The carriages, which were of every form and size, arrived in very rapid succession, and drove into a sort of court yard to the door where the company entered. There were soldiers and policemen on duty, to prevent the public from going into the yard. The carriages, however, as they drove up to the door, and the company, as they descended from them, could all be seen very distinctly from the street. There were footmen behind most of the carriages, who, as soon as the horses drew up, stepped down from their places and opened the carriage door. The gentlemen and ladies were all dressed very gorgeously,--the gentlemen being clothed in military uniforms, or robes of office, or in embroidered and gilded court dresses,--each dress being different, apparently, from all the rest. The liveries, too, of the coachmen and of the footmen, and the harnesses and trappings of the horses, were all exceedingly splendid and gay. Mr. George and Rollo, with some hundreds of other spectators who had assembled to witness the scene, stood gazing upon it with great interest for nearly an hour. When, at length, their curiosity had become in some measure satisfied, they found that they were beginning to be very tired of standing so long; and so they left the place, and walked away slowly towards home. "What do you mean by _aristocracy_?" said Rollo to Mr. George, as they walked along. "Does it mean the rich people?" "No," replied Mr. George, "not exactly that. It means rich people who govern. In the United States there are a great many very rich people; but they are not called an aristocracy, because they do not govern. Every thing there is decided by voting, and every person that is a _man_ has an equal right with all the rest to his vote; at least this is the case in the Northern States. The rich have no more power than the rest; so they do not constitute an aristocracy in the correct and proper meaning of the term. An aristocracy in any country, strictly speaking, is a class of wealthy people who govern it, or who are at least possessed of exclusive privileges and power." "Suppose the class of people who govern the country should be poor," asked Rollo; "would that be an aristocracy?" "Such a thing is impossible in the nature of things," said Mr. George; "for if any one class gets the control of the government of a country, they will of course manage it in such a way as to get the wealth and the honors mainly to themselves. _I_ should do so. _You_ would do so. Every body would do so. It is human nature. Beings that would not do so would not be human." "And do the English aristocracy manage in that way?" asked Rollo.