dear child," he wrote, "that in Boston you are not only in the
birthplace of American liberty, but the yet holier scene of its
resurrection. There everything that is noble and grand and liberal and
enlightened in the national life has originated, and I cannot doubt that
you will find the character of its people marked by every attribute of a
magnanimous democracy. If I could envy you anything, my dear girl, I
should envy you this privilege of seeing a city where man is valued
simply and solely for what he is in himself, and where color, wealth,
family, occupation, and other vulgar and meretricious distinctions are
wholly lost sight of in the consideration of individual excellence."

Kitty got her uncle's letter the night before starting up the Saguenay,
and quite too late for compliance with his directions concerning Quebec;
but she resolved that as to Boston his wishes should be fulfilled to the
utmost limit of possibility. She knew that nice Mr. March must be
acquainted with some of those very people. Kitty had her uncle's letter
in her pocket, and she was just going to take it out and read it again,
when something else attracted her notice.

The boat had been advertised to leave at seven o'clock, and it was now
half past. A party of English people were pacing somewhat impatiently up
and down before Kitty, for it had been made known among the passengers
(by that subtle process through which matters of public interest
transpire in such places) that breakfast would not be served till the
boat started, and these English people had the appetites which go before
the admirable digestions of their nation. But they had also the good
temper which does not so certainly accompany the insular good appetite.
The man in his dashing Glengarry cap and his somewhat shabby gray suit
took on one arm the plain, jolly woman who seemed to be his wife, and on
the other, the amiable, handsome young girl who looked enough like him
to be his sister, and strode rapidly back and forth, saying that they
must get up an appetite for breakfast. This made the women laugh, and so
he said it again, which made them laugh so much that the elder lost her
balance, and in regaining it twisted off her high shoe-heel, which she
briskly tossed into the river. But she sat down after that, and the
three were presently intent upon the Liverpool steamer which was just
arrived and was now gliding up to her dock, with her population of
passengers thronging her qua