"Or to be married and settled in the country," said Mr. Wheatley, "which is worse. However, 'all's well that ends well,' as the old comedy says; and here you are, madam, alive and comfortable; and Sir Richard--I should not have mentioned his style of dignity, God bless the mark! unless I had found he had discovered himself, or been discovered before I came--Sir Richard in fully as good a state of preservation as when I had the pleasure of knowing him in Norfolk. You are aware, I dare say, Sir Richard, that in consequence of our admirable republican institutions, which cause us to ignore all that we knew before of the horrible aristocratic institutions of Europe, a baronet or a lord in the United States is exactly like a Japan cabinet, a Chinese pagoda, or any other outlandish curiosity. No one knows how it ought to stand, how it ought to be placed, what are its ends, objects, or purposes. Some people, indeed, look upon this aristocracy as a sort of idolatry; regard you as the god, Fi-fo-fum, of some distant and pagan nation. The old man of the inn, who has got a fat stomach, and has lost two sons, asked me if I had seen the baronet, just as if you were a piece of porcelain or some other curiosity which people go to see. But the idol is the best image, after all; for the poor people, not being travellers, imagine decidedly that you worship nobility in your country. 'Tis a peculiar prejudice, somewhat characteristic of our people. They can conceive no respect for anything not religious, and very little for anything that is. We in the north begin with want of reverence for our parents, and end with want of reverence for our God. Here, in the south, they have a few traditions; and where there is tradition there is some reverence. But amongst us New-Englanders, the bump of reverence is altogether wanting. Where it should be, there is nothing but an hiatus; and yet there is plenty of fanaticism amongst us. By the way, Stringer, they tell me there is going to be a camp-meeting to-night, in your neighbourhood. Are you going?" "No," answered Mr. Stringer; "I do not like camp-meetings. I think they offer very serious and unprofitable interruptions to the ordinary affairs of life." "That's manly, and a manlike view," observed Mr. Wheatley; "the ladies, doubtless, differ. Do you go, madam?" "No," answered Bessy Davenport; "I went once, and I will never go again. I did not know before to what a pitch human nature could be debased."