“A proud gipsy!” muttered the youth as he rode back to his uncle--“just such a spirit as I should like to tame.” He took especial care, however, that this sentiment did not reach the ears of his senior. “Well?” said the latter, inquiringly, at his approach. “I am right after all, uncle:--the wench is no better than the rest. A heavy bulk that seemed dignified only because she is too fat for levity. She walks like a blind plough-horse in a broken pasture, up and down, over and over; with a gait as rigid and deliberate as if she trod among the hot cinders, and had corns on all her toes. She took us so by surprise that if we had not thought her beautiful we must have thought her ugly, and the chances are equal, that, on a second meeting, we shall both think her so. I shall, I'm certain, and you must, provided you give your eyes the benefit, and your nose the burden of your green specs.” “Impossible! I can scarce believe it, Warham,” replied the senior. “I thought her very beautiful.” “I shall never rely on your judgment again;--nay, uncle, I am almost inclined to suspect your taste.” “Well, let them be beautiful or ugly, still I should think the same of the beauty of this village.” “While the sun shines it may be tolerable; but, uncle, in wet bad weather--it must become a mere pond, it lies so completely in the hollow of the hills.” “There is reason in that, Warham.” “And yet, even as a pond, it would have its advantages--it would be famous for duck-raising.” “Pshaw! you are worse than a Mahometan.” “Something of a just comparison, uncle, though scarcely aimed,” said the other; “like Mahomet, you know, I doubt the possession of souls by women.” “Yet if these of Charlemont have not souls, they have no small share of happiness on earth. I never heard more happy laughter from human lips than from theirs. They must be happy.” “I doubt that also,” was the reply. “See you not, uncle, that to nine or ten women there are but three lads? Where the disproportion is so great among the sexes, and where it is so unfavorable to the weaker, women never can be happy. Their whole lives will be lives of turmoil, jealousy, and pulling of caps. Nay, eyes shall not be secure under such circumstances; and Nan's fingers shall be in Doll's hair, and Doll's claws in Nanny's cheeks, whenever it shall so happen, that Tom Jenkins shall incline to Nan, or John Dobbins to Doll. Such a disparity between the sexes is one of the most fruitful causes of domestic war.” “Warham, where do you think to go when you die?” “Where there shall be no great inequality in the population. Believe me, uncle, though I am sometimes disposed to think with Mahomet, and deny the possession of souls to the sex, I also incline to believe, with other more charitable teachers--however difficult it may be to reconcile the two philosophies--that there will be no lack of them in either world.”