ture age or manliness is there about
him? In what is he superior to or distinguishable from young Snelling,
who but this season rejoices in his first white tie and first horse, and
in the fruits of his first course of dancing lessons?"

"Well, but consider," said Benson, who was always ready to take up any
side of an argument--it was one of the first criticisms Ashburner made
on American conversation, that the men seemed to talk for victory rather
than for truth--"it stands to reason, that an intelligent married woman
must be better able than a girl to converse with a mature man, and her
conversation must have more attraction for him. As to our boys coming
out too soon, doubtless they do, but that depends not on the persons
ready to receive them, but on the general social system of the country
which pushes them into the world so early. For instance, I was left my
own master at twenty-one. So, too, with the want of proper progress and
growth in knowledge of the men. It is and must be so with the man of
fashion every where, for he is not occupied in learning things that have
a tendency to develop or improve his mind, but the contrary. I myself
have seen Frenchmen of fifty as easily amused and as eager after trifles
as boys."

"Frenchmen?" sneered the other; "yes, but they _are_ boys all their
lives, except in innocence."

"Very amusing and pleasant, at any rate; the best people for travelling
acquaintances that I know."

"Exactly--very pleasant to know for a little while. I have met with a
great many Frenchmen who impressed me favorably, and I used to think as
you say, what amusing people they were, but I never had occasion to live
with one for any length of time without finding him a bore and a
nuisance. A Frenchman turns himself inside out, as it were, at once. He
shows off all that there is to show on first acquaintance. You see the
best of him immediately, and afterwards there is nothing left but
repetitions of the same things, and eternal dissertations on himself and
his own affairs. He is like a wide, shallow house, with a splendid front
externally, and scanty furniture inside."

"Very true, and an Englishman (don't blush Ashburner) is like a suite of
college-rooms in one of his own university towns--a rusty exterior, a
dark, narrow passage along which you find your way with difficulty; and
when you do get in, jolly and comfortable apartments open suddenly upon
you; and as you come to examine them more carefull