CHAPTER XVIII.

UNCLE ROBERT.

MANY laborers in the fields paused in their work, and many women looked out of windows, speculating on the appearance of an elegant carriage, drawn by two noble black horses, which came rolling on four wheels along the highways of Pebblebrook. In that carriage sat my Uncle the Merchant, his wife, and daughter; the latter a child of eight years. They were on their homeward way from the Springs, and purposed spending a day with their brother and sister.

When they, after much fuss, had got into the house and retired to make some change in their dress, Harriet said:

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"What under Heaven sends them hither? I they think it their duty to visit their poor relations, and shed upon us the light of their countenance: I wish they had seen fit to keep themselves away, and leave us in peace.

"Let us not think about that," replied Amelia, "they have come, and our part of the business is plain enough: we have only to set before them the best we have got, and make them comfortable while they stay: there will be no great trouble in it."

"No," said the other, " if they would only be satisfied: but Aunt will look all the while as though she were saying to herself: I have not been used to such furniture and food; I wonder people can live so."

"Let her look as she will:" Amelia said, " that is not our business: I'll go to her room and see if she wants any thing which is not to be found there."

Harriet continued giving utterence to her discontent ; and 1 could not but think, that the want of kindly feeling between the rich and the poor members of a family can almost as often be traced to envy on the one part, as to superciliousness on the other. Amelia soon returned bringing two beautiful parasols, presents from her Aunt to herself and sister.

"See, this is just what you were wishing for the other day, Harriet: which do you like best?"

Harriet seemed to prefer the gayest one, though she did not speak out her preference, and, as Amelia chose the other, the matter was soon settled. Harriet was evidently well pleased with this gift, though she said: "the Lady might have waited one day before she began to make presents."

Uncle John came in from the fields, and the visiters appeared in the parlor. I was struck with the fact that some likeness could be traced in the features of the two brothers; for a short time before I had said to Uncle John that they were quite unlike. It were difficult to tell in what this likeness consisted. The Merchant, seen at a little distance, was as good-looking, you would say, as his brother but not so when you came very near the two men. Nature had made them much alike, but the Spirit which ruled their lives had given to each a peculiar look: their looks did not express the same soul. When they

shook hands Uncle John's open face seemed all radiant with gladness.

At dinner the talk between the brothers turned on business, and the Merchant said:

"The present state of commercial business is so unsettled, uncertain, that one so extensively engaged in it as I am, can feel no security in his possessions. I shall be anxious till I get back to my counting-room: I cannot enjoy a day away from it. The late accounts by the steam-ship from England are quite alarming."

The conversation now ran for some time on the changes which steam-power seemed destined to produce. The Merchant, considering the matter from his point of view, said: the probable effect of this rapid intercourse would be to equalize prices of merchandize throughout the world. "Whenever there is in any part a want of any one article, or even the probability of a want, straightway the fact, by means of steam conveyance, is known in all parts of the commercial world, and the want is forthwith supplied or anticipated. I fear that the profits of trade will be lessened by such universal information in regard to all matters relating thereto as is now spread abroad. The nearer commercial marts are to each other the completer is the equality of prices, and this steam conveyance does in effect bring distant places near."

"It is curious," said Uncle John, "to consider how long a power lies under our very nose before we can find means to use it. How many millions of men saw the generation of steam in kettles on the domestic hearth; saw its power in the lifting of kettle-covers; before one attempted to measure that power or shew its uses. - This steam-power, as applied to land and water conveyances, is one of the great agents of Democracy. Your rich

Speculator and Forestaller can now run no private express for his own private advantage; the public or People's steamer goes too fast for him."

"Sometimes," replied the other, "I get frightened in view of these astonishing changes, and almost resolve to retire from business and keep what I have got. Corporations for money-getting purposes, which were once considered aristocratic, are now rather democratic than otherwise. Some twenty of my poor neighbors associate, and their association enables them to compete with me: in fact any one of them, by means of credit, can operate on a scale equal to my own. A young man, whose place of business is next door to mine, commenced business five years ago: he had then a capital of only four thousand dollars; and now I can't say whether he have one hundred thousand dollars, or be unable to pay his debts: one thing I do know; he spends five or six thousand dollars per annum, and talks as though he were worth half a million."

Uncle John smiled, and said : "I have had some little experience in this commercial credit business. What is called an enterprising young man,' who has a small money-capital of his own, is like that woman who took a little leaven and hid it in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. How cunningly he kneads that little leaven of his own into the meal he has borrowed on long credit, till the whole mass is leavened, and he says; See my cakes! I will eat my fill of these cakes, and, in case I do not find means to pay for the meal, I shall be 'unfortunate in business.'"

The Merchant's wife had, meanwhile, been talking of the great people she had seen at the Springs; of dinners, and balls there; of the trouble she had had with her ser

vants at home, and the Devil knows what else: she got at last, by some crooked by-way, to a Foreign Missionary Society of which she is member. She told how many Bibles the Society had distributed; how many of the Heathen its Missionaries had converted. Soon as she commenced this last subject, she put on a serious look and began to measure her words: when she got to the converson of the Heathen her face wore a most sanctified expression.

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Aunt Sarah, who, in the simple goodness of her heart, favors every thing which has even a pretension to goodness, said what was true of the Christian Gospel and the the duty of making it known throughout the world. remark of Amelia's struck me: "I have heard," she said, "what my Uncles have been saying of the effects of steam-power in quickening the intercourse of the different nations of the Earth; and it seems to me that Missionary Societies are now almost useless. When the different nations get well acquainted with each other, as they, by one means and another, are like to be at no very distant day, the whole World will get the benefit of Christianity, provided we, who profess it in word, live it in deed.”

Amelia,

The Lady looked blank, and made some commonplace remark of the kind called religious. whose impromptu utterance had hit harder than she intended, asked her Aunt to take some strawberries and cream which had just been brought in.

The Merchant, whose thoughts seemed to run continually on his business, kept up a lively conversation with his brother on matters in some way related thereto. He was rather bitter in expression of his feeling toward our late President and the present one. The administration of Old Hickory had, he thought, produced the late com