ly exhausted.

'You had better make use of my shoulder as a pillow,' he said,
perceiving my condition.

'You had better, by all means,' chimed in the Scotchman.

I hesitated a moment. What would Mrs. Grundy say--and my husband? I was
too tired to care for the former, and the latter, I knew, would be only
grateful to my compassionate friends.

'Circumstances must dispense with ceremony,' I observed, suiting the
action to the word.

'Madam,' rejoined the Englishman, with warmth, 'I hope you will find,
before you get to the end of your journey, that you are in honorable
company.'

'I have found it out already,' I murmured, and then, committing myself
to the care and keeping of the Good Father, my last shadow of distrust
vanished.

I was too weary to hold my eyelids open, and too much excited to sleep.
At length I was aroused by a sudden stop. The 'whippletree' had broken.
In a few minutes we proceeded, the 'leader' being still driven loosely,
as before.

Again we came to a pause--this time to water the horses at a wayside
spring. While the others were refreshing themselves, the 'leader'
quietly walked off, to the great indignation of the driver, who began to
swear as he chased him through the snow. He was captured at last, and we
continued on our way.

The poor Frenchman had by this time become so chilled that he was glad
to come inside, though by so doing he felt obliged to give up the luxury
of his pipe.

All at once the striking difference in our nationalities occurred to me,
and I exclaimed, on the impulse of the moment:

'See, do we not represent the four leading nations of the
earth--England, France, Scotland, and America?'

'Yes,' replied the Englishman, with some hesitation in his manner;
'England is surely one of the leading nations; so is France;'--(here the
Frenchman broke in with some inarticulate jargon to the glory of
France)--'but Scotland--I don't know about that being a 'leading
nation.''

This roused the Scotchman. 'Scotland _has_ been a glorious nation! She
has proud memories for her sons!' he cried, with a fire of enthusiasm,
not without pathos, in its unavoidable admission that the glory of his
country as an individual power in the world was past.

'That is right,' said I, admiring his sudden warmth; 'cling to your own
country before all others, come what may.'

The Englishman then reverted to the present lamentable condition of
these United States, and with characteristic complace