Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the hands of servants.
For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps condemn me.

But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood.

That was not to be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it.

No such ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of, or, at any rate, something to be better carried out.

And of all these desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very good and clever Mrs.Busk to let me start right early.