A few days later, Morton was seated with his friend Meredith.
"Ned, this is a slow life. Do you know, I have made up my mind to change it."
"You have been so busy this year past, that I thought you would be content to stay where you are."
"On the contrary, my vocation takes me abroad."
"To Egypt, Arabia, India, the East Indies, the South Sea Islands."
"At any rate, the thing is necessary to my plans."
"The old Adam sticks to you still. Are you sure that no Pequot blood ever got into your veins?"
"I don't know as to that. My ancestors were Puritans to the backbone, witch-burners, Quaker-killers, and Indian-haters. I only know that when I am bored, my first instinct is to cut loose, and take to the woods. It comes over me like an ague-fit. There are two places where a man finds sea room enough; one is a great metropolis, the other is a wilderness. There is no freedom in a place like this. One can only be independent here by living out of the world as I have been doing."
"Here in America, we have political freedom _ad nauseam_; and we pay for it with a loss of social freedom."
"You remember an agreement of ours, years ago, that you and I should travel together. Now, will you stand to it, and go with me?"
"Other considerations apart, I should like nothing better; but, as matters stand with me now, it's quite out of the question."
Morton was silent for a moment. "Ned," he said, at length, "I heard a rumor yesterday. It is no part of mine to obtrude myself into your private affairs, and I should not speak if I had not a reason, the better half of which is, that I think I can serve you. I heard that you were paying your addresses to Miss Euston."
"One cannot look twice at a lady without having it noted down in black and white, and turned into tea-table talk."
"I met Miss Euston a few evenings ago. I used to know her before I went to Europe, but had not seen her since. If what I heard is true, I think you have shown something more than good taste."
"You remember her," said Meredith, after a pause, "as she was the summer when you and I went to New Baden."
"I liked her better at that time than you ever supposed. She was very young; just out of school, in fact. She had lived all her life in the suburbs, and had grown up like an unpruned rose bush,--a fine stock in a strong soil, but throwing out its shoots quite wildly and at random."