“Nay, sir, a soldier, who is about to be posted within striking distance of his enemy, can never speak, with confidence, of separations that are to be short. This campaign will be decisive, for me,”--glancing towards Anneke--“I must return a conqueror, in one sense, or I do not wish to return at all. But, God bless you, Herman Mordaunt, as your own countrymen call you; a thousand years could not efface from my heart, the remembrance of all your kindness.” This was handsomely expressed; and the manner in which it was uttered, was as good as the language. Bulstrode hesitated a moment--looked at the two girls in doubt--and first approached Mary Wallace. “Adieu, excellent Mary Wallace,” he said, taking her offered hand, and kissing it with a freedom from emotion, that denoted it was only friendship and respect which induced the act--“I believe, you are a severe critic on Catos and Scrubs; but, I forgive all your particular backbitings, on account of your general indulgence and probity. You may meet with a thousand mere acquaintances, before you find another who shall have the same profound respect for your many virtues, as myself.” This was handsomely said, too; and it caused Mary Wallace to remove the handkerchief from her eyes, and to utter her adieus cordially, and with some emotion. Strangers say that our women want feeling--passion; or, if they have it, that it is veiled behind a mask of coldness, that takes away from its loveliness and warmth; that they are girlish and familiar, where they might better be reserved; and distant, and unnatural, where feeling and nature ought to assert their sway. That they have less _manner_, in all respects, in that of self-control, and perhaps of self-respect, in their ordinary intercourse, and in that of _acting_, where it may seem necessary so to do, I believe to be true; buts he who denies an American girl a heart, knows nothing about her. She is _all_ heart; and the apparent coldness is oftener the consequence of not daring to trust her feelings, and her general dislike to everything artificial, than to any want of affections. Two girls, educated, however, as had been Anneke and Mary Wallace, could not but acquit themselves better, in such a scene, than those who had been less accustomed to the usages of polite life, which are always more or less, the usages of convention.