"Struggles for life. With the hard soil, with the hard climate, and with the wild Indians. But such struggles, Maggie, left an inheritance of strength, patience, and daring to their children." "Why haven't we stories like those of the Saxons?" "Why!" exclaimed Fenton impatiently, "are you such a simple? There was nothing here but red Indians till a little while ago." "We have not been a nation for more than a hundred years, Maggie," said Meredith. "And before that, were the Indians here at Mosswood?" "No, no," said Fenton. "You had better study history." "As _you_ have," put in his uncle. "Won't you tell Maggie when the first settlements of the English were made in America?" However, Fenton could not. "In the beginning of the seventeenth century it was, Maggie, that the first colonies were established here. The Dutch came to New York, and the Puritans to New England, and a little earlier the English colonists to Virginia. We are a young country." "Is it better to be a young country, or to be an old one?" "The young country has its life before it," said Mr. Murray smiling;--"like a young girl." "How, Uncle Eden?" "She has the chance still to make it noble and beautiful." "We can't have these grand old castles, though," said Meredith, looking at the view of Sonneck. "Those are the picturesque scars remaining of a time which was not beautiful--except to the eye. I suppose it was that." The conversation took a turn too historical to be reported here. The next day was a worthy successor of the preceding. All the party went to church in the morning; on account of the distance, nobody went in the afternoon. Mr. Candlish would not have his horses and servants called out in the latter half of the day. The dinner was early; and so then after dinner the party set out upon a slow progress to the Lookout rock, carrying Bibles, and Meredith with his little German volume in his pocket.