“Oh! you are probably taken up with politics,” said the lady; “a’n’t you?”
“Why, we are a pretty patriotic set, ma’am; all republicans to the back-bone.”
“I am glad to hear that,” replied the lady; “I am myself a republican.”
“That’s right, ma’am; it’s of no use to be anything else in this country. I can’t, for my life, see how people can be anything else.”
“Nor I either,” replied the lady. “I am sure I am as proud of my country as any one else.”
“And good reasons you have to be so,” added the tribune; “it’s the first country in the world for an industrious man, such as I know your husband to be.”
“I don’t mean in that way,” observed the lady, somewhat embarrassed; “I am proud of its republican institutions.”
“It’s the only free country in the world, you may depend upon it.”
“Besides England. I think our people go too far in their liberty.”
“I don’t think people can go too far in that; the freer the better, is my motto.”