner to
expect to find in him a manly person with some turn for athletic sports
and good living, but no particular intellectual endowments beyond such
as his business demanded. He was, therefore, not a little astonished at
(inasmuch as he was altogether unprepared for) the variety of knowledge
and the extent of mental cultivation which the broker displayed as their
conversation went on. They talked of the hills and valleys, and ravines
and water-courses around them, and Harrison compared this place with
others in a way that showed a ready observer of the beauties of nature.
They talked of Italy, and Harrison had at his fingers' ends the
principal palaces in every city, and the best pictures in every palace.
They talked of Greece, and Harrison quoted Plato. They talked of England
and France, and Harrison displayed a familiar acquaintance, not merely
with the statistics of the two countries, but also with the habits and
characteristics of their people. Finally, they talked on the puzzling
topic of American society--puzzling in its transition state and its
singular contrasts--and, whether the broker's views were correct or not,
they were any thing but commonplace or conventional.

"Our fashionable society has been all a mistake hitherto," said Harry
(Ashburner could not well make out whether there was a spice of irony in
his observation); "Mrs. Benson and some others are going to reform it
indifferently. The women thus far have been lost sight of after
marriage, and have left the field to the young girls. Now they are
beginning to wake up to their