individual capacity, in all the various pursuits of life. These deeper
thoughts, these higher qualities, surprised him as they showed
themselves, whenever occasion called them forth, under the light, gay,
and frivolous exterior which she had at first seemed to present.
Middleton often amused himself with surmises in what rank of life Alice
could have been bred, being so free of all conventional rule, yet so nice
and delicate in her perception of the true proprieties that she never
shocked him.

One morning, when they had met in one of Middleton's rambles about the
neighborhood, they began to talk of America; and Middleton described to
Alice the stir that was being made in behalf of women's rights; and he
said that whatever cause was generous and disinterested always, in that
country, derived much of its power from the sympathy of women, and that
the advocates of every such cause were in favor of yielding the whole
field of human effort to be shared with women.

"I have been surprised," said he, "in the little I have seen and heard of
English women, to discover what a difference there is between them and my
own countrywomen."

"I have heard," said Alice, with a smile, "that your countrywomen are a
far more delicate and fragile race than Englishwomen; pale, feeble
hot-house plants, unfit for the wear and tear of life, without energy of
character, or any slightest degree of physical strength to base it upon.
If, now, you had these large-framed Englishwomen, you might, I should
imagine, with better hopes, set about changing the system of society, so
as to allow them to struggle in the strife of politics, or any other
strife, hand to hand, or side by side with men."