"No--no," said Mr. Smith, stopping her apprehensively; "I would rather not intrude any farther upon his kindness." "I declare you are the shame-facedest man I ever saw in my life. Well, then, you can walk about, and look at the trees and bushes. There's a fine large buttonwood, and there's a sassafras; or you can go to the edge of the bank and look at the river and watch how the tide goes down and leaves the splatter-docks standing in the mud. See how thick they are at low water--I wonder if you couldn't count them. And may be you'll see a wood-shallop pass along, or may be a coal-barge. And who knows but a sturgeon may jump out of the water, and turn head over heels and back again--it's quite a handsome sight!" Good Mr. Smith did as he was bidden, and walked about and looked at things, and probably counted the splatter-docks, and perhaps saw a fish jump. "It's all bashfulness--nothing in the world but bashfulness," pursued Mrs. Quimby; "that's the only reason Mr. Smith don't talk." "For my part," said a very elegant looking girl, "I am perfectly willing to impute the taciturnity of Mr. Smith (and that of all other silent people) to modesty. But yet I must say, that as far as I have had opportunities of observing, most men above the age of twenty have sufficient courage to talk, if they know what to say. When the head is well furnished with ideas, the tongue cannot habitually refrain from giving them utterance." "That's a very good observation," said Mrs. Quimby, "and suits _me_ exactly. But as to Mr. Smith, I do believe it's all bashfulness with him. Between ourselves (though the British consul warrants him respectable) I doubt whether he was ever in such genteel society before; and may be he thinks it his duty to listen and not to talk, poor man. But then he ought to know, that in our country he need not be afraid of nobody: and that here all people are equal, and one is as good as another." "Not exactly," said the young lady, "we have in America, as in Europe, numerous gradations of mind, manners, and character. Politically we are equal, as far as regards the rights of citizens and the protection of the laws; and also we have no privileged orders. But individually it is difficult for the refined and the vulgar, the learned and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious to associate familiarly and indiscriminately, even in a republic." The old lady looked mystified for a few moments, and then proceeded--"As you say, people's different. We can't be hail fellow well met, with Tom, Dick, and Harry--but for my part I think myself as good as anybody!" No one contradicted this opinion, and just then a gentleman came up and said to the young lady--"Miss Atwood, allow me to present you with a sprig of the last wild roses of the season. I found a few still lingering on a bush in a shady lane just above." "'I bid their blossoms in my bonnet wave,'" said Miss Atwood--inserting them amid one of the riband bows.