at last he found himself looking out for the English shore. Do you
remember old Anton Pepczinski and his solemn toast, papa?"

She turned to George Brand.

"He was an old Polish gentleman, who used to come to our house in the
evening, he and a few others of his countrymen, to smoke and play chess.
But always, some time during the evening, he would say, 'Gentlemen, a
Pole is never ungrateful. I call on you to drink this toast: _To the
white chalk-line beyond the sea_!'" And then she added, quickly, "If I
were English, how proud I should be of England!"

"But why?" he said.

"Because she has kept liberty alive in Europe," said the girl, proudly;
"because she offers an exile to the oppressed, no matter from whence
they come; because she says to the tyrant, 'No, you cannot follow.' Why,
when even your beer-men your dray-men know how to treat a Haynau, what
must the spirit of the country be? If only those fine fellows could have
caught Windischgratz too!"

Her father laughed at her vehemence; Brand did not. That strange
vibration in the girl's voice penetrated him to the heart.

"But then," said he, after a second or two, "I have been amusing myself
for some days back by reading a good deal of political writing, mostly
by foreigners; and if I were to believe what they say, I should take it
that England was the most superstitious, corrupt, enslaved nation on the
face of the earth! What with its reverence for rank, its worship of the
priesthood--oh, I cannot tell you what a frightful country it is!"