in France, Germany, or
in Italy, is not uncommon; nor is it uncommon to have lived a year or
years in Florence or in Rome. It is not uncommon now to have travelled
all through the United States. The Rocky Mountains or Peru are hardly
uncommon, so much has the taste for travelling increased. But for an
Oxford Fellow of a college, and a clergyman of the Church of England, to
have established himself as a professor in Missouri, is uncommon, and it
could hardly be but that Lord Carstairs should ask questions respecting
that far-away life.

Mr. Peacocke had no objection to such questions. He told his young friend
much about the manners of the people of St. Louis,--told him how far the
people had progressed in classical literature, in what they fell behind,
and in what they excelled youths of their own age in England, and how far
the college was a success. Then he described his own life,--both before
and after his marriage. He had liked the people of St. Louis well
enough,--but not quite well enough to wish to live among them. No doubt
their habits were very different from those of Englishmen. He could,
however, have been happy enough there,--only that circumstances arose.

"Did Mrs. Peacocke like the place?" the young lord asked one day.

"She is an American, you know."

"Oh yes; I have heard. But did she come from St. Louis?"

"No; her father was a planter in Louisiana, not far from New Orleans,
before the abolition of slavery."

"Did she like St. Louis?"

"Well enough, I think, when we were first married. She had been married
before, you know. She was a widow."

"Did she like coming to England among strangers?"

"She was glad to leave St. Louis. Things happened there which made her
life unhappy. It was on that account I came here, and gave up a position
higher and more lucrative than I shall ever now get in England."

"I should have thought you might have had a school of your own," said the
lad. "You know so much, and get on so well with boys. I should have
thought you might have been tutor at a college."

"To have a school of my own would take money," said he, "which I have not
got. To be tutor at a college would take---- But never mind. I am very
well where I am, and have nothing to complain of." He had been going to
say that to be tutor of a college he would want high standing. And then
he would have been forced to explain that he had lost at his own college
that standing which he had onc