e, the ancestral seat of the celebrated family
of Courtenay. All the county flocks to them, some persons coming fifty
miles for this purpose. Apropos of one of these meetings, we shall
venture to interpolate an anecdote which deserves to be recorded for
the sublimity of impudence which it displays. The railway from London
to Plymouth skirts the park of Powderham, running so close beside
it that each train sends a herd of deer scampering down the velvety
glades. One afternoon a bouncing young lady, who belonged to a family
which had lately emerged from the class of yeoman into that of gentry,
and whose "manners had not the repose which stamps the caste of Vere
de Vere," found herself in a carriage with two fashionably-attired
persons of her own sex. As the train ran by the park, one of these
latter exclaimed to her companion, "Oh look, there's Powderham! Don't
you remember that archery-party we went to there two years ago?" "To
be sure," was the rejoinder. "I'm not likely to forget it, there were
some such queer people. Who were those vulgarians whom we thought so
particularly objectionable? I can't remember." "Oh, H----: H----
of P----! That was the name." Upon this the other young lady in the
carriage bounced to her feet with the words, "Allow me to tell you,
madam, that I am Miss H---- of P----!" Neither of those she addressed
deigned to utter a word in reply to this announcement, nor did it
appear in the least to disconcert them. One slowly drew out a gold
double eye-glass, leisurely surveyed Miss H---- of P---- from head to
foot, and then proceeded to talk to her companion in French. Perhaps
the best part of the joke was that Miss H---- made a round of visits
in the course of the week, and detailed the disgusting treatment to
which she had been subjected to a numerous acquaintance, who, it
is needless to say, appeared during the narration as indignant and
sympathetic as she could have wished, but who are declared by some
ill-natured persons to have been precisely those who in secret
chuckled over the insult with the greatest glee.

English gentlemen experience an almost painful sensation as they
journey through our land and observe the utter indifference of its
wealthier classes to the charms of such a magnificent country. "Pearls
before swine," they say in their hearts. "God made the country and man
made the town." "Yes, and how obviously the American prefers the work
of man to the work of the Almighty!" These and