“Hence the Board of Brokers,” said the doctor, “who grow rich on the ignorance and mutual distrust between nations. You see that specie does not solve your difficulty. A gold dollar has intrinsic value, and is worth, actually, just as much in England or France as it is here; and yet you attempt, when there, to pay your grocer or milliner with an American gold dollar, and they refuse to take it; so you have to take it to a broker, and suffer him to pocket a certain amount from you just for giving you another piece of gold or silver of the same value! This is simply the continuance of the old ignorance which made the Turks call all other nations barbarians, as the Chinese do to this day. But despite the pessimists, the world is improving. Railroads and steamships and telegraphs are bringing nations daily into closer relations and mutual interdependence. See! We have only just now effected a national currency in this country. Before that, we had a most vile system. Bank-bills, of banks located at Eastern commercial centres, were at a premium in the West; while those of Western banks were at a discount, and frequently refused, in the East. “That was indeed a miserable system,” said Clara. “How often I have had to wait in shops, while clerks pored over the bank detector, to find out if my bank-note was genuine or counterfeit, or if the bank that issued it was still in operation! and then the counterfeiters always managed to keep a little ahead of the bank detector, which, of course, could not be republished daily, and so keep ahead of the counterfeiters.” “I am not so impatient over the slowness of progress as I used to be,” said Susie. “Nations are only a body of individuals, and governments can only improve gradually as the individuals improve. The important thing always, is to give the children the conditions for development, so that they may become good citizens, who are always a ‘law unto themselves.’” “Yet,” said Annie, who up to this time had been silently listening, as she went on tying tube-roses on the end of little sticks, “I think the wickedest man I ever knew was an educated one—at least, far from what would be called ignorant.” “What Susie means by conditions for development,” said the doctor, “comprehends moral training as well as intellectual. But you are opening into deep waters. I must go, and leave you ladies to flounder about alone.” “Masculine presumption!” said Clara, smiling. “Feminine assumption, rather,” replied the doctor. “I did not mean worse floundering, because alone; but only less in quantity because one flounderer the less. How quick women are with their suspicions. If the management of affairs should get into their hands, as it is now in ours, the compensation would be terrible.”