It is a very well established fact that the question of building
steamships large enough and strong enough to cross the ocean was
discussed by a number of New York merchants who were ready to embark
capital in the project, several years before the keels of the Royal
William, the Savannah, the Sirius, or the Great Western were laid. But
we must leave this subject for the present, and return to our friends,
the Chapmans.

These people professed to be plain and practical, brought up according
to the creed of New England. They also affected to despise the small
vanities of the world. The effect of prosperity, however, on their
natures was singularly instructive, since it entirely changed their
manners. No sooner did fortune favor them than Mrs. Chapman began to
display an ambition for vulgar show, such as well-bred people never
indulge in. She never failed to remind her friends that she was brought
up in Boston, where everything was very refined. She regarded it as a
compliment to herself that she had an intellectual husband. He had a big
head, if he was small, and could carry any number of books in it. That
was what Boston people liked. Her thoughts seemed continually navigating
between religion and the fashions. She had no deep affection or love for
any one, not even for her daughter Mattie, whom she viewed in the light
of a rather valuable ornament, in the disposal of which she must make
the best bargain she could, not so much for the girl's sake as her own.
She could toss her head as disdainfully as any of your fine dames; and
she could discourse as glibly about genteel society as a successful
milliner just set up for a lady. She had plain Mrs. Jones for a
neighbor, and would drop that honest woman a nod now and then, out of
mere politeness. But she never condescended to associate on terms of
equality with the Jones family. Mrs. Jones's husband was a common,