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AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 Honfton 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 1883 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 tlNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE . . . i 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS . . . . 91 
 THE POINT OF VIEW ... . 157 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 I. 
 
 FOUR years ago in 1874 two young Englishmen had 
 occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the 
 ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the 
 first day of August, were much struck with the fervid 
 temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, 
 they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches 
 which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great 
 deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course through 
 Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not 
 perhaps the most favourable one ; still, it is not without 
 its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could 
 well resemble less a typical English street than the in- 
 terminable avenue, rich in incongruities, through which 
 our two travellers advanced looking out on each side of 
 them at the comfortable animation of the side-walks, the 
 high-coloured, heterogeneous architecture, the huge white 
 marble fagades, glittering in the strong crude light, and 
 bedizened with gilded lettering, the multifarious awnings, 
 banners, and streamers, the extraordinary number of 
 omnibuses, horse-cars, and other democratic vehicles, the 
 vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big 
 straw hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the 
 
4 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 modish young persons on the pavement, the general 
 brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people and things. 
 The young men had exchanged few observations ; but in 
 crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to 
 Washington, in the very shadow, indeed, projected by 
 the image of the pater patria one of them remarked to 
 the other, " It seems a rum-looking place." 
 
 " Ah, very odd, very odd," said the other, who was 
 the clever man of the two. 
 
 "Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the first speaker, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " You know we are in a low latitude," said his friend. 
 
 " I daresay," remarked the other. 
 
 "I wonder," said the second speaker, presently, "if 
 they can give one a bath." 
 
 " I daresay not," rejoined the other. 
 
 " Oh, I say !" cried his comrade. 
 
 This animated discussion was checked by their arrival 
 at the hotel, which had been recommended to them by 
 an American gentleman whose acquaintance they made 
 with whom, indeed, they became very intimate on the 
 steamer, and who had proposed to accompany them to 
 the inn and introduce them, in a friendly way, to the 
 proprietor. This plan, however, had been defeated by 
 their friend's finding that his "partner" was awaiting 
 him on the wharf, and that his commercial associate 
 desired him instantly to come and give his attention to 
 certain telegrams received from St. Louis. But the two 
 Englishmen, with nothing but their national prestige and 
 personal graces to recommend them, were very well 
 received at the hotel, which had an air of capacious 
 hospitality. They found that a bath was not unattainable, 
 and were indeed struck with the facilities for prolonged 
 and reiterated immersion with which their apartment 
 was supplied. After bathing a good deal more indeed 
 than they had ever done before on a single occasion 
 they made their way into the dining-room of the hotel, 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 5 
 
 which was a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in the 
 middle, a great many tall plants in ornamental tubs, and 
 an array of French waiters. The first dinner on land, 
 after a sea-voyage, is under any circumstances a delightful 
 occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable 
 in the circumstances in which our young Englishmen 
 found themselves. They were extremely good-natured 
 young men ; they were more observant than they ap- 
 peared; in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally dissimulative 
 fashion, they were highly appreciative. This was perhaps 
 especially the case with the elder, who was also, as I have 
 said, the man of talent. They sat down at a little table, 
 which was a very different affair from the great clattering 
 see-saw in the saloon of the steamer. The wide doors 
 and windows of the restaurant stood open, beneath large 
 awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other 
 plants in tubs, and rows of spreading trees, and beyond 
 which there was a large shady square, without any palings, 
 and with marble -paved walks. And above the vivid 
 verdure rose other fa$ades of white marble and of pale 
 chocolate-coloured stone, squaring themselves against the 
 deep blue sky. Here, outside, in the light and the shade 
 and the heat, there was a great tinkling of the bells of 
 innumerable street cars, and a constant strolling and 
 shuffling and rustling of many pedestrians, a large pro- 
 portion of whom were young women in Pompadour- 
 looking dresses. Within, the place was cool and vaguely 
 lighted ; with the plash of water, the odour of flowers, 
 and the flitting of French waiters, as I have said, upon 
 soundless carpets. 
 
 "It's rather like Paris, you know," said the younger 
 of our two travellers. 
 
 "It's like Paris only more so," his companion re- 
 joined. 
 
 " I suppose it's the French waiters," said the first 
 speaker. "Why don't they have French waiters in 
 London ? " 
 
6 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 " Fancy a French waiter at a club," said his friend. 
 
 The young Englishman stared a little, as if he could 
 not fancy it. " In Paris I'm very apt to dine at a place 
 where there's an English waiter. Don't you know, 
 what's-his-name's, close to the thingumbob ? They always 
 set an- English waiter at me. I suppose they think I 
 can't speak French." 
 
 "No more you can." And the elder of the young 
 Englishmen unfolded his napkin. 
 
 His companion took no notice whatever of this declara- 
 tion. "I say," he resumed, in a moment, "I suppose 
 we must learn to speak American. I suppose we must 
 take lessons." 
 
 " I can't understand them," said the clever man. 
 
 " What the deuce is he saying?" asked his comrade, 
 appealing from the French waiter. 
 
 " He is recommending some soft-shell crabs," said the 
 clever man. 
 
 And so, in desultory observation of the idiosyncrasies 
 of the new society in which they found themselves, the 
 young Englishmen proceeded to dine going in largely, 
 as the phrase is, for cooling draughts and dishes, of which 
 their attendant offered them a very long list. After 
 dinner they went out and slowly walked about the neigh- 
 bouring streets. The early dusk of waning summer was 
 coming on, but the heat was still very great. The 
 pavements were hot even to the stout boot-soles of the 
 British travellers, and the trees along the kerb-stone 
 emitted strange exotic odours. The young men wandered 
 through the adjoining square that queer place without 
 palings, and with marble walks arranged in black and 
 white lozenges. There were a great many benches, 
 crowded with shabby-looking people, and the travellers 
 remarked, very justly, that it was not much like Belgrave 
 Square. On one side was an enormous hotel, lifting up 
 into the hot darkness an immense array of open, brightly- 
 lighted windows. At the base of this populous structure 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 7 
 
 * 
 
 was an eternal jangle of horse-cars, and all round it, in 
 the upper dusk, was a sinister hum of mosquitoes. The 
 ground-floor of the hotel seemed to be a huge transparent 
 cage, flinging a wide glare of gaslight into the street, of 
 which it formed a sort of public adjunct, absorbing and 
 emitting the passers-by promiscuously. The young 
 Englishmen went in with every one else, from curiosity, 
 and saw a couple of hundred men sitting on divans along 
 a great marble-paved corridor, with their legs stretched 
 out, together with several dozen more standing in a 
 queue, as at the ticket-office of a railway station, before 
 a brilliantly-illuminated counter, of vast extent. These 
 latter persons, who carried portmanteaus in their hands, 
 had a dejected, exhausted look ; their garments were 
 not very fresh, and they seemed to be rendering some 
 mysterious tribute to a magnificent young man with a 
 waxed moustache and a shirt front adorned with diamond 
 buttons, who every now and then dropped an absent 
 glance over their multitudinous patience. They were 
 American citizens doing homage to an hotel clerk. 
 
 "I'm glad he didn't tell us to go there," said one of 
 our Englishmen, alluding to their friend on the steamer, 
 who had told them so many things. They walked up 
 the Fifth Avenue, where, for instance, he had told them 
 that all the first families lived. But the first families 
 were out of town, and our young travellers had only 
 the satisfaction of seeing some of the second or perhaps 
 even the third taking the evening air upon balconies 
 and high flights of doorsteps, in the streets which radiate 
 from the more ornamental thoroughfare. They went a 
 little way down one of these side streets, and they saw 
 young ladies in white dresses charming-looking persons 
 seated in graceful attitudes on the chocolate-coloured 
 steps. In one or two places these young ladies were 
 conversing across the street with other young ladies seated 
 in similar postures and costumes in front of the opposite 
 houses, and in the warm night air their colloquial tones 
 
8 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 sounded strange in the ears of the young Englishmen. 
 One of our friends, nevertheless the younger one 
 intimated that he felt a disposition to intercept a few of 
 these soft familiarities ; but his companion observed, 
 pertinently enough, that he had better be careful. * ' We 
 must not begin with making mistakes," said his com- 
 panion. 
 
 "But he told us, you know he told us," urged the 
 young man, alluding again to the friend on the steamer. 
 
 " Never mind what he told us!" answered his comrade, 
 who, if he had greater talents, was also apparently more 
 of a moralist. 
 
 By bed-time in their impatience to taste of a terres- 
 trial couch again our seafarers went to bed early it was 
 still insufferably hot, and the buzz of the mosquitoes at 
 the open windows might have passed for an audible 
 crepitation of the temperature. " We can't stand this, 
 you know," the young Englishmen said to each other ; 
 and they tossed about all night more boisterously than they 
 had tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On the morrow 
 their first thought was that they would re-embark that 
 day for England ; and then it occurred to them that they 
 might find an asylum nearer at hand. The cave of ^Eolus 
 became their ideal of comfort, and they wondered where 
 the Americans went when they wished to cool off. They 
 had not the least idea, and they determined to apply for 
 information to Mr. J. L. Westgate. This was the name 
 inscribed in a bold hand on the back of a letter carefully 
 preserved in the pocket-book of our junior traveller. 
 Beneath the address, in the left-hand corner of the en- 
 velope, were the words, " Introducing Lord Lambeth 
 and Percy Beaumont, Esq." The letter had been given 
 to the two Englishmen by a good friend of theirs in 
 London, who had been in America two years previously, 
 and had singled out Mr. J. L. Westgate from the many 
 friends he had left there as the consignee, as it were, of 
 his compatriots. " He is a capital fellow," the English- 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 9 
 
 man in London had said, "and he has got an awfully 
 pretty wife. He's tremendously hospitable he will do 
 everything in the world for you ; and as he knows every 
 one over there, it is quite needless I should give you any 
 other introduction. He will make you see every one ; 
 trust to him for putting you into circulation. He has 
 got a tremendously pretty wife." It was natural that in 
 the hour of tribulation Lord Lambeth and Mr. Percy 
 Beaumont should have bethought themselves of a gentle- 
 man whose attractions had been thus vividly depicted ; 
 all the more so that he lived in the Fifth Avenue and 
 that the Fifth Avenue, as they had ascertained the night 
 before, was contiguous to their hotel. " Ten to one he'll 
 be out of town," said Percy Beaumont ; "but we can at 
 least find out where he has gone, and we can immediately 
 start in pursuit. He can't possibly have gone to a hotter 
 place, you know." 
 
 " Oh, there's only one hotter place," said Lord Lam- 
 beth, "and I hope he hasn't gone there." 
 
 They strolled along the shady side of the street to the 
 number indicated upon the precious letter. The house 
 presented an imposing chocolate - coloured expanse, re- 
 lieved by facings and window-cornices of florid sculpture, 
 and by a couple of dusty rose-trees, which clambered 
 over the balconies and the portico. This last-mentioned 
 feature was approached by a monumental flight of steps. 
 
 " Rather better than a London house," said Lord 
 Lambeth, looking down from this altitude, after they had 
 rung the bell. 
 
 "It depends upon what London house you mean," 
 replied his companion. " You have a tremendous chance 
 to get wet between the house door and your carriage. " 
 
 "Well," said Lord Lambeth, glancing at the burning 
 heavens, "I * guess ' it doesn't rain so much here ! " 
 
 The door was opened by a long negro in a white jacket, 
 who grinned familiarly when Lord Lambeth asked for 
 Mr. Westgate. 
 
io AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 " He ain't at home, sir ; he's down town at his o'fice." 
 
 "Oh, at his office?" said the visitors. "And when 
 will he be at home?" 
 
 " Well, sir, when he goes out dis way in de mo'ning, 
 he ain't liable to come home all day." 
 
 This was discouraging ; but the address of Mr. West- 
 gate's office was freely imparted by the intelligent black, 
 and was taken down by Percy Beaumont in his pocket- 
 book. The two gentlemen then returned, languidly, to 
 their hotel, and sent for a hackney-coach ; and in this 
 commodious vehicle they rolled comfortably down town. 
 They measured the whole length of Broadway again, and 
 found it a path of fire ; and then, deflecting to the left, 
 they were deposited by their conductor before a fresh, 
 light, ornamental structure, ten stories high, in a street 
 crowded with keen-faced, light-limbed young men, who 
 were running about very quickly, and stopping each other 
 eagerly at corners and in doorways. Passing into this 
 brilliant building, they were introduced by one of the 
 keen-faced young men he was a charming fellow, in 
 wonderful cream-coloured garments and a hat with a blue 
 ribbon, who had evidently perceived them to be aliens 
 and helpless to a very snug hydraulic elevator, in which 
 they took their place with many other persons, and which, 
 shooting upward in its vertical socket, presently projected 
 them into the seventh horizontal compartment of the 
 edifice. Here, after brief delay, they found themselves 
 face to face with the friend of their friend in London. 
 His office was composed of several different rooms, and 
 they waited very silently in one of these after they had 
 sent in their letter and their cards. The letter was not 
 one which it would take Mr. Westgate very long to read, 
 but he came out to speak to them more instantly than 
 they could have expected ; he had evidently jumped up 
 from his work. He was a. tall, lean personage, and was 
 dressed all in fresh white linen ; he had a thin, sharp, 
 familiar face, with an expression that was at one and the 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n 
 
 same time sociable and business-like, a quick, intelligent 
 eye, and a large brown moustache, which concealed his 
 mouth and made his chin, beneath it, look small. Lord 
 Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever. 
 
 1 ( How do you do, Lord Lambeth how do you do, 
 sir ?" he said, holding the open letter in his hand. "I'm 
 very glad to see you I hope you're very well. You had 
 better come in here I think it's cooler ; " and he led the 
 way into another room, where there were law-books and 
 papers, and windows wide open beneath striped awnings. 
 Just opposite one of the windows, on a line with his eyes, 
 Lord Lambeth observed the weather-vane of a church 
 steeple. The uproar of the street sounded infinitely far 
 below, and Lord Lambeth felt very high in the air. " I 
 say it's cooler," pursued their host, " but everything is 
 relative. How do you stand the heat?" 
 
 " I can't say we like it," said Lord Lambeth ; "but 
 Beaumont likes it better than I." 
 
 "Well, it won't last," Mr. Westgate very cheerfully 
 declared ; "nothing unpleasant lasts over here. It was 
 very hot when Captain Littledale was here ; he did 
 nothing but drink sherry-cobblers. He expresses some 
 doubt in his letter whether I shall remember him as if 
 I didn't remember making six sherry-cobblers for him one 
 day in about twenty minutes. I hope you left him well ; 
 two years having elapsed since then." 
 
 " Oh yes, he's all right," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "I am always very glad to see your countrymen," Mr. 
 Westgate pursued. " I thought it would be time some 
 of you should be coming along. A friend of mine was 
 saying to me only a day or two ago, * It's time for the 
 water-melons and the Englishmen.'" 
 
 ' { The Englishmen and the water-melons just now are 
 about the same thing," Percy Beaumont observed, wiping 
 his dripping forehead. 
 
 "Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the melons. 
 You must go down to Newport. 
 
12 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 "We'll go anywhere !" said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Yes, you want to go to Newport that's what you 
 want to do," Mr. Westgate affirmed. " But let's see 
 when did you get here ? " 
 
 " Only yesterday," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "Ah yes, by the * Russia.' Where are you staying?" 
 
 "At the * Hanover,' I think they call it." 
 
 " Pretty comfortable ?" inquired Mr. Westgate. 
 
 " It seems a capital place, but I can't say we like the 
 gnats," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 Mr. Westgate stared and laughed. " Oh no, of course 
 you don't like the gnats. We shall expect you to like a 
 good many things over here, but we shan't insist upon 
 your liking the gnats ; though certainly you'll admit that, 
 as gnats, they are fine, eh ? But you oughtn't to remain 
 in the city." 
 
 " So we think," said Lord Lambeth. " If you would 
 kindly suggest something " 
 
 "Suggest something, my dear sir?" and Mr. West- 
 gate looked at him, narrowing his eyelids. " Open your 
 mouth and shut your eyes ! Leave it to me, and I'll put 
 you through. It's a matter of national pride with me 
 that all Englishmen should have a good time ; and, as I 
 have had considerable practice, I have learned to minister 
 to their wants. I find they generally want the right thing. 
 So just please to consider yourselves my property ; and if 
 any one should try to appropriate you, please to say, 
 ( Hands off; too late for the market.' But let's see," 
 continued the American, in his slow, humorous voice, 
 with a distinctness of utterance which appeared to his 
 visitors to be part of a facetious intention a strangely 
 leisurely, speculative voice for a man evidently so busy 
 and, as they felt, so professional "let's see; are you 
 going to make something of a stay, Lord Lambeth?" 
 
 "Oh dear, no," said the young Englishman; "my 
 cousin was coming over on some business, so I just came 
 across, at an hour's notice, for the lark." 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 13 
 
 " Is it your first visit to the United States ?" 
 
 " Oh dear, yes." 
 
 " I was obliged to come on some business," said Percy 
 Beaumont, "and I brought Lambeth with me." 
 
 "And you have been here before, sir?" 
 
 "Never never." 
 
 " I thought, from your referring to business " said 
 
 Mr. Westgate. 
 
 " Oh, you see I'm by way of being a barrister," Percy 
 Beaumont answered. " I know some people that think 
 of bringing a suit against one of your railways, and 
 they asked me to come over and take measures accord- 
 ingly." 
 
 Mr. Westgate gave one of his slow, keen looks again. 
 "What's your railroad?" he asked. 
 
 " The Tennessee Central." 
 
 The American tilted back his chair a little, and poised 
 it an instant. " Well, I'm sorry you want to attack one 
 of our institutions," he said, smiling. " But I guess you 
 had better enjoy yourself first /" 
 
 "I'm certainly rather afraid I can't work in this 
 weather," the young barrister confessed. 
 
 "Leave that to the natives," said Mr. Westgate. 
 "Leave the Tennessee Central to me, Mr. Beaumont. 
 Some day we'll talk it over, and I guess I can make it 
 square. But I didn't know you Englishmen ever did any 
 work, in the upper classes." 
 
 "Oh, we do a lot of work; don't we, Lambeth?" 
 asked Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " I must certainly be at home by the iQth of Septem- 
 ber," said the younger Englishman, irrelevantly, but 
 gently. 
 
 "For the shooting, eh? or is it the hunting or the 
 fishing ?" inquired his entertainer. 
 
 "Oh, I must be in Scotland," said Lord Lambeth, 
 blushing a little. 
 
 " Well, then," rejoined Mr. Westgate, " you had better 
 
I 4 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 amuse yourself first, also. You must go down and see 
 Mrs. Westgate." 
 
 " We should be so happy if you would kindly tell us 
 the train," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " It isn't a train it's a boat." 
 
 " Oh, I see. And what is the name of a the a 
 town?" 
 
 " It isn't a town," said Mr. Westgate, laughing. " It's 
 a well, what shall I call it ? It's a watering-place. In 
 short, it's Newport. You'll see what it is. It's cool ; 
 that's the principal thing. You will greatly oblige me 
 by going down there and putting yourself into the hands 
 of Mrs. Westgate. It isn't perhaps for me to say it ; 
 but you couldn't be in better hands. Also in those of 
 her sister, who is staying with her. She is very fond of 
 Englishmen. She thinks there is nothing like them." 
 
 " Mrs. Westgate or a her sister?" asked Percy 
 Beaumont, modestly, yet in the tone of an inquiring 
 traveller. 
 
 " Oh, I mean my wife," said Mr. Westgate. " I don't 
 suppose my sister-in-law knows much about them. She 
 has always led a very quiet life ; she has lived in 
 Boston." 
 
 Percy Beaumont listened with interest. "That, I 
 believe," he said, "is the most a intellectual town?" 
 
 "I believe it is very intellectual. I don't go there 
 much," responded his host. 
 
 "I say, we ought to go there," said Lord Lambeth 
 to his companion. 
 
 " Oh, Lord Lambeth, wait till the great heat is over !" 
 Mr. Westgate interposed. "Boston in this weather 
 would be very trying; it's not the temperature for in- 
 tellectual exertion. At Boston, you know, you have to 
 pass an examination at the city limits ; and when you 
 come away they give you a kind of degree." 
 
 Lord Lambeth stared, blushing a little ; and Percy 
 Beaumont stared a little also but only with his fine 
 
i. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 15 
 
 natural complexion : glancing aside after a moment to 
 see that his companion was not looking too credulous, 
 for he had heard a great deal about American humour. 
 " I daresay it is very jolly," said the younger gentleman. 
 
 " I daresay it is," said Mr. Westgate. " Only I must 
 impress upon you that at present to-morrow morning, at 
 an early hour you will be expected at Newport. We 
 have a house there ; half the people in New York go 
 there for the summer. I am not sure that at this very 
 moment my wife can take you in ; she has got a lot of 
 people staying with her ; I don't know who they all 
 are ; only she may have no room. But you can begin 
 with the hotel, and meanwhile you can live at my house. 
 In that way simply sleeping at the hotel you will find 
 it tolerable. For the rest, you must make yourself at 
 home at my place. You mustn't be shy, you ^now ; if 
 you are only here for a month that will be a great waste 
 of time. Mrs. Westgate won't neglect you, and you had 
 better not try to resist her. I know something about 
 that. I expect you'll find some pretty girls on the 
 premises. I shall write to my wife by this afternoon's 
 mail, and to-morrow she and Miss Alden will look out 
 for you. Just walk right in and make yourself comfort- 
 able. Your steamer leaves from this part of the city, 
 and I will immediately send out and get you a cabin. 
 Then, at half-past four o'clock, just call for me here, and 
 I will go with you and put you on board. It's a big 
 boat ; you might get lost. A few days hence, at the end 
 of the week, I will come down to Newport and see how 
 you are getting on." 
 
 The two young Englishmen inaugurated the policy of 
 not resisting Mrs. Westgate by submitting, with great 
 docility and thankfulness, to her husband. He was 
 evidently a very good fellow, and he made an impression 
 upon his visitors ; his hospitality seemed to recommend 
 itself, consciously with a friendly wink, as it were 
 as if it hinted, judicially, that you could not possibly 
 
1 6 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. i. 
 
 make a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his cousin 
 left their entertainer to his labours and returned to their 
 hotel, where they spent three or four hours in their re- 
 spective shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had suggested 
 that they ought to see something of the town ; but " Oh, 
 damn the town ! " his noble kinsman had rejoined. They 
 returned to Mr. Westgate's office in a carriage, with their 
 luggage, very punctually; but it must be reluctantly 
 recorded that, this time, he kept them waiting so long 
 that they felt themselves missing the steamer, and were 
 deterred only by an amiable modesty from dispensing 
 with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to 
 the wharf. But when at last he appeared, and the 
 carriage plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they 
 jolted and jostled to such good purpose that they reached 
 the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was 
 still ringing and the absorption of passengers still active. 
 It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, 
 and his leadership in the innumerable and interminable 
 corridors and cabins, with which he seemed perfectly 
 acquainted, and of which any one and every one appeared 
 to have the entree, was very grateful to the slightly 
 bewildered voyagers. He showed them their state-room 
 a spacious apartment, embellished with gas -lamps, 
 mirrors en pied, and sculptured furniture and then, long 
 after they had been intimately convinced that the steamer 
 was in motion and launched upon the unknown stream 
 that they were about to navigate, he bade them a sociable 
 farewell. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, Lord Lambeth," he said. " Good- 
 bye, Mr. Percy Beaumont; I hope you'll have a good 
 time. Just let them do what they want with you. I'll 
 come down by-and-by and look after you." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 17 
 
 II. 
 
 THE young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and 
 amused themselves with wandering about the immense 
 labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as an extra- 
 ordinary mixture of a ship and an hotel. It was densely 
 crowded with passengers, the larger number of whom 
 appeared to be ladies and very young children ; and in 
 the big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, which 
 followed each other in surprising succession, beneath the 
 swinging gas-lights and among the small side-passages 
 where the negro domestics of both sexes assembled with 
 an air of philosophic leisure, every one was moving to 
 and fro and exchanging loud and familiar observations. 
 Eventually, at the instance of a discriminating black, our 
 young men went and had some " supper " in a wonderful 
 place arranged like a theatre, where, in a gilded gallery 
 upon which- little boxes appeared to open, a large 
 orchestra was playing operatic selections, and, below, 
 people were handing about bills of fare, as if they had 
 been programmes. All this was sufficiently curious ; 
 but the agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of 
 the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm, breezy 
 darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make out the 
 line of low, mysterious coast. The young Englishmen 
 tried American cigars those of Mr. Westgate and 
 talked together as they usually talked, with many odd 
 silences, lapses of logic and incongruities of transition ; 
 like people who have grown old together and learned to 
 supply each other's missing phrases ; or, more especially, 
 like people thoroughly conscious of a common point of 
 view, so that a style of conversation superficially lacking 
 in finish might suffice for a reference to a fund of associa- 
 tions in the light of which everything was all right. 
 "We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beau- 
 
1 8 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 11. 
 
 mont observed. " Upon my word, we are going back 
 to England. He has shipped us off again. I call that 
 * real mean. ' " 
 
 "I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lambeth. "I 
 want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You know 
 he told us the place was an island ; and aren't all islands 
 in the sea?" 
 
 "Well," resumed the elder traveller after a while, 
 * ' if his house is as good as his cigars, we shall do very 
 well." 
 
 " He seems a very good fellow," said Lord Lambeth, 
 as if this idea had just occurred to him. 
 
 "I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined 
 his companion, presently. " I don't think I like the way 
 he spoke of his house. I don't like stopping in the house 
 with such a tremendous lot of women." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then 
 they smoked a while in silence. " Fancy his thinking 
 we do no work in England !" the young man resumed. 
 
 "I daresay he didn't really think so," said Percy 
 Beaumont. 
 
 "Well, I guess they don't know much about England 
 over here !" declared Lord Lambeth, humorously. And 
 then there was another long pause. " He was devilish 
 civil," observed the young nobleman. 
 
 "Nothing, certainly, could have been more civil," 
 rejoined his companion. 
 
 "Littledale said his wife was great fun," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 "Whose wife Littledale's?" 
 
 "This American's Mrs. Westgate. What's his 
 name? J. L." 
 
 Beaumont was silent a moment. "What was fun to 
 Littledale," he said at last, rather sententiously, "may 
 be death to us." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" asked his kinsman, 
 " I am as good a man as Littledale." 
 
ii. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 19 
 
 "My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said 
 Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " I don't care. I daresay I shan't begin." 
 
 " With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all 
 very well," Beaumont expounded. "But our friend men- 
 tioned a young lady a sister, a sister-in-law. For God's 
 sake, don't get entangled with her." 
 
 " How do you mean, entangled?" 
 
 " Depend upon it she will try to hook you." 
 
 "Oh, bother !" said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "American girls are very clever," urged his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " So much the better," the young man declared. 
 
 " I fancy they are always up to some game of that 
 sort," Beaumont continued. 
 
 " They can't be worse than they are in England," said 
 Lord Lambeth, judicially. 
 
 "Ah, but in England," replied Beaumont, "you have 
 got your natural protectors. You have got your mother 
 and sisters." 
 
 "My mother and sisters " began the young noble- 
 man, with a certain energy. But he stopped in time, 
 puffing at his cigar. 
 
 " Your mother spoke to me about it, with tears in her 
 eyes," said Percy Beaumont. "She said she felt very 
 nervous. I promised to keep you out of mischief." 
 
 " You had better take care of yourself," said the object 
 of maternal and ducal solicitude. 
 
 "Ah," rejoined the young barrister, "I haven't the 
 expectation of a hundred thousand a year not to mention 
 other attractions." 
 
 "Well," said Lord Lambeth, "don't cry out before 
 you're hurt !" 
 
 It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, where 
 our travellers found themselves assigned to a couple of 
 diminutive bed-rooms in a far-away angle of an immense 
 hotel. They had gone ashore in the early summer 
 
20 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n. 
 
 twilight, and had very promptly put themselves to bed ; 
 thanks to which circumstance, and to their having, during 
 the previous hours, in their commodious cabin, slept the 
 sleep of youth and health, they began to feel, towards 
 eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked 
 out of their windows across a row of small green fields, 
 bordered with low stone dykes of rude construction, and 
 saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky, 
 and flecked now and then with scintillating patches of 
 foam. A strong fresh breeze came in through the 
 curtainless casements and prompted our young men to 
 observe generously that it didn't seem half a bad climate. 
 They made other observations after they had emerged 
 from their rooms in pursuit of breakfast a meal of which 
 they partook in a huge bare hall, where a hundred 
 negroes, in white jackets, were shuffling about upon an 
 uncarpeted floor : where the flies were superabundant 
 and the tables and dishes covered over with a strange 
 voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze ; and where 
 several little boys and girls, who had risen late, were 
 seated in fastidious solitude at the morning repast. 
 These young persons had not the morning paper before 
 them, but they were engaged in languid perusal of the 
 bill of fare. 
 
 This latter document was a great puzzle to our friends, 
 who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories had 
 relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy provision of 
 an encyclopaedic dinner-list. They found a great deal 
 of entertainment at the hotel, an enormous wooden struc- 
 ture, for the erection of which it seemed to them that the 
 virgin forests of the West must have been terribly 
 deflowered. It was perforated from end to end with 
 immense' bare corridors, through which a strong draught 
 was blowing bearing along wonderful figures of ladies in 
 white morning-dresses and clouds of Valenciennes lace, 
 who seemed to float down the long vistas with expanded 
 furbelows, like angels spreading their wings. In front 
 
IT. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 21 
 
 was a gigantic verandah, upon which an army might 
 have encamped a vast wooden terrace, with a roof as 
 lofty as the nave of a cathedral. Here our young 
 Englishmen enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of 
 American society, which was distributed over the mea- 
 sureless expanse in a variety of sedentary attitudes, and 
 appeared to consist largely of pretty young girls, dressed 
 as if for a fte champttre, swaying to and fro in rocking- 
 chairs, fanning themselves with large straw fans, and 
 enjoying an enviable exemption from social cares. Lord 
 Lambeth had a theory, which it might be interesting to 
 trace to its origin, that it would be not only agreeable, but 
 easily possible, to enter into relations with one of these 
 young ladies ; and his companion found occasion to check 
 the young nobleman's colloquial impulses. 
 
 "You had better take care," said Percy Beaumont, 
 "or you will have an offended father or brother pulling 
 out a bowie-knife." 
 
 " I assure you it is all right," Lord Lambeth replied. 
 "You know the Americans come to these big hotels to 
 make acquaintances." 
 
 " I know nothing about it, and neither do you," said 
 his kinsman, who, like a clever man, had begun to per- 
 ceive that the observation of American society demanded 
 a readjustment of one's standard. 
 
 "Hang it, then, let's find out !" cried Lord Lambeth 
 with some impatience. ' ' You know, I don't want to 
 miss anything." 
 
 " We will find out," said Percy Beaumont, very reason- 
 ably. " We will go and see Mrs. Westgate, and make 
 all the proper inquiries." 
 
 And so the two inquiring Englishmen, who had this 
 lady's address inscribed in her husband's hand upon a 
 card, descended from the verandah of the big hotel and 
 took their way, according to direction, along a large 
 straight road, past a series of fresh -looking villas em- 
 bosomed in shrubs and flowers, and enclosed in an ingeni- 
 
22 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n. 
 
 ous variety of wooden palings. The morning was bril- 
 liant and cool, the villas were smart and snug, and the 
 walk of the young travellers was very entertaining. 
 Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh 
 paint the day before the red roofs, the green shutters, 
 the clean bright browns and buffs of the house fronts. 
 The flower-beds on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in 
 the radiant air, and the gravel in the short carriage- 
 sweeps to flash and twinkle. Along the road came a 
 hundred little basket-phaetons, in which, almost always, 
 a couple of ladies were sitting ladies in white dresses 
 and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking at 
 the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive, 
 through thick blue veils, tied tightly about their faces as 
 if to guard their complexions. At last the young men 
 came within sight of the sea again, and then, having 
 interrogated a gardener over the paling of a villa, they 
 turned into an open gate. Here they found themselves 
 face to face with the ocean and with a very picturesque 
 structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was 
 perched upon a green embankment just above it. The 
 house had a verandah of extraordinary width all around 
 it, and a great many doors and windows standing open 
 to the verandah. These various apertures had, in com- 
 mon, such an accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy 
 flutter, within, of light curtains, such expansive thresholds 
 and reassuring interiors, that our friends hardly knew 
 which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating a 
 moment, presented themselves at one of the windows. 
 The room within was dark, but in a moment a graceful 
 figure vaguely shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom, 
 and a lady came to meet them. Then they saw that 
 she had been seated at a table, writing, and that she had 
 heard them and had got up. She stepped out into the 
 light ; she wore a frank, charming smile, with which she 
 held out her hand to Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont," 
 
ii. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 23 
 
 she said. "I have heard from my husband that you 
 would come. I am extremely glad to see you." And 
 she shook hands with each of her visitors. Her visitors 
 were a little shy, but they had very good manners ; they 
 responded with smiles and exclamations, and they apolo- 
 gised for not knowing the front door. The lady rejoined, 
 with vivacity, that when she wanted to see people very 
 much she did not insist upon those distinctions, and that 
 Mr. Westgate had written to her of his English friends 
 in terms that made her really anxious. "He said you 
 were so terribly prostrated," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "Oh, you mean by the heat?" replied Percy Beau- 
 mont. "We were rather knocked up, but we feel 
 wonderfully better. We had such a jolly a voyage 
 down here. It's so very good of you to mind." 
 
 "Yes, it's so very kind of you," murmured Lord 
 Lambeth. -. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate stood smiling ; she was extremely 
 pretty. "Well, I did mind," she said ; "and I thought 
 of sending for you this morning, to the Ocean House. I 
 am very glad you are better, and I am charmed you have 
 arrived. You must come round to the other side of the 
 piazza. " And she led the way, with a light, smooth step, 
 looking back at the young men and smiling. 
 
 The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lambeth 
 presently remarked, a very jolly place. It was of the 
 most liberal proportions, and with its awnings, its fanciful 
 chairs, its cushions and rugs, its view of the ocean, close 
 at hand, tumbling along the base of the low cliffs whose 
 level tops intervened in lawnlike smoothness, it formed a 
 charming complement to the drawing-room. As such it 
 was in course of use at the present moment ; it was occu- 
 pied by a social circle. There were several ladies and 
 two or three gentlemen, to whom Mrs. Westgate pro- 
 ceeded to introduce the distinguished strangers. She 
 mentioned a great many names, very freely and distinctly ; 
 the young Englishmen, shuffling about and bowing, were 
 
24 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n. 
 
 rather bewildered. But at last they were provided with 
 chairs low wicker chairs, gilded and tied with a great 
 many ribbons and one of the ladies (a very young 
 person, with a little snub nose and several dimples) 
 offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also adorned 
 with pink love-knots ; but Percy Beaumont declined it, 
 although he was very hot. Presently, however, it became 
 cooler ; the breeze from the sea was delicious, the view 
 was charming, and the people sitting there looked ex- 
 ceedingly fresh and comfortable. Several of the ladies 
 seemed to be young girls, and the gentlemen were slim 
 fair youths, such as our friends had seen the day before 
 in New York. The ladies were working upon bands of 
 tapestry, and one of the young men had an open book in 
 his lap. Beaumont afterwards learned from one of the 
 ladies that this young man had been reading aloud that 
 he was from Boston, and was very fond of reading aloud. 
 Beaumont said it was a great pity that they had in- 
 terrupted him ; he should like so much (from all he had 
 heard) to hear a Bostonian read. Couldn't the young 
 man be induced to go on ? 
 
 "Oh no," said his informant, very freely; "he 
 wouldn't be able to get the young ladies to attend to 
 him now." 
 
 There was something very friendly, Beaumont per- 
 ceived, in the attitude of the company ; they looked at 
 the young Englishmen with an air of animated sympathy 
 and interest ; they smiled, brightly and unanimously, at 
 everything either of the visitors said. Lord Lambeth 
 and his companion felt that they were being made very 
 welcome. Mrs. Westgate seated herself between them, 
 and, talking a great deal to each, they had occasion to 
 observe that she was as pretty as their friend Littledale 
 had promised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes 
 and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was ex- 
 tremely light and graceful, elegant, exquisite. Mrs. 
 Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She was very 
 
ii. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 25 
 
 frank and demonstrative, and appeared always while 
 she looked at you delightedly with her beautiful young 
 eyes to be making sudden confessions and concessions, 
 after momentary hesitations. 
 
 " We shall expect to see a great deal of you," she said 
 to Lord Lambeth, with a kind of joyous earnestness. 
 " We are very fond of Englishmen here ; that is, there 
 are a great many we have been fond of. After a day or 
 two you must come and stay with us ; we hope you will 
 stay a long time. Newport's a very nice place when you 
 come really to know it, when you know plenty of people. 
 Of course, you and Mr. Beaumont will have no difficulty 
 about that. Englishmen are very well received here ; 
 there are almost always two or three of them about. I 
 think they always like it, and I must say I should think 
 they would. They receive ever so much attention. I 
 must say I think they sometimes get spoiled ; but I am 
 sure you and Mr. Beaumont are proof against that. My 
 husband tells me you are a friend of Captain Littledale : 
 he was such a charming man. He made himself most 
 agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder he didn't stay. 
 It couldn't have been pleasanter for him in his own 
 country. Though I suppose it is very pleasant in Eng- 
 land, for English people. I don't know myself ; I have 
 been there very little. I have been a great deal abroad, but 
 I am always on the Continent. I must say I am extremely 
 fond of Paris ; you know we Americans always are ; we 
 go there when we die. Did you ever hear that before ? 
 that was said by a great wit. I mean the good Ameri- 
 cans ; but we are all good ; you'll see that for yourself. 
 All I know of England is London, and all I know of 
 London is that place on that little corner, you know, 
 where you buy jackets jackets with that coarse braid 
 and those big buttons. They make very good jackets in 
 London, I will do you the justice to say that. And 
 some people like the hats ; but about the hats I was 
 always a heretic ; I always got my hats in Paris. You 
 
26 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n. 
 
 can't wear an English hat at least, I never could 
 unless you dress your hair ^ / Anglaise ; and I must say 
 that is a talent I never possessed. In Paris they will 
 make things to suit your peculiarities ; but in England I 
 think you like much more to have how shall I say it ? 
 one thing for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I 
 don't know about other things ; but I have always sup- 
 posed that in other things everything was different. I 
 mean according to the people according to the classes, 
 and all that. I am afraid you will think that I don't 
 take a very favourable view ; but you know you can't 
 take a very favourable view in Dover Street, in the month 
 of November. That has always been my fate. Do you 
 know Jones's Hotel, in Dover Street ? That's all I know 
 of England. Of course, every one admits that the Eng- 
 lish hotels are your weak point. There was always the 
 most frightful fog ; I couldn't see to try my things on. 
 When I got over to America into the light I usually 
 found they were twice too big. The next time I mean 
 to go in the season ; I think I shall go next year. I 
 want very much to take my sister ; she has never been to 
 England. I don't know whether you know what I mean 
 by saying that the Englishmen who come here sometimes 
 get spoiled. I mean that they take things as a matter of 
 course things that are done for them. Now, naturally, 
 they are only a matter of course when the Englishmen 
 are very nice. But, of course, they are almost always 
 very nice. Of course, this isn't nearly such an interest- 
 ing country as England ; there are not nearly so many 
 things to see, and we haven't your country life. I have 
 never seen anything of your country life ; when I am in 
 Europe I am always on the Continent. But I have 
 heard a great deal about it ; I know that when you are 
 among yourselves in the country you have the most 
 beautiful time. Of course, we have nothing of that sort, 
 we have nothing on that scale. I don't apologise, Lord 
 Lambeth ; some Americans are always apologising ; you 
 
ii. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 27 
 
 must have noticed that. We have the reputation of 
 always boasting and bragging and waving the American 
 flag ; but I must say that what strikes me is that we are 
 perpetually making excuses and trying to smooth things 
 over. The American flag has quite gone out of fashion ; 
 it's very carefully folded up, like an old table-cloth. Why 
 should we apologise ? The English never apologise do 
 they? No, I must say I never apologise. You must 
 take us as we come with all our imperfections on our 
 heads. Of course we haven't your country life, and your 
 old ruins, and your great estates, and your leisure-class, 
 and all that. But if we haven't, I should think you might 
 find it a pleasant change I think any country is pleasant 
 where they have pleasant manners. Captain Littledale 
 told me he had never seen such pleasant manners as at 
 Newport ; and he had been a great deal in European 
 society. Hadn't he been in the diplomatic service ? He 
 told me the dream of his life was to get appointed to a 
 diplomatic post in Washington. But he doesn't seem to 
 have succeeded. I suppose that in England promotion 
 and all that sort of thing is fearfully slow. With us, 
 you know, it's a great deal too fast. You see I admit 
 our drawbacks. But I must confess I think Newport is 
 an ideal place. I don't know anything like it anywhere. 
 Captain Littledale told me he didn't know anything like 
 it anywhere. It's entirely different from most watering- 
 places ; it's a most charming life. I must say I think that 
 when one goes to a foreign country, one ought to enjoy 
 the differences. Of course there are differences ; other- 
 wise what did one come abroad for? Look for your 
 pleasure in the differences, Lord Lambeth ; that's the 
 way to do it ; and then I am sure you will find American 
 society at least Newport society most charming and 
 most interesting. I wish very much my husband were 
 here ; but he's dreadfully confined to New York. I 
 suppose you think that is very strange for a gentleman. 
 But you see we haven't any leisure-class." 
 
28 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. n. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate's discourse, delivered in a soft, sweet 
 voice, flowed on like a miniature torrent, and was inter- 
 rupted by a hundred little smiles, glances, and gestures, 
 which might have figured the irregularities and obstruc- 
 tions of such a stream. Lord Lambeth listened to her 
 with, it must be confessed, a rather ineffectual attention, 
 although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and 
 ejaculations of assent and deprecation. He had no great 
 faculty for apprehending generalisations. There were 
 some three or four, indeed, which, in the play of his own 
 intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed 
 convenient at the moment ; but at the present time he 
 could hardly have been said to follow Mrs. Westgate as 
 she darted gracefully about in the sea of speculation. 
 Fortunately she asked for no especial rejoinder, for she 
 looked about at the rest of the company as well, and 
 smiled at Percy Beaumont, on the other side of her, as 
 if he too must understand her and agree with her. He 
 was rather more successful than his companion ; for 
 besides being, as we know, cleverer, his attention was 
 not vaguely distracted by close vicinity to a remarkably 
 interesting young girl, with dark hair and blue eyes. 
 This was the case with Lord Lambeth, to whom it 
 occurred after a while that the young girl with blue 
 eyes and dark hair was the pretty sister of whom Mrs. 
 Westgate had spoken. She presently turned to him 
 with a remark which established her identity. 
 
 " It's a great pity you couldn't have brought my 
 brother-in-law with you. It's a great shame he should 
 be in New York in these days." 
 
 " Oh yes; it's so very hot," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " It must be dreadful," said the young girl. 
 
 "I daresay he is very busy," Lord Lambeth observed. 
 
 "The gentlemen in America work too much," the 
 young girl went on. 
 
 "Oh, do they? I daresay they like it," said her 
 interlocutor. 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 29 
 
 " I don't like it. One never sees them." 
 
 "Don't you, really?" asked Lord Lambeth. "I 
 shouldn't have fancied that." 
 
 "Have you come to study American manners?" 
 asked the young girl. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I just came over for a lark. I 
 haven't got long. " Here there was a pause, and Lord 
 Lambeth began again. " But Mr. Westgate will come 
 down here, will not he?" 
 
 " I certainly hope he will. He must help to entertain 
 you and Mr. Beaumont." 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his hand- 
 some brown eyes. "Do you suppose he would have 
 come down with us, if we had urged him ? " 
 
 Mr. Westgate's sister-in-law was silent a moment, and 
 then " I daresay he would," she answered. 
 
 "Really!" said the young Englishman. "He was 
 immensely civil to Beaumont and me," he added. 
 
 " He is a dear good fellow," the young lady rejoined. 
 "And he is a perfect husband. But all Americans are 
 that," she continued, smiling. 
 
 "Really!" Lord Lambeth exclaimed again; and 
 wondered whether all American ladies had such a pas- 
 sion for generalising as these two, 
 
 III. 
 
 HE sat there a good while : there was a great deal of 
 talk ; it was all very friendly and lively and jolly. 
 Every one present, sooner or later, said something to 
 him, and seemed to make a particular point of addressing 
 him by name. Two or three other persons came in, 
 and there was a shifting of seats and changing of places ; 
 the gentlemen all entered into intimate conversation with 
 
30 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. HI. 
 
 the two Englishmen, made them urgent offers of hospi- 
 tality, and hoped they might frequently be of service to 
 them. They were afraid Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beau- 
 mont were not very comfortable at their hotel that it 
 was not, as one of them said, "so private as those dear 
 little English inns of yours." This last gentleman went 
 on to say that unfortunately, as yet, perhaps, privacy 
 was not quite so easily obtained in America as might be 
 desired ; still, he continued, you could generally get it 
 by paying for it ; in fact you could get everything in 
 America nowadays by paying for it. American life was 
 certainly growing a great deal more private ; it was grow- 
 ing very much like England. Everything at Newport, 
 for instance, was thoroughly private ; Lord Lambeth 
 would probably be struck with that. It was also re- 
 presented to the strangers that it mattered very little 
 whether their hotel was agreeable, as every one would 
 want them to make visits ; they would stay with other 
 people, and, in any case, they would be a great deal at 
 Mrs. Westgate's. They would find that very charming ; 
 it was the pleasantest house in Newport. It was a pity 
 Mr. Westgate was always away ; he was a man of the 
 highest ability very acute, very acute. He worked 
 like a horse, and he left his wife well, to do about 
 as she liked. He liked her to enjoy herself, and she 
 seemed to know how. She was extremely brilliant, 
 and a splendid talker. Some people preferred her 
 sister ; but Miss Alden was very different ; she was in a 
 different style altogether. Some people even thought 
 her prettier, and, certainly, she was not so sharp. She was 
 more in the Boston style ; she had lived a great deal in 
 Boston, and she was very highly educated. Boston girls, 
 it was intimated, were more like English young ladies. 
 
 Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth 
 of this proposition ; for on the company rising in com- 
 pliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they 
 should walk down to the rocks and look at the sea, the 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 31 
 
 young Englishman again found himself, as they strolled 
 across the grass, in proximity to Mrs. Westgate's sister. 
 Though she was but a girl of twenty, she appeared to 
 feel the obligation to exert an active hospitality; and 
 this was perhaps the more to be noticed as she seemed 
 by nature a reserved and retiring person, and had little 
 of her sister's fraternising quality. She was perhaps 
 rather too thin, and she was a little pale ; but as she 
 moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging at 
 her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the sea and 
 then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth 
 thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. Westgate, and 
 reflected that if this was the Boston style the Boston 
 style was very charming. He thought she looked veiy 
 clever ; he could imagine that she was highly educated ; 
 but at the same time she seemed gentle and graceful. 
 For all her cleverness, however, he felt that she had to 
 think a little what to say ; she didn't say the first thing 
 that came into her head ; he had come from a different 
 part of the world and from a different society, and she 
 was trying to adapt her conversation. The others were 
 scattering themselves near the rocks ; Mrs. Westgate 
 had charge of Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "Very jolly place, isn't it?" said Lord Lambeth. 
 " It's a veiy jolly place to sit." 
 
 "Very charming," said the young girl ; " I often sit 
 here ; there are all kinds of cosy corners as if they had 
 been made on purpose." 
 
 " Ah ! I suppose you have had some of them made," 
 said the young man. 
 
 Miss Alden looked at him a moment. " Oh no, we 
 have had nothing made. It's pure nature." 
 
 * ' I should think you would have a few little benches 
 rustic seats and that sort of thing. It might be so 
 jolly to sit here, you know," Lord Lambeth went on. 
 
 "I am afraid we haven't so many of those things as 
 you," said the young girl, thoughtfully. 
 
32 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. HI. 
 
 " I daresay you go in for pure nature, as you were 
 saying. Nature, over here, must be so grand, you 
 know." And Lord Lambeth looked about him. 
 
 The little coast-line hereabouts was very pretty, but it 
 was not at all grand ; and Miss Alden appeared to rise 
 to a perception of this fact. " I am afraid it seems to 
 you very rough," she said. " It's not like the coast 
 scenery in Kingsley's novels. " 
 
 "Ah, the novels always overdo it, you know," Lord 
 Lambeth rejoined. " You must not go by the novels." 
 
 They were wandering about a little on the rocks, and 
 they stopped and looked down into a narrow chasm where 
 the rising tide made a curious bellowing sound. It was 
 loud enough to prevent their hearing each other, and they 
 stood there for some moments in silence. The young 
 girl looked at her companion, observing him attentively 
 but covertly, as women, even when very young, know 
 how to do. Lord Lambeth repaid observation ; tall, 
 straight, and strong, he was handsome as certain young 
 Englishmen, and certain young Englishmen almost alone, 
 are handsome ; with a perfect finish of feature and a look 
 of intellectual repose and gentle good temper, which 
 seemed somehow to be consequent upon his well-cut nose 
 and chin. And to speak of Lord Lambeth's expression of 
 intellectual repose is not simply a civil way of saying that 
 he looked stupid. He was evidently not a young man of 
 an irritable imagination ; he was not, as he would himself 
 have said, tremendously clever ; but, though there was a 
 kind of appealing dulness in his eye he looked thoroughly 
 reasonable and competent, and his appearance proclaimed 
 that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent fellow, 
 was a sufficiently brilliant combination of qualities. The 
 young girl beside him, it may be attested without farther 
 delay, thought him the handsomest young man she had 
 ever seen ; and Bessie Alden's imagination, unlike that of 
 her companion, was irritable. He, however, was also 
 making up his mind that she was uncommonly pretty. 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 33 
 
 " I daresay it's very gay here that you have lots of 
 balls and parties," he said ; for, if he was not tremen- 
 dously clever, he rather prided himself on having, with 
 women, a sufficiency of conversation. 
 
 " Oh yes, there is a great deal going on," Bessie Alden 
 replied; " There are not so many balls, but there are a 
 good many other things. You will see for yourself; we 
 live rather in the midst of it." 
 
 " It's very kind of you to say that. But I thought you 
 Americans were always dancing." 
 
 "I suppose we dance a good deal; but I have 
 never seen much of it. We don't do it much, at any 
 rate, in summer. And I am sure," said Bessie Alden, 
 "that we don't have so many balls as you have in 
 England." 
 
 "Really!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. "Ah, in 
 England it all depends, you know." 
 
 "You will not think much of our gaieties," said the 
 young girl, looking at him with a little mixture of inter- 
 rogation and decision which was peculiar to her. The 
 interrogation seemed earnest and the decision seemed 
 arch ; but the mixture, at any rate, was charming. 
 ' ' Those things, with us, are much less splendid than in 
 England." 
 
 "I fancy you don't mean that," said Lord Lambeth, 
 laughing. 
 
 " I assure you I mean everything I say," the young 
 girl declared. " Certainly, from what I have read about 
 English society, it is very different." 
 
 "Ah, well, you know," said her companion, "those 
 things are often described by fellows who know nothing 
 about them. You mustn't mind what you read." 
 
 "Oh, I shall mind what I read !" Bessie Alden 
 rejoined. "When I read Thackeray and George Eliot, 
 how can I help minding them ?" 
 
 "Ah, well, Thackeray and George Eliot," said the 
 young nobleman ; " I haven't read much of them." 
 
 D 
 
34 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. in. 
 
 " Don't you suppose they know about society ?" asked 
 Bessie Alden. 
 
 " Oh, I daresay they know ; they were so very clever. 
 But those fashionable novels," said Lord Lambeth, " they 
 are awful rot, you know." 
 
 His companion looked at him a moment with her dark 
 blue eyes, and then she looked down into the chasm where 
 the water was tumbling about. " Do you mean Mrs. 
 Gore, for instance ? " she said presently, raising her eyes. 
 
 " I am afraid I haven't read that either," was the young 
 man's rejoinder, laughing a little and blushing. " I am 
 afraid you'll think I am not very intellectual. " 
 
 " Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of intellect. But 
 I like reading everything about English life even poor 
 books. I am so curious about it." 
 
 " Aren't ladies always curious ?" asked the young man. 
 jestingly. 
 
 But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to answer his 
 question seriously. "I don't think so I don't think 
 we are enough so that we care about many things. So 
 it's all the more of a compliment," she added, "that I 
 should want to know so much about England." 
 
 The logic here seemed a little close ; but Lord Lam- 
 beth, conscious of a compliment, found his natural 
 modesty just at hand. "I am sure you know a great 
 deal more than I do." 
 
 " I really think I know a great deal for a person who 
 has never been there." 
 
 "Have you really never been there?" cried Lord 
 Lambeth. "Fancy!" 
 
 " Never except in imagination," said the young girl. 
 
 "Fancy!" repeated her companion. "But I dare- 
 say you'll go soon, won't you ?" 
 
 " It's the dream of my life 1 " declared Bessie Alden, 
 smiling. 
 
 ' ' But your sister seems to know a tremendous lot about 
 London," Lord Lambeth went on. 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 35 
 
 The young girl was silent a moment. " My sister and 
 I are two very different persons," she presently said. 
 "She has been a great deal in Europe. She has been 
 in England several times. She has known a great many 
 English people." 
 
 "But you must have known some, too," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 " I don't think that I have ever spoken to one before. 
 You are the first Englishman that to my knowledge 
 I have ever talked with." 
 
 Bessie Alden made this statement with a certain gravity 
 almost, as it seemed to Lord Lambeth, an impressive- 
 ness. Attempts at impressiveness always made him feel 
 awkward, and he now began to laugh and swing his stick. 
 "Ah, you would have been sure to know!" he said. 
 And then he added, after an instant "I'm sorry I am 
 not a better specimen." 
 
 The young girl looked away ; but she smiled, laying 
 aside her impressiveness. "You must remember that 
 you are only a beginning," she said. Then she retraced 
 her steps, leading the way back to the lawn, where they 
 saw Mrs. Westgate come towards them with Percy 
 Beaumont still at her side. " Perhaps I shall go to 
 England next year," Miss Alden continued; "I want 
 to, immensely. My sister is going to Europe, and she 
 has asked me to go with her. If we go, I shall make 
 her stay as long as possible in London." 
 
 "Ah, you must come in July, "said Lord Lambeth. 
 " That's the time when there is most going on." 
 
 "I don't think I can wait till July," the young girl 
 rejoined. " By the first of May I shall be very im- 
 patient." They had gone farther, and Mrs. Westgate 
 and her companion were near them. "Kitty," said 
 Miss Alden, " I have given out that we are going to 
 London next May. So please to conduct yourself 
 accordingly." 
 
 Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat animated even a 
 
36 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. HI. 
 
 slightly irritated air. He was by no means so hand- 
 some a man as his cousin, although in his cousin's absence 
 he might have passed for a striking specimen of the tall, 
 muscular, fair-bearded, clear-eyed Englishman. Just now 
 Beaumont's clear eyes, which were small and of a pale 
 gray colour, had a rather troubled light, and after glancing 
 at Bessie Alden while she spoke, he rested them upon 
 his kinsman. Mrs. Westgate meanwhile, with her super- 
 fluously pretty gaze, looked at every one alike. 
 
 " You had better wait till the time comes," she said 
 to her sister. " Perhaps next May you won't care so 
 much about London. Mr. Beaumont and I," she went 
 on, smiling at her companion, "have had a tremendous 
 discussion. We don't agree about anything. It's per- 
 fectly delightful." 
 
 * ' Oh, I say, Percy ! " exclaimed Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " I disagree," said Beaumont, stroking down his black 
 hair, "even to the point of not thinking it delightful." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " cried Lord Lambeth again. 
 
 "I don't see anything delightful in my disagreeing 
 with Mrs. Westgate," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "Well, I do!" Mrs. Westgate declared; and she 
 turned to her sister. ' ' You know you have to go to 
 town. The phaeton is there. You had better take 
 Lord Lambeth." 
 
 At this point Percy Beaumont certainly looked straight 
 at his kinsman; he tried to catch his eye. But Lord 
 Lambeth would not look at him ; his own eyes were 
 better occupied. " I shall be very happy," cried Bessie 
 Alden. "I am only going to some shops. But I will 
 drive you about and show you the place." 
 
 "An American woman who respects herself," said 
 Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beaumont, with her bright 
 expository air, " must buy something every day of her 
 life. If she cannot do it herself, she must send out some 
 member of her family for the purpose. So Bessie goes 
 forth to fulfil my mission." 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 37 
 
 The young girl had walked away, with Lord Lambeth 
 by her side, to whom she was talking still ; and Percy 
 Beaumont watched them as they passed towards the house. 
 " She fulfils her own mission," he presently said ; " that 
 of being a veiy attractive young lady." 
 
 "I don't know that I should say very attractive," 
 Mrs. Westgate rejoined. " She is not so much that as 
 she is charming when you really know her. She is very 
 shy." 
 
 "Oh, indeed?" said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "Extremely shy," Mrs. Westgate repeated. "But 
 she is a dear good girl ; she is a charming species of girl. 
 She is not in the least a flirt ; that isn't at all her line ; 
 she doesn't know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She 
 is veiy simple very serious. She has lived a great deal 
 in Boston, with another sister of mine the eldest of us 
 who married a Bostonian. She is very cultivated, not 
 at all like me I am not in the least cultivated. She 
 has studied immensely arid read everything ; she is what 
 they call in Boston * thoughtful.' " 
 
 "A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get hold of!" 
 his lordship's kinsman privately reflected. 
 
 "I really believe," Mrs. Westgate continued, "that 
 the most charming girl in the world is a Boston super- 
 structure upon a New York fonds j or perhaps a New 
 York superstructure upon a Boston fonds. At any rate 
 it's the mixture," said Mrs. Westgate, who continued to 
 give Percy Beaumont a great deal of information. 
 
 Lord Lambeth got into a little basket-phaeton with 
 Bessie Alden, and she drove him down the long avenue, 
 whose extent he had measured on foot a couple of hours 
 before, into the ancient town, as it was called in that 
 part of the world, of Newport. The ancient town was 
 a curious affair a collection of fresh-looking little wooden 
 houses, painted white, scattered over a hill-side and clus- 
 tered about a long straight street, paved with enormous 
 cobble-stones. There were plenty of shops a large pro- 
 
38 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. in. 
 
 portion of which appeared to be those of fruit-vendors, 
 with piles of huge water-melons and pumpkins stacked 
 in front of them ; and, drawn up before the shops, or 
 bumping about on the cobble-stones, were innumerable 
 other basket-phaetons freighted with ladies of high fashion, 
 who greeted each other from vehicle to vehicle, and con- 
 versed on the edge of the pavement in a manner that 
 struck Lord Lambeth as demonstrative with a great 
 many " Oh, my dears," and little quick exclamations and 
 caresses. His companion went into seventeen shops 
 he amused himself with counting them and accumulated, 
 at the bottom of the phaeton, a pile of bundles that 
 hardly left the young Englishman a place for his feet. 
 As she had no groom nor footman, he sat in the phaeton 
 to hold the ponies ; where, although he was not a par- 
 ticularly acute observer, he saw much to entertain him 
 especially the ladies just mentioned, who wandered up 
 and down, with the appearance of a kind of aimless 
 intentness, as if they were looking for something to buy, 
 and who, tripping in and out of their vehicles, displayed 
 remarkably pretty feet. It all seemed to Lord Lambeth 
 very odd, and bright, and gay. Of course, before they 
 got back to the villa, he had had a great deal of desultory 
 conversation with Bessie Alden. 
 
 The young Englishmen spent the whole of that day, 
 and the whole of many successive days, in what the French 
 call the intimite of their new friends. They agreed that 
 it was extremely jolly that they had never known any- 
 thing more agreeable. It is not proposed to narrate 
 minutely the incidents of their sojourn on this charming 
 shore ; though, if it were convenient, I might present a 
 record of impressions none the less delectable that they 
 were not exhaustively analysed. Many of them still 
 linger in the minds of our travellers, attended by a train 
 of harmonious images images of brilliant mornings on 
 lawns and piazzas that overlooked the sea ; of innumerable 
 pretty girls ; of infinite lounging, and talking, and laugh- 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 39 
 
 ing, and flirting, and lunching, and dining ; of universal 
 friendliness and frankness ; of occasions on which they 
 knew every one, and everything, and had an extraordi- 
 nary sense of ease ; of drives and rides in the late after- 
 noon, over gleaming beaches, on long sea-roads, beneath 
 a sky lighted up by marvellous sunsets ; of tea-tables, on 
 the return, informal, irregular, agreeable ; of evenings at 
 open windows or on the perpetual verandahs, in the 
 summer starlight, above the warm Atlantic. The young 
 Englishmen were introduced to everybody, entertained by 
 eveiybody, intimate with everybody. At the end of 
 three days they had removed their luggage from the 
 hotel, and had gone to stay with Mrs. Westgate a step 
 to which Percy Beaumont at first offered some conscien- 
 tious opposition. I call his opposition conscientious, 
 because it was founded upon some talk that he had had, 
 on the second day, with Bessie Alden. He had indeed 
 had a good deal of talk with her, for she was not literally 
 always in conversation with Lord Lambeth. He had 
 meditated upon Mrs. Westgate's account of her sister, 
 and he discovered, for himself, that the young lady was 
 clever, and appeared to have read a great deal. She 
 seemed very nice, though he could not make out that, as 
 Mrs. Westgate had said, she was shy. If she was shy, 
 she carried it off very well. 
 
 "Mr. Beaumont," she had said, " please tell me 
 something about Lord Lambeth's family. How would 
 you say it in England? his position." 
 
 " His position?" Percy Beaumont repeated. 
 
 " His rank or whatever you call it. Unfortunately 
 we haven't got a { Peerage,' like the people in Thackeray." 
 
 "That's a great pity," said Beaumont. "You would 
 find it all set forth there so much better than I can do it." 
 
 "He is a great noble, then?" 
 
 " Oh yes, he is a great noble." 
 
 " Is he a peer?" 
 
 "Almost." 
 
40 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. in. 
 
 " And has he any other title than Lord Lambeth?" 
 
 "His title is the Marquis of Lambeth," said Beau- 
 mont ; and then he was silent ; Bessie Alden appeared 
 to be looking at him with interest. * * He is the son of 
 the Duke of Bayswater," he added, presently. 
 
 "The eldest son?" 
 
 " The only son." 
 
 " And are his parents living?" 
 
 " Oh yes ; if his father were not living he would be a 
 duke." 
 
 " So that when his father dies," pursued Bessie Alden, 
 with more simplicity than might have been expected in a 
 clever girl, "he will become Duke of Bayswater ?" 
 
 " Of course," said Percy Beaumont. st But his father 
 is in excellent health." 
 
 "And his mother?" 
 
 Beaumont smiled a little. c ' The Duchess is uncom- 
 monly robust." 
 
 "And has he any sisters?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, there are two. " 
 
 "And what are they called?" 
 
 "One of them is married. She is the Countess of 
 Pimlico." 
 
 "And the other?" 
 
 " The other is unmarried ; she is plain Lady Julia." 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. " Is she very 
 plain ?" 
 
 Beaumont began to laugh again. "You would not 
 find her so handsome as her brother," he said ; and it 
 was after this that he attempted to dissuade the heir of 
 the Duke of Bayswater from accepting Mrs. Westgate's 
 invitation. " Depend upon it," he said, " that girl 
 means to try for you." 
 
 1 ' It seems to me you are doing your best to make a 
 fool of me," the modest young nobleman answered. 
 
 "She has been asking me," said Beaumont, "all 
 about your people and your possessions. " 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 41 
 
 " I am sure it is very good of her !." Lord Lambeth 
 rejoined. 
 
 "Well, then," observed his companion, "if you go, 
 you go with your eyes open. " 
 
 "Damn my eyes !" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. "If 
 one is to be a dozen times a day at the house, it is a 
 great deal more convenient to sleep there. I am sick of 
 travelling up and down this beastly Avenue." 
 
 Since he had determined to go, Percy Beaumont 
 would of course have been very sorry to allow him to go 
 alone ; he was a man of conscience, and he remembered 
 his promise to the Duchess. It was obviously the 
 memory of this promise that made him say to his com- 
 panion, a couple of days later, that he rather wondered he 
 should be so fond of that girl. 
 
 " In the first place, how do you know how fond I am 
 of her?" asked Lord Lambeth. "And in the second 
 place, why shouldn't I be fond of her ? " 
 
 "I shouldn't think she would be in your line." 
 
 "What do you call my Mine'? You don't set her 
 down as ' fast ' ? " 
 
 " Exactly so. Mrs. Westgate tells me that there is 
 no such thing as the ' fast girl ' in America ; that it's an 
 English invention, and that the term has no meaning 
 here." 
 
 "All the better. It's an animal I detest." 
 
 "You prefer a blue-stocking." 
 
 " Is that what you call Miss Alden?" 
 
 "Her sister tells me," said Percy Beaumont, "that 
 she is tremendously literary." 
 
 "I don't know anything about that. She is certainly 
 very clever." 
 
 "Well," said Beaumont, "I should have supposed 
 you would have found that sort of thing awfully slow." 
 
 "In point of fact," Lord Lambeth rejoined, "I find 
 it uncommonly lively." 
 
 After this, Percy Beaumont held his tongue ; but on 
 
42 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. in. 
 
 August loth he wrote to the Duchess of Bayswater. He 
 was, as I have said, a man of conscience, and he had 
 a strong incorruptible sense of the proprieties of life. 
 His kinsman, meanwhile, was having a great deal of talk 
 with Bessie Alden on the red sea -rocks beyond the 
 lawn ; in the course of long island rides, with a slow 
 return in the glowing twilight ; on the deep verandah, 
 late in the evening. Lord Lambeth, who had stayed at 
 many houses, had never stayed at a house in which it 
 was possible for a young man to converse so frequently 
 with a young lady. This young lady no longer applied 
 to Percy Beaumont for information concerning his lord- 
 ship. She addressed herself directly to the young noble- 
 man. She asked him a great many questions, some of 
 which bored him a little ; for he took no pleasure in 
 talking about himself. 
 
 "Lord Lambeth," said Bessie Alden, "are you an 
 hereditary legislator ?" 
 
 "Oh, I say," cried Lord Lambeth, "don't make me 
 call myself such names as that. " 
 
 "But you are a member of Parliament," said the 
 young girl. 
 
 " I don't like the sound of that either." 
 
 "Doesn't your father sit in the House of Lords?" 
 Bessie Alden went on. 
 
 "Very seldom," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Is it an important position ?" she asked. 
 
 " Oh dear, no," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " I should think it would be very grand," said Bessie 
 Alden, " to possess, simply by an accident of birth, the 
 right to make laws for a great nation." 
 
 "Ah, but one doesn't make laws. It's a great 
 humbug." 
 
 " I don't believe that," the young girl declared. " It 
 must be a great privilege, and I should think that if one 
 thought of it in the right way from a high point of 
 view it would be very inspiring." 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 43 
 
 "The less one thinks of it the better," Lord Lambeth 
 affirmed. 
 
 " I think it's tremendous," said Bessie Alden ; and on 
 another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry. 
 Hereupon it was that, as I have said, he was a little 
 bored. s 
 
 " Do you want to buy up their leases ?" he asked. 
 
 "Well have you got any livings?" she demanded. 
 
 " Oh, I say !" he cried. "Have you got a clergyman 
 that is looking out?" But she made him tell her that 
 he had a castle ; he confessed to but one. It was the 
 place in which he had been born and brought up, and, 
 as he had an old-time liking for it, he was beguiled into 
 describing it a little and saying it was really very jolly. 
 Bessie Alden listened with great interest, and declared 
 that she would give the world to see such a place. 
 Whereupon " It would be awfully kind of you to come 
 and stay there," said Lord Lambeth. He took a vague 
 satisfaction in the circumstance that Percy Beaumont had 
 not heard him make the remark I have just recorded. 
 
 Mr. Westgate, all this time, had not, as they said 
 at Newport, " come on." His wife more than once 
 announced that she expected him on the morrow ; but 
 on the morrow she wandered about a little, with a tele- 
 gram in her jewelled fingers, declaring it was very tire- 
 some that his business detained him in New York ; that 
 he could only hope the Englishmen were having a good 
 time. "I must say," said Mrs. Westgate, "that it is 
 no thanks to him if you are I" And she went on to 
 explain, while she continued that slow-paced promenade 
 which enabled her well-adjusted skirts to display them- 
 selves so advantageously, that unfortunately in America 
 there was no leisure - class. It was Lord Lambeth's 
 theory, freely propounded when the young men were 
 together, that Percy Beaumont was having a very good 
 time with Mrs. Westgate, and that under the pretext 
 of meeting for the purpose of animated discussion, they 
 
44 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. in. 
 
 were indulging in practices that imparted a shade of 
 hypocrisy to the lady's regret for her husband's absence. 
 
 " I assure you we are always discussing and differing." 
 said Percy Beaumont. " She is awfully argumentative. 
 American ladies certainly don't mind contradicting you. 
 Upon my word, I don't think I was ever treated so by a 
 woman before. She's so devilish positive." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate's positive quality, however, evidently 
 had its attractions ; for Beaumont was constantly at his 
 hostess's side. He detached himself one day to the 
 extent of going to New York to talk over the Tennessee 
 Central with Mr. Westgate ; but he was absent only 
 forty -eight hours, during which, with Mr. Westgate's 
 assistance, he completely settled this piece of business. 
 "They certainly do things quickly in New York," he 
 observed to his cousin ; and he added that Mr. Westgate 
 had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her 
 visitor he had been in such an awful hurry to send him 
 back to her. ' ' I'm afraid you'll never come up to an 
 American husband if that's what the wives expect," he 
 said to Lord Lambeth. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much longer 
 the entertainment with which an indulgent husband had 
 desired to keep her provided. On August 2ist Lord 
 Lambeth received a telegram from his mother, requesting 
 him to return immediately to England ; his father had 
 been taken ill, and it was his filial duty to come to him. 
 
 The young Englishman was visibly annoyed. " What 
 the deuce does it mean?" he asked of his kinsman. 
 "What am I to do?" 
 
 Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well ; he had deemed 
 it his duty, as I have narrated, to write to the Duchess, 
 but he had not expected that this distinguished woman 
 would act so promptly upon his hint. " It means," he 
 said, "that your father is laid up. I don't suppose it's 
 anything serious ; but you have no option. Take the 
 first steamer ; but don't be alarmed." 
 
in. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 45 
 
 Lord Lambeth made his farewells ; but the few last 
 words that he exchanged with Bessie Alden are the only 
 ones that have a place in our record. "Of course, I 
 needn't assure you," he said, "that if you should come 
 to England next year, I expect to be the first person 
 that you inform of it." 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a little, and she smiled. 
 "Oh, if we come to London," she answered, "I should 
 think you would hear of it." 
 
 Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his 
 sense of duty compelled him, one windless afternoon, in 
 mid -Atlantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he suspected 
 that the Duchess's telegram was in part the result of 
 something he himself had written to her. "I wrote to 
 her as I explicitly notified you I had promised to do 
 that you were extremely interested in a little American 
 girl." 
 
 Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he indulged 
 for some moments in the simple language of resentment. 
 But I have said that he was a reasonable young man, 
 and I can give no better proof of it than the fact that he 
 remarked to his companion at the end of half an hour 
 "You were quite right after all. I am very much in- 
 terested in her. Only, to be fair," he added, "you 
 should have told my mother also that she is not seriously 
 interested in me." 
 
 Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. "There is 
 nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in your 
 position. That speech is a capital proof that you are 
 sweet on her. " 
 
 "She is not interested she is riot !" Lord Lambeth 
 repeated. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said his companion, "you are 
 very far gone." 
 
46 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 IN point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would have said, 
 Mrs. Westgate disembarked on the i8th of May on the 
 British coast. She was accompanied by her sister, but 
 she was not attended by any other member of her family. 
 To the deprivation of her husband's society Mrs. Westgate 
 was, however, habituated ; she had made half a dozen 
 journeys to Europe without him, and she now accounted 
 for his absence, to interrogative friends on this side 
 of the Atlantic, by allusion to the regrettable but con- 
 spicuous fact that in America there was no leisure-class. 
 The two ladies came up to London and alighted at 
 Jones's Hotel, where Mrs. Westgate, who had made on 
 former occasions the most agreeable impression at this 
 establishment, received an obsequious greeting. Bessie 
 Alden had felt much excited about coming to England ; 
 she had expected the "associations" would be very 
 charming, that it would be an infinite pleasure to rest 
 her eyes upon the things she had read about in the 
 poets and historians. She was very fond of the poets 
 and historians, of the picturesque, of the past, of retro- 
 spect, of mementoes and reverberations of greatness ; so 
 that on coming into the great English world, where 
 strangeness and familiarity would go hand in hand, she 
 was prepared for a multitude of fresh emotions. They 
 began very promptly these tender, fluttering sensations ; 
 they began with the sight of the beautiful English land- 
 scape, whose dark richness was quickened and brightened 
 by the season ; with the carpeted fields and flowering 
 hedgerows, as she looked at them from the window of 
 the train ; with the spires of the* rural churches, peeping 
 above the rook-haunted tree-tops ; with the oak-studded 
 parks, the ancient homes, the cloudy light, the speech, 
 the manners, the thousand differences. Mrs. Westgate's 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 47 
 
 impressions had of course much less novelty and keenness, 
 and she gave but a wandering attention to her sister's 
 ejaculations and rhapsodies. 
 
 " You know my enjoyment of England is not so intel- 
 lectual as Bessie's," she said to several of her friends in 
 the course of her visit to this country. " And yet if it 
 is not intellectual, I can't say it is physical. I don't 
 think I can quite say what it is, my enjoyment of England." 
 When once it was settled that the two ladies should come 
 abroad, and should spend a few weeks in England on their 
 way to the Continent, they of course exchanged a good 
 many allusions to their London acquaintance. 
 
 " It will certainly be much nicer having friends there," 
 Bessie Alden had said one day, as she sat on the sunny 
 deck of the steamer, at her sister's feet, on a large blue rug. 
 
 "Whom do you mean by friends?" Mrs. Westgate 
 asked. 
 
 " All those English gentlemen whom you have known 
 and entertained. Captain Littledale, for instance. And 
 Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont," added Bessie Alden. 
 
 * ' Do you expect them to give us a very grand 
 reception?" 
 
 Bessie reflected a moment ; she was addicted, as we 
 know, to reflection. "Well, yes." 
 
 " My poor sweet child !" murmured her sister. 
 
 " What have I said that is so silly?" asked Bessie. 
 
 " You are a little too simple ; just a little. It is very 
 becoming ; but it pleases people at your expense." 
 
 " I am certainly too simple to understand you," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " Shall I tell you a story?" asked her sister. 
 
 " If you would be so good. That is what they do to 
 amuse simple people." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory, while her com- 
 panion sat gazing at the shining sea. " Did you ever 
 hear of the Duke of Green-Erin ?" 
 
 " I think not," said Bessie. 
 
48 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 " Well, it's no matter," her sister went on. 
 
 " It's a proof of my simplicity." 
 
 ' ' My stoiy is meant to illustrate that of some other 
 people," said Mrs. Westgate. "The Duke of Green- 
 Erin is what they call in England a great swell ; and 
 some five years ago he came to America. He spent 
 most of his time in New York, and in New York he 
 spent his days and his nights at the Butterworths'. You 
 have heard at least of the Butterworths. Bien. They 
 did everything in the world for him they turned them- 
 selves inside out. They gave him a dozen dinner-parties 
 and balls, and were the means of his being invited to 
 fifty more. At first he used to come into Mrs. Butter- 
 worth's box at the opera in a tweed travelling-suit ; but 
 some one stopped that. At any rate, he had a beautiful 
 time, and they parted the best friends in the world. 
 Two years elapse, and the Butterworths come abroad and 
 go to London. The first thing they see in all the papers 
 in England those things are in the most prominent 
 place is that the Duke of Green-Erin has arrived in 
 town for the season. They wait a little, and then Mr. 
 Butterworth as polite as ever goes and leaves a card. 
 They wait a little more ; the visit is not returned ; they 
 wait three weeks silence de mort the Duke gives no 
 sign. The Butterworths see a lot of other people, put 
 down the Duke of Green-Erin as a rude ungrateful man, 
 and forget all about him. One fine day they go to Ascot 
 Races, and there they meet him face to face. He stares 
 a moment, and then comes up to Mr. Butterworth, taking 
 something from his pocket-book something which proves 
 to be a bank-note. 'I'm glad to see you, Mr. Butter- 
 worth,' he says, * so that I can pay you that ten pounds I 
 lost to you in New York. I saw the other day you 
 remembered our bet ; here are the ten pounds, Mr. 
 Butterworth. Good-bye, Mr. Butterworth.' And off 
 he goes, and that's the last they see of the Duke of 
 Green-Erin." 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 49 
 
 " Is that your story?" asked Bessie Alden. 
 
 " Don't you think it's interesting?" her sister replied. 
 
 " I don't believe it," said the young girl. 
 
 " Ah!" cried Mrs. Westgate, "you are not so simple 
 after all. Believe it or not as you please ; there is no 
 smoke without fire. " 
 
 "Is that the way," asked Bessie after a moment, 
 " that you expect your friends to treat you ?" 
 
 " I defy them to treat me very ill, because I shall not 
 give them the opportunity. With the best will in the 
 world, in that case, they can't be very disobliging.'* 
 
 Bessie Alden was silent a moment. " I don't see 
 what makes you talk that way," she said. "The English 
 are a great people." 
 
 " Exactly ; and that is just the way they have grown 
 great by dropping you when you have ceased to be use- 
 ful. People say they are not clever ; but I think they 
 are very clever." 
 
 " You know you have liked them all the Englishmen 
 you have seen," said Bessie. 
 
 " They have liked me," her sister rejoined ; " it would 
 be more correct to say that. And of course one likes that." 
 
 Bessie Alden resumed for some moments her studies 
 in sea-green. "Well," she said, "whether they like 
 me or not, I mean to like them. And happily," she 
 added, " Lord Lambeth does not owe me ten pounds." 
 
 During the first few days after their arrival at Jones's 
 Hotel our charming Americans were much occupied with 
 what they would have called looking about them. They 
 found occasion to make a large number of purchases, and 
 their opportunities for conversation were such only as 
 were offered by the deferential London shopmen. Bessie 
 Alden, even in driving from the station, took an immense 
 fancy to the British metropolis, and, at the risk of ex- 
 hibiting her as a young woman of vulgar tastes, it must 
 be recorded that for a considerable period she desired no 
 higher pleasure than to drive about the crowded streets 
 
 E 
 
50 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 in a hansom cab. To her attentive eyes they were full 
 of a strange picturesque life, and it is at least beneath the 
 dignity of our historic muse to enumerate the trivial 
 objects and incidents which this simple young lady from 
 Boston found so entertaining. It may be freely men- 
 tioned, however, that whenever, after a round of visits in 
 Bond Street and Regent Street, she was about to return 
 with her sister to Jones's Hotel, she made an earnest re- 
 quest that they should be driven home by way of West- 
 minster Abbey. She had begun by asking whether it 
 would not be possible to take the Tower on the way to 
 their lodgings ; but it happened that, at a more primitive 
 stage of her culture, Mrs. Westgate had paid a visit to 
 this venerable monument, which she spoke of ever after- 
 wards, vaguely, as a dreadful disappointment ; so that 
 she expressed the liveliest disapproval of any attempt to 
 combine historical researches with the purchase of hair- 
 brushes and note-paper. The most she would consent 
 to do in this line was to spend half an hour at Madame 
 Tussaud's, where she saw several dusty wax effigies of 
 members of the Royal Family. She told Bessie that, if 
 she wished to go to the Tower, she must get some one 
 else to take her. Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest 
 disposition to go alone ; but upon this proposal as well 
 Mrs. Westgate sprinkled cold water. 
 
 "Remember," she said, "that you are not in your 
 innocent little Boston. It is not a question of walking 
 up and down Beacon Street." Then she went on to 
 explain that there were two classes of American girls in 
 Europe those that walked about alone and those that 
 did not. "You happen to belong, my dear," she said 
 to her sister, " to the class that does not." 
 
 "It is only," answered Bessie, laughing, "because 
 you happen to prevent me." And she devoted much 
 private meditation to this question of effecting a visit to 
 the Tower of London. 
 
 Suddenly it seemed as if the problem might be solved ; 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 51 
 
 the two ladies at Jones's Hotel received a visit from Willie 
 Woodley. Such was the social appellation of a young 
 American who had sailed from New York a few days 
 after their own departure, and who, having the privilege 
 of intimacy with them in that city, had lost no time, on 
 his arrival in London, in coming to pay them his respects. 
 He had, in fact, gone to see them directly after going to 
 see his tailor ; than which there can be no greater ex- 
 hibition of promptitude on the part of a young American 
 who has just alighted at the Charing Cross Hotel. He 
 was a slim, pale youth, of the most amiable disposition, 
 famous for the skill with which he led the " German " in 
 New York. Indeed, by the young ladies who habitually 
 figured in this fashionable frolic, he was believed to be 
 ' ' the best dancer in the world ; " it was in these terms 
 that he was always spoken of, and that his identity was 
 indicated. He was the gentlest, softest young man it 
 was possible to meet; he was beautifully dressed "in 
 the English style " and he knew an immense deal about 
 London. He had been at Newport during the previous 
 summer, at the time of our young Englishmen's visit, and 
 he took extreme pleasure in the society of Bessie Alden, 
 whom he always addressed as "Miss Bessie." She im- 
 mediately arranged with him, in the presence of her sister, 
 that he should conduct her to the scene of Lady Jane 
 Grey's execution. 
 
 "You may do as you please," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 " Only if you desire the information it is not the custom 
 here for young ladies to knock about London with young 
 men." 
 
 " Miss Bessie has waltzed with me so often," observed 
 Willie Woodley ; " she can surely go out with me in a 
 hansom." 
 
 "I consider waltzing," said Mrs. Westgate, "the 
 most innocent pleasure of our time." 
 
 " It's a compliment to our time !" exclaimed the young 
 man, with a little laugh, in spite of himself. 
 
52 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 " I don't see why I should regard what is done here," 
 said Bessie Alden. " Why should I suffer the restrictions 
 of a society of which I enjoy none of the privileges ?" 
 
 "That's very good very good," murmured Willie 
 Woodley. 
 
 ' ' Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the axe, if you like ! " 
 said Mrs. Westgate. " I consent to your going with 
 Mr. Woodley ; but I should not let you go with an 
 Englishman." 
 
 " Miss Bessie wouldn't care to go with an Englishman ! " 
 Mr. Woodley declared, with a faint asperity that was, 
 perhaps, not unnatural in a young man who, dressing 
 in the manner that I have indicated, and knowing a great 
 deal, as I have said, about London, saw no reason for 
 drawing these sharp distinctions. He agreed upon a day 
 with Miss Bessie a day of that same week. 
 
 An ingenious mind might, perhaps, trace a connection 
 between the young girl's allusion to her destitution of 
 social privileges and a question she asked on the morrow 
 as she sat with her sister at lunch. 
 
 "Don't you mean to write to to any one?" said 
 Bessie. 
 
 "I wrote this morning to Captain Littledale," Mrs. 
 Westgate replied. 
 
 "But Mr. Woodley said that Captain Littledale had 
 gone to India." 
 
 " He said he thought he had heard so ; he knew 
 nothing about it." 
 
 For a moment Bessie Alden said nothing more ; then, 
 at last, "And don't you intend to write to to Mr. 
 Beaumont?" she inquired. 
 
 " You mean to Lord Lambeth," said her sister. 
 
 " I said Mr. Beaumont, because he was so good a friend 
 of yours." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate looked at the young girl with sisterly 
 candour. " I don't care two straws for Mr. Beaumont." 
 
 " You were certainly very nice to him." 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 53 
 
 " I am nice to every one," said Mrs. Westgate, simply. 
 
 "To every one but me," rejoined Bessie, smiling. 
 
 Her sister continued to look at her ; then, at last, 
 "Are you in love with Lord Lambeth?" she asked. 
 
 The young girl stared a moment, and the question was 
 apparently too humorous even to make her blush. " Not 
 that I know of," she answered. 
 
 "Because if you are," Mrs. Westgate went on, "I 
 shall certainly not send for him." 
 
 "That proves what I said," declared Bessie, smiling 
 " that you are not nice to me." 
 
 " It would be a poor service, my dear child," said her 
 sister. 
 
 "In what sense? There is nothing against Lord 
 Lambeth, that I know of." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate was silent a moment. "You are in 
 love with him, then ? " 
 
 Bessie stared again ; but this time she blushed a little. 
 " Ah ! if you won't be serious," she answered, "we will 
 not mention him again." 
 
 For some moments Lord Lambeth was not mentioned 
 again, and it was Mrs. Westgate who, at the end of this 
 period, reverted to him. " Of course I will let him know 
 we are here ; because I think he would be hurt justly 
 enough if we should go away without seeing him. It 
 is fair to give him a chance to come and thank me for 
 the kindness we showed him. But I don't want to seem 
 eager." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Bessie, with a little laugh. 
 
 "Though I confess," added her sister, "that I am 
 curious to see how we will behave." 
 
 " He behaved very well at Newport." 
 
 " Newport is not London. At Newport he could do 
 as he liked ; but here, it is another affair. He has to 
 have an eye to consequences." 
 
 " If he had more freedom, then, at Newport," argued 
 Bessie, "it is the more to his credit that he behaved 
 
54 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 well ; and if he has to be so careful here, it is possible 
 he will behave even better." 
 
 "Better better," repeated her sister. "My dear 
 child, what is your point of view?" 
 
 " How do you mean my point of view ?" 
 
 "Don't you care for Lord Lambeth a little?" 
 
 This time Bessie Alden was displeased ; she slowly 
 got up from table, turning her face away from her sister. 
 "You will oblige me by not talking so," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for some moments as 
 she moved slowly about the room and went and stood at 
 the window. " I will write to him this afternoon," she 
 said at last. 
 
 " Do as you please !" Bessie answered ; and presently 
 she turned round. "I am not afraid to say that I like 
 Lord Lambeth. I like him very much." 
 
 "He is not clever," Mrs. Westgate declared. 
 
 "Well, there have been clever people whom I have 
 disliked," said Bessie Alden ; " so that I suppose I may 
 like a stupid one. Besides, Lord Lambeth is not stupid." 
 
 "Not so stupid as he looks!" exclaimed her sister, 
 smiling. 
 
 " If I were in love with Lord Lambeth, as you said just 
 now, it would be bad policy on your part to abuse him." 
 
 "My dear child, don't give me lessons in policy!" 
 cried Mrs. Westgate. "The policy I mean to follow is 
 very deep." 
 
 The young girl began to walk about the room again ; 
 then she stopped before her sister. " I have never heard 
 in the course of five minutes," she said, "so many hints 
 and innuendoes. T wish yon would tell me in plain 
 English what you mean." 
 
 " I mean that you may be much annoyed." 
 
 "That is still only a hint," said Bessie. 
 
 Her sister looked at her, hesitating an instant. " It 
 will be said of you that you have come after Lord 
 Lambeth that you followed him." 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 55 
 
 Bessie Alden threw back her pretty head like a startled 
 hind, and a look flashed into her face that made Mrs. 
 Westgate rise from her chair. " Who says such things 
 as that ?" she demanded. 
 
 "People here." 
 
 " I don't believe it," said Bessie. 
 
 " You have a very convenient faculty of doubt. But 
 my policy will be, as I say, very deep. I shall leave 
 you to find out this kind of thing for yourself." 
 
 Bessie fixed her eyes upon her sister, and Mrs. West- 
 gate thought for a moment there were tears in them. 
 " Do they talk that way here ?" she asked. 
 
 "You will see. I shall leave you alone." 
 
 "Don't leave me alone," said Bessie Alden. " Take 
 me away." 
 
 " No ; I want to see what you make of it," her sister 
 continued. 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 "You will understand after Lord Lambeth has come," 
 said Mrs. Westgate, with a little laugh. 
 
 The two ladies had arranged that, on this afternoon, 
 Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde Park, 
 where Bessie Alden expected to derive much entertain- 
 ment from sitting on a little green chair, under the great 
 trees, beside Rotten Row. The want of a suitable 
 escort had hitherto rendered this pleasure inaccessible ; 
 but no escort, now, for such an expedition, could have 
 been more suitable than their devoted young countryman, 
 whose mission in life, it might almost be said, was to 
 find chairs for ladies, and who appeared on the stroke 
 of half-past five with a white camellia in his button- 
 hole. 
 
 " I have written to Lord Lambeth, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Westgate to her sister, on coming into the room 
 where Bessie Alden, drawing on her long gray gloves, 
 was entertaining their visitor. 
 
 Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley exclaimed 
 
56 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 that his lordship was in town ; he had seen his name in 
 the Morning Post. 
 
 " Do you read the Morning Post ? " asked Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
 " Oh yes ; it's great fun," Willie Woodley affirmed. 
 
 " I want so to see it," said Bessie, " there is so much 
 about it in Thackeray." 
 
 " I will send it to you eveiy morning," said Willie 
 Woodley. 
 
 He found them what Bessie Alden thought excellent 
 places, under the great trees, beside the famous avenue 
 whose humours had been made familiar to the young 
 girl's childhood by the pictures in Pimch. The day was 
 bright and warm, and the crowd of riders and spectators 
 and the great procession of carriages were proportionately 
 dense and brilliant. The scene bore the stamp of the 
 London Season at its height, and Bessie Alden found 
 more entertainment in it than she was able to express to 
 her companions. She sat silent, under her parasol, and 
 her imagination, according to its wont, let itself loose 
 into the great changing assemblage of striking and sug- 
 gestive figures. They stirred up a host of old impressions 
 and preconceptions, and she found herself fitting a history 
 to this person and a theory to that, and making a place 
 for them all in her little private museum of types. But if 
 she said little, her sister on one side and Willie Woodley 
 on the other expressed themselves in lively alternation. 
 
 "Look at that green dress with blue flounces," said 
 Mrs. Westgate. " Quelle toilette /" 
 
 "That's the Marquis of Blackborough," said the 
 young man < * the one in the white coat. I heard him 
 speak the other night in the House of Lords ; it was 
 something about ramrods ; he called them wamwods. 
 He's an awful swell." 
 
 "Did you ever see anything like the way they are 
 pinned back?" Mrs. Westgate resumed. "They never 
 know where to stop." 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 57 
 
 "They do nothing but stop," said Willie Woodley. 
 "It prevents them from walking. Here comes a great 
 celebrity Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She's awfully fast ; 
 see what little steps she takes." 
 
 "Well, my dear," Mrs. Westgate pursued, "I hope 
 you are getting some ideas for your cotrtitr&rt?" 
 
 "I am getting plenty of ideas," said Bessie, "but 
 I don't know that my couturiere would appreciate 
 them." 
 
 Willie Woodley presently perceived a friend on horse- 
 back, who drove up beside the barrier of the Row and 
 beckoned to him. He went forward, and the crowd of 
 pedestrians closed about him, so that for some ten 
 minutes he was hidden from sight. At last he reappeared, 
 bringing a gentleman with him a gentleman whom 
 Bessie at first supposed to be his friend dismounted. 
 But at a second glance she found herself looking at Lord 
 Lambeth, who was shaking hands with her sister. 
 
 " I found him over there," said Willie Woodley "and 
 I told him you were here." 
 
 And then Lord Lambeth, touching his hat a little, 
 shook hands with Bessie. "Fancy your being here!" 
 he said. He was blushing and smiling ; he looked very 
 handsome, and he had a kind of splendour that he had 
 not had in America. Bessie Alden's imagination, as we 
 know, was just then in exercise ; so that the tall young 
 Englishman, as he stood there looking down at her, had 
 the benefit of it. " He is handsomer and more splendid 
 than anything I have ever seen," she said to herself. 
 And then she remembered that he was a Marquis, and 
 she thought he looked like a Marquis. 
 
 "Really, you know," he cried, "you ought to have 
 let a man know you were here?" 
 
 " I wrote to you an hour ago," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "Doesn't all the world know it?" asked Bessie, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I assure you I didn't know it ! " cried Lord Lambeth. 
 
58 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 " Upon my honour I hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley 
 now; had I, Woodley?" 
 
 " Well, I think you are rather a humbug," said Willie 
 Woodley. 
 
 "You don't believe that do you, Miss Alden?" 
 asked his lordship. " You don't believe I'm a humbug, 
 eh?" 
 
 "No," said Bessie, "I don't." 
 
 " You are too tall to stand up, Lord Lambeth," Mrs. 
 Westgate observed. * * You are only tolerable when you 
 sit down. Be so good as to get a chair." 
 
 He found a chair and placed it sidewise, close to the 
 two ladies. * * If I hadn't met Woodley I should never 
 have found you," he went on. " Should I, Woodley?" 
 
 "Well, I guess not," said the young American. 
 
 "Not even with my letter?" asked Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 ' ' Ah, well, I haven't got your letter yet ; I suppose I 
 shall get it this evening. It was awfully kind of you to 
 write. " 
 
 " So I said to Bessie," observed Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "Did she say so, Miss Alden?" Lord Lambeth in- 
 quired. " I daresay you have been here a month." 
 
 "We have been here three," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " Have you been here three months ?" the young man 
 asked again of Bessie. 
 
 " It seems a long time," Bessie answered. 
 
 " I say, after that you had better not call me a 
 humbug !" cried Lord Lambeth. " I have only been in 
 town three weeks ; but you must have been hiding 
 away. I haven't seen you anywhere." 
 
 " Where should you have seen us where should we 
 have gone?" asked Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "You should have gone to Hurlingham," said Willie 
 Woodley. 
 
 "No, let Lord Lambeth tell us," Mrs. Westgate 
 insisted. 
 
 "There are plenty of places to go to," said Lord 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 59 
 
 Lambeth " each one stupider than the other. I mean 
 people's houses ; they send you cards." 
 
 " No one has sent us cards," said Bessie. 
 
 "We are very quiet," her sister declared. "We are 
 here as travellers." 
 
 " We have been to Madame Tussaud's," Bessie 
 pursued. 
 
 ''Oh, I say !" cried Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "We thought we should find your image there," said 
 Mrs. Westgate "yours and Mr. Beaumont's." 
 
 "In the Chamber of Horrors?" laughed the young 
 man. 
 
 " It did duty very well for a party," said Mrs. West- 
 gate. "All the women were decolletees, and many of 
 the figures looked as if they could speak if they tried." 
 
 "Upon my word," Lord Lambeth rejoined, "you see 
 people at London parties that look as if they couldn't 
 speak if they tried." 
 
 " Do you think Mr. Woodley could find us Mr. Beau- 
 mont?" asked Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 Lord Lambeth stared and looked round him. " I 
 daresay he could. Beaumont often comes here. Don't 
 you think you could find him, Woodley ? Make a dive 
 into the crowd." 
 
 " Thank you ; I have had enough diving," said Willie 
 Woodley. " I will wait till Mr. Beaumont comes to the 
 surface." 
 
 "I will bring him to see you," said Lord Lambeth ; 
 " where are you staying ?" 
 
 "You will find the address in my letter Jones's Hotel." 
 
 " Oh, one of those places just out of Piccadilly ? 
 Beastly hole, isn't it?" Lord Lambeth inquired. 
 
 "I believe it's the best hotel in London," said Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
 " But they give you awful rubbish to eat, don't they ?" 
 his lordship went on. 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
60 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 " I always feel so sorry for the people that come up 
 to town and go to live in those places," continued the 
 young man. " They eat nothing but poison." 
 
 "Oh, I say !" cried Willie Woodley. 
 
 " Well, how do you like London, Miss Alden ?" Lord 
 Lambeth asked, unperturbed by this ejaculation. 
 
 "I think it's grand," said Bessie Alden. 
 
 "My sister likes it, in spite of the ' poison' !" Mrs. 
 Westgate exclaimed. 
 
 " I hope you are going to stay a long time." 
 
 " As long as I can," said Bessie. 
 
 " And where is Mr. Westgate?" asked Lord Lambeth 
 of this gentleman's wife. 
 
 "He's where he always is in that tiresome New 
 York." 
 
 " He must be tremendously clever," said the young 
 man. 
 
 " I suppose he is," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 Lord Lambeth sat for nearly an hour with his American 
 friends ; but it is not our purpose to relate their conversa- 
 tion in full. He addressed a great many remarks to 
 Bessie Alden, and finally turned towards her altogether, 
 while Willie Woodley entertained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie 
 herself said very little ; she was on her guard, thinking 
 of what her sister had said to her at lunch. Little by 
 little, however, she interested herself in Lord Lambeth 
 again, as she had done at Newport ; only it seemed to her 
 that here he might become more interesting. He would 
 be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the impressive- 
 ness, the picturesqueness of England ; and poor Bessie 
 Alden, like many a Yankee maiden, was terribly at the 
 mercy of picturesqueness. 
 
 " I have often wished I were at Newport again," said 
 the young man. "Those days I spent at your sister's 
 were awfully jolly." 
 
 "We enjoyed them very much ; I hope your father is 
 better." 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 61 
 
 " Oh dear, yes. When I got to England he was out 
 grouse-shooting. It was what you call in America a 
 gigantic fraud. My mother had got nervous. My three 
 weeks at Newport seemed like a happy dream." 
 
 "America certainly is very different from England," 
 said Bessie. 
 
 " I hope you like England better, eh ?" Lord Lambeth 
 rejoined, almost persuasively. 
 
 " No Englishman can ask that seriously of a person 
 of another country." 
 
 Her companion looked at her for a moment. " You 
 mean it's a matter of course ?" 
 
 " If I were English," said Bessie, "it would certainly 
 seem to me a matter of course that every one should be 
 a good patriot." 
 
 "Oh dear, yes; patriotism is everything," said Lord 
 Lambeth, not quite following, but very contented. 
 "Now, what are you going to do here?" 
 
 " On Thursday I am going to the Tower." 
 
 "The Tower?" 
 
 " The Tower of London. Did you never hear of it ?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I have been there," said Lord Lambeth. 
 " I was taken there by my governess, when I was six 
 years old. It's a rum idea, your going there." 
 
 "Do give me a few more rum ideas," said Bessie. 
 " I want to see everything of that sort. I am going to 
 Hampton Court, and to Windsor, and to the Dulwich 
 Gallery." 
 
 Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. " I wonder 
 you don't go to the Rosherville Gardens." 
 
 "Are they interesting?" asked Bessie. 
 
 "Oh, wonderful !" 
 
 "Are they very old? That's all I care for," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " They are tremendously old ; they are all falling to 
 ruins." 
 
 " I think there is nothing so charming as an old ruin- 
 
62 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. iv. 
 
 ous garden," said the young girl. " We must certainly 
 go there." 
 
 Lord Lambeth broke out into merriment. " I say, 
 Woodley," he cried, "here's Miss Alden wants to go to 
 the Kosher ville Gardens !" 
 
 Willie Woodley looked a little blank ; he was caught 
 in the fact of ignorance of an apparently conspicuous 
 feature of London life. But in a moment he turned it 
 off. " Very well," he said, 'Til write for a permit." 
 
 Lord Lambeth's exhilaration increased. "'Gad, I 
 believe you Americans would go anywhere ! " he cried. 
 
 " We wish to go to Parliament," said Bessie. ' ' That's 
 one of the first things." 
 
 " Oh, it would bore you to death !" cried the young 
 man. 
 
 " We wish to hear you speak." 
 
 " I never speak except to young ladies/' said Lord 
 Lambeth, smiling. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a while : smiling, too, in 
 the shadow of her parasol. " You are very strange," she 
 murmured. " I don't think I approve of you." 
 
 " Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Alden !" said Lord 
 Lambeth, smiling still more. " Please don't be severe. 
 I want you to like me awfully. " 
 
 "To like you awfully? You must not laugh at me, 
 then, when I make mistakes. I consider it my right 
 as a free-born American to make as many mistakes as 
 I choose." 
 
 " Upon my word, I didn't laugh at you," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 "And not only that," Bessie went on ; "but I hold 
 that all my mistakes shall be set down to my credit. 
 You must think the better of me for them." 
 
 "I can't think better of you than I do," the young 
 man declared. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a moment again. " You 
 certainly speak very well to young ladies. But why 
 
iv. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 63 
 
 don't you address the House ? isn't that what they call 
 it?" 
 
 " Because I have nothing to say," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Haven't you a great position?" asked Bessie Alden. 
 
 He looked a moment at the back of his glove. " I'll 
 set that down," he said, "as one of your mistakes to 
 your credit. " And, as if he disliked talking about his 
 position, he changed the subject. " I wish you would 
 let me go with you to the Tower, and to Hampton Court, 
 and to all those other places. " 
 
 " We shall be most happy," said Bessie. 
 
 " And of course I shall be delighted to show you the 
 Houses of Parliament some day that suits you. There 
 are a lot of things I want to do for you. I want you to 
 have a good time. And I should like very much to 
 present some of my friends to you, if it wouldn't bore 
 you. Then it would be awfully kind of you to come 
 down to Branches." 
 
 "We are much obliged to you, Lord Lambeth," said 
 Bessie. " What is Branches ? " 
 
 " It's a house in the country. I think you might 
 like it." 
 
 Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate, at this moment, 
 were sitting in silence, and the young man's ear caught 
 these last words of Lord Lambeth's. " He's inviting 
 Miss Bessie to one of his castles," he murmured to his 
 companion. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she mentally called 
 "complications," immediately got up; and the two 
 ladies, taking leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, under 
 Mr. Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel. 
 
64 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 V. 
 
 LORD LAMBETH came to see them on the morrow, 
 bringing Percy Beaumont with him the latter having 
 instantly declared his intention of neglecting none of the 
 usual offices of civility. This declaration, however, 
 when his kinsman informed him of the advent of their 
 American friends, had been preceded by another remark. 
 
 " Here they are, then, and you are in for it." 
 
 " What am I in for?" demanded Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "I will let your mother give it a name. With all 
 respect to whom," added Percy Beaumont, " I must 
 decline on this occasion to do any more police duty. 
 Her Grace must look after you herself." 
 
 "I will give her a chance," said her Grace's son, a 
 trifle grimly. ' * I shall make her go and see them. " 
 
 " She won't do it, my boy." 
 
 " We'll see if she doesn't," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 But if Percy Beaumont took a sombre view of the 
 arrival of the two ladies at Jones's Hotel, he was suf- 
 ficiently a man of the world to offer them a smiling 
 countenance. He fell into animated conversation 
 conversation, at least, that was animated on her side 
 with Mrs. Westgate, while his companion made himself 
 agreeable to the younger lady. Mrs. Westgate began 
 confessing and protesting, declaring and expounding. 
 
 " I must say London is a great deal brighter and 
 prettier just now than it was when I was here last in 
 the month of November. There is evidently a great deal 
 going on, and you seem to have a good many flowers. I 
 have no doubt it is very charming for all you people, and 
 that you amuse yourselves immensely. It is very good 
 of you to let Bessie and me come and sit and look at 
 you. I suppose you will think I am very satirical, but I 
 must confess that that's the feeling I have in London." 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 65 
 
 " I am afraid I don't quite understand to what feeling 
 you allude," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 ' ' The feeling that it's all very well for you English 
 people. Everything is beautifully arranged for you." 
 
 " It seems to me it is very well for some Americans, 
 sometimes," rejoined Beaumont. 
 
 " For some of them, yes if they like to be patronised. 
 But I must say I don't like to be patronised. I may be 
 very eccentric and undisciplined and unreasonable ; but 
 I confess I never was fond of patronage. I like to 
 associate with people on the same terms as I do in my 
 own country ; that's a peculiar taste that I have. But 
 here people seem to expect something else Heaven 
 knows what ! I am afraid you will think I am very 
 ungrateful, for I certainly have received a great deal of 
 attention. The last time I was here, a lady sent me a 
 message that I was at liberty to come and see her." 
 
 "Dear me, I hope you didn't go," observed Percy 
 Beaumont. 
 
 "You are deliciously na'if^ I must say that for you !" 
 Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "It must be a great advan- 
 tage to you here in London. I suppose that if I myself 
 had a little more naivete ', I should enjoy it more. I should 
 be content to sit on a chair in the Park, and see the people 
 pass, and be told that this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and 
 that is the Lord Chamberlain, and that I must be thank- 
 ful for the privilege of beholding them. I daresay it is 
 very wicked and critical of me to ask for anything else. 
 But I was always critical, and I freely confess to the sin 
 of being fastidious. I am told there is some remarkably 
 superior second-rate society provided here for strangers. 
 Merci! I don't want any superior second-rate society. 
 I want the society that I have been accustomed to." 
 
 " I hope you don't call Lambeth and me second-rate," 
 Beaumont interposed. 
 
 "Oh, I am accustomed to you !" said Mrs. Westgate. 
 " Do you know that you English sometimes make the 
 
 F 
 
66 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 most wonderful speeches? The first time I came to 
 London, I went out to dine as I told you, I have 
 received a great deal of attention. After dinner, in the 
 drawing-room, I had some conversation with an old 
 lady : I assure you I had. I forget what we talked 
 about ; but she presently said, in allusion to something 
 we were discussing, ' Oh, you know, the aristocracy do 
 so-and-so ; but in one's own class of life it is very dif- 
 ferent.' In one's own class of life ! What is a poor 
 unprotected American woman to do in a country where 
 she is liable to have that sort of thing said to her?" 
 
 * ' You seem to get hold of some very queer old ladies ; 
 I compliment you on your acquaintance !" Percy Beau- 
 mont exclaimed. " If you are trying to bring me to 
 admit that London is an odious place, you'll not succeed. 
 I'm extremely fond of it, and I think it the jolliest place 
 in the world." 
 
 "Pour vous autres. I never said the contrary," Mrs. 
 Westgate retorted. I make use of this expression 
 because both interlocutors had begun to raise their 
 voices. Percy Beaumont naturally did not like to hear 
 his country abused, and Mrs. Westgate, no less naturally, 
 did not like a stubborn debater. 
 
 "Hallo!" said Lord Lambeth; "what are they up 
 to now?" And he came away from the window, where 
 he had been standing with Bessie Alden. 
 
 " I quite agree with a very clever countrywoman of 
 mine," Mrs. Westgate continued, with charming ardour, 
 though with imperfect relevancy. She smiled at the two 
 gentlemen for a moment with terrible brightness, as if to 
 toss at their feet upon their native heath the gauntlet 
 of defiance. "For me, there are only two social posi- 
 tions worth speaking of that of an American lady and 
 that of the Emperor of Russia. " 
 
 " And what do you do with the American gentlemen ?" 
 asked Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " She leaves them in America !" said Percy Beaumont. 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 67 
 
 On the departure of their visitors, Bessie Alden told 
 her sister that Lord Lambeth would come the next day, 
 to go with them to the Tower, and that he had kindly 
 offered to bring his "trap," and drive them thither. 
 Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this communication, 
 and Tor some time afterwards she said nothing. But at 
 last, "If you had not requested me the other day not to 
 mention it," she began, "there is something I should 
 venture to ask you." Bessie frowned a little ; her dark 
 blue eyes were more dark than blue. But her sister 
 went on. "As it is, I will take the risk. You are not 
 in love with Lord Lambeth : I believe it, perfectly. 
 Very good. But is there, by chance, any danger of 
 your becoming so ? It's a very simple question ; don't 
 take offence. I have a particular reason," said Mrs. 
 Westgate, " for wanting to know." 
 
 Bessie Alden for some moments said nothing ; she 
 only looked displeased. "No; there is no danger," 
 she answered at last, curtly. 
 
 "Then I should like to frighten them," declared Mrs. 
 Westgate, clasping her jewelled hands. 
 
 "To frighten whom?" 
 
 "All these people; Lord Lambeth's family and 
 friends." 
 
 " How should you frighten them ?" asked the young 
 girl. 
 
 "It wouldn't be I it would be you. It would 
 frighten them to think that you should absorb his lord- 
 ship's young affections." 
 
 Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still overshadowed 
 by her dark brows, continued to interrogate. ' ' Why 
 should that frighten them ?" 
 
 Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with a smile before 
 delivering it. "Because they think you are not good 
 enough. You are a charming girl, beautiful and amiable, 
 intelligent and clever, and as bien-elevee as it is possible 
 to be ; but you are not a fit match for Lord Lambeth." 
 
68 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 Bessie Alden was immensely disgusted. "Where do 
 you get such extraordinary ideas?" she asked. "You 
 have said some such strange things lately. My dear 
 Kitty, where do you collect them?" 
 
 Kitty was evidently enamoured of her idea. "Yes, 
 it would put them on pins and needles, and it wouldn't 
 hurt you. Mr. Beaumont is already most uneasy ; I 
 could soon see that." 
 
 The young girl meditated a moment. " Do you mean 
 that they spy upon him that they interfere with 
 him ?" 
 
 "I don't know what power they have to interfere, 
 but I know that a British mamma may worry her son's 
 life out." 
 
 It has been intimated that, as regards certain dis- 
 agreeable things, Bessie Alden had a fund of scepticism. 
 She abstained on the present occasion from expressing 
 disbelief, for she wished not to irritate her sister. But 
 she said to herself that Kitty had been misinformed 
 that this was a traveller's tale. Though she was a girl 
 of a lively imagination, there could in the nature of 
 things be, to her sense, no reality in the idea of her 
 belonging to a vulgar category. What she said aloud 
 was " I must say that in that case I am very sorry for 
 Lord Lambeth." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, more and more exhilarated by her 
 scheme, was smiling at her again. " If I could only 
 believe it was safe !" she exclaimed. "When you begin 
 to pity him, I, on my side, am afraid. " 
 
 " Afraid of what ?" 
 
 " Of your pitying him too much." 
 
 Bessie Alden turned away impatiently ; but at the end 
 of a minute she turned back. "What if I should pity 
 him too much ?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, but after a 
 moment's reflection she also faced her sister again. " It 
 would come, after all, to the same thing," she said. 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 69 
 
 Lord Lambeth came the next day with his trap, and 
 the two ladies, attended by Willie Woodley, placed 
 themselves under his guidance, and were conveyed east- 
 ward, through some of the duskier portions of the 
 metropolis, to the great turreted donjon which overlooks 
 the London shipping. They all descended from their 
 vehicle and entered the famous enclosure ; and they 
 secured the services of a venerable beef -eater, who, 
 though there were many other claimants for legendary 
 information, made a fine exclusive party of them, and 
 marched them through courts and corridors, through 
 armouries and prisons. He delivered his usual peri- 
 patetic discourse, and they stopped and stared, and 
 peeped and stooped, according to the official admonitions. 
 Bessie Alden asked the old man in the crimson doublet 
 a great many questions ; she thought it a most fascinating 
 place. Lord Lambeth was in high good - humour ; he 
 was constantly laughing ; he enjoyed what he would 
 have called the lark. Willie Woodley kept looking at 
 the ceilings and tapping the walls with the knuckle of 
 a pearl-gray glove ; and Mrs. Westgate, asking at 
 frequent intervals to be allowed to sit down and wait till 
 they came back, was as frequently informed that they 
 would never come back. To a great many of Bessie's 
 questions chiefly on collateral points of English history 
 the ancient warder was naturally unable to reply ; 
 whereupon she always appealed to Lord Lambeth. But 
 his lordship was very ignorant. He declared that he 
 knew nothing about that sort of thing, and he seemed 
 greatly diverted at being treated as an authority. 
 
 "You can't expect every one to know as much as 
 you," he said. 
 
 "I should expect you to know a great deal more," 
 declared Bessie Alden. 
 
 " Women always know more than men about names 
 and dates, and that sort of thing," Lord Lambeth rejoined. 
 4 'There was Lady Jane Grey we have just been hearing 
 
70 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 about, who went in for Latin and Greek and all the learn- 
 ing of her age. " 
 
 " You have no right to be ignorant, at all events," 
 said Bessie. 
 
 " Why haven't I as good a right as any one else?" 
 
 " Because you have lived in the midst of all these 
 things." 
 
 " What things do you mean? Axes and blocks and 
 thumbscrews?" 
 
 " All these historical things. You belong to an 
 historical family." 
 
 "Bessie is really too historical," said Mrs. Westgate, 
 catching a word of this dialogue. 
 
 "Yes, you are too historical," said Lord Lambeth, 
 laughing, but thankful for a formula. " Upon my 
 honour, you are too historical !" 
 
 He went with the ladies a couple of days later to 
 Hampton Court, Willie Woodley being also of the party. 
 The afternoon was charming, the famous horse-chestnuts 
 were in blossom, and Lord Lambeth, who quite entered 
 into the spirit of the Cockney excursionist, declared that 
 it was a jolly old place. Bessie Alden was in ecstasies ; 
 she went about murmuring and exclaiming. 
 
 "It's too lovely," said the young girl, "it's too 
 enchanting ; it's too exactly what it ought to be ! " 
 
 At Hampton Court the little flocks of visitors are hot 
 provided with an official bell-wether, but are left to 
 browse at discretion upon the local antiquities. It 
 happened in this manner that, in default of another 
 informant, Bessie Alden, who on doubtful questions was 
 able to suggest a great many alternatives, found herself 
 again applying for intellectual assistance to Lord Lam- 
 beth. But he again assured her that he was utterly 
 helpless in such matters that his education had been 
 sadly neglected. 
 
 "And I am sorry it makes you unhappy," he added 
 in a moment. 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 71 
 
 "You are very disappointing, Lord Lambeth," she 
 said. 
 
 "Ah, now, don't say that !" he cried. "That's the 
 worst thing you could possibly say." 
 
 " No," she rejoined ; "it is not so bad as to say that 
 I had expected nothing of you." 
 
 " I don't know. Give me a notion of the sort of 
 thing you expected." 
 
 " Well," said Bessie Alden, " that you would be more 
 what I should like to be what I should try to be in 
 your place." 
 
 "Ah, my place!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth; "you 
 are always talking about my place. " 
 
 The young girl looked at him ; he thought she 
 coloured a little ; and for a moment she made no re- 
 joinder. 
 
 " Does it strike you that I am always talking about 
 your place?" she asked. 
 
 " I am sure you do it a great honour," he said, fearing 
 he had been uncivil. 
 
 " I have often thought about it," she went on after a 
 moment. " I have often thought about your being an 
 hereditary legislator. An hereditary legislator ought to 
 know a great many things." 
 
 " Not if he doesn't legislate." 
 
 "But you will legislate; it's absurd your saying you 
 won't. You are very much looked up to here I am 
 assured of that." 
 
 "I don't know that I ever noticed it." 
 
 "It is because you are used to it, then. You ought 
 to fill the place." 
 
 " How do you mean, to fill it ?" asked Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "You ought to be very clever and brilliant, and to 
 know almost everything. " 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. "Shall I 
 tell you something?" he asked. ' " A young man in my 
 position, as you call it " 
 
72 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 " I didn't invent the term," interposed Bessie Alden. 
 " I have seen it in a great many books." 
 
 "Hang it, you are always at your books ! A fellow 
 in my position, then, does very well, whatever he does. 
 That's about what I mean to say." 
 
 " Well, if your own people are content with you," said 
 Bessie Alden, laughing, "it is not for me to complain. 
 But I shall always think that, properly, you should have 
 a great mind a great character." 
 
 " Ah, that's very theoretic ! " Lord Lambeth declared. 
 "Depend upon it, that's a Yankee prejudice." 
 
 "Happy the country," said Bessie Alden, "where 
 even people's prejudices are so elevated !" 
 
 "Well, after all," observed Lord Lambeth, "I don't 
 know that I am such a fool as you are trying to make 
 me out." 
 
 "I said nothing so rude as that; but I must repeat 
 that you are disappointing." 
 
 "My dear Miss Alden," exclaimed the young man, 
 " I am the best fellow in the world !" 
 
 " Ah, if it were not for that !" said Bessie Alden, with 
 a smile. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate had a good many more friends in 
 London than she pretended, and before long she had re- 
 newed acquaintance with most of them. Their hospi- 
 tality was extreme, so that, one thing leading to another, 
 she began, as the phrase is, to go out. Bessie Alden, 
 in this way, saw something of what she found it a great 
 satisfaction to call to herself English society. She went 
 to balls and danced, she went to dinners and talked, she 
 went to concerts and listened (at concerts Bessie always 
 listened), she went to exhibitions and wondered. Her 
 enjoyment was keen and her curiosity insatiable, and, 
 grateful in general for all her opportunities, she especially 
 prized the privilege of meeting certain celebrated persons 
 authors and artists, philosophers and statesmen of 
 whose renown she had been a humble and distant be- 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 73 
 
 holder, and who now, as a part of the habitual furniture 
 of London drawing-rooms, struck her as stars fallen from 
 the firmament and become palpable revealing also, some- 
 times, on contact, qualities not to have been predicted of 
 bodies sidereal. Bessie, who knew so many of her con- 
 temporaries by reputation, had a good many personal dis- 
 appointments ; but, on the other hand, she had innumer- 
 able satisfactions and enthusiasms, and she communicated 
 the emotions of either class to a dear friend of her own 
 sex, in Boston, with whom she was in voluminous corre- 
 spondence. Some of her reflections, indeed, she at- 
 tempted to impart to Lord Lambeth, who came almost 
 every day to Jones's Hotel, and whom Mrs. Westgate 
 admitted to be really devoted. Captain Littledale, it 
 appeared, had gone to India ; and of several others of 
 Mrs. Westgate's ex-pensioners gentlemen who, as she 
 said, had made, in New York, a club-house of her 
 drawing-room no tidings were to be obtained ; but 
 Lord Lambeth was certainly attentive enough to make 
 up for the accidental absences, the short memories, all 
 the other irregularities, of every one else. He drove 
 them in the Park, he took them to visit private collec- 
 tions of pictures, and having a house of his own, invited 
 them to dinner. Mrs. Westgate, following the fashion 
 of many of her compatriots, caused herself and her 
 sister to be presented at the English Court by her dip- 
 lomatic representative for it was in this manner that 
 she alluded to the American Minister to England, in- 
 quiring what on earth he was put there for, if not to 
 make the proper arrangements for one's going to a 
 Drawing-Room. 
 
 Lord Lambeth declared that he hated Drawing- 
 Rooms, but he participated in the ceremony on the day 
 on which the two ladies at Jones's Hotel repaired to 
 Buckingham Palace in a remarkable coach which his 
 lordship had sent to fetch them. He had on a gorgeous 
 uniform, and Bessie Alden was particularly struck with 
 
74 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 his appearance especially when on her asking him, 
 rather foolishly as she felt, if he were a loyal subject, he 
 replied that he was a loyal subject to her. This declara- 
 tion was emphasised by his dancing with her at a royal 
 ball to which the two ladies afterwards went, and was 
 not impaired by the fact that she thought he danced very 
 ill. He seemed to her wonderfully kind ; she asked 
 herself, with growing vivacity, why he should be so kind. 
 It was his disposition that seemed the natural answer. 
 She had told her sister that she liked him very much, 
 and now that she liked him more she wondered why. 
 She liked him for his disposition ; to this question as 
 well that seemed the natural answer. When once the 
 impressions of London life began to crowd thickly upon 
 her, she completely forgot her sister's warning about the 
 cynicism of public opinion. It had given her great pain 
 at the moment ; but there was no particular reason why 
 she should remember it ; it corresponded too little with 
 any sensible reality ; and it was disagreeable to Bessie 
 to remember disagreeable things. So she was not 
 haunted with the sense of a vulgar imputation. She 
 was not in love with Lord Lambeth she assured her- 
 self of that. It will immediately be observed, that when 
 such assurances become necessary the state of a young 
 lady's affections is already ambiguous ; and indeed Bessie 
 Alden made no attempt to dissimulate to herself, of 
 course a certain tenderness that she felt for the young 
 nobleman. She said to herself that she liked the type 
 to which he belonged the simple, candid, manly, 
 healthy English temperament. She spoke to herself of 
 him as women speak of young men they like alluded 
 to his bravery (which she had never in the least seen 
 tested), to his honesty and gentlemanliness ; and was 
 not silent upon the subject of his good looks. She was 
 perfectly conscious, moreover, that she liked to think of 
 his more adventitious merits that her imagination was 
 excited and gratified by the sight of a handsome young 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 75 
 
 man endowed with such large opportunities oppor- 
 tunities she hardly knew for what, but, as she supposed, 
 for doing great things for setting an example, for 
 exerting an influence, for conferring happiness, for en- 
 couraging the arts. She had a kind of ideal of conduct 
 for a young man who should find himself in this magni- 
 ficent position, and she tried to adapt it to Lord Lam- 
 beth's deportment, as you might attempt to fit a silhouette 
 in cut paper upon a shadow projected upon a wall. But 
 Bessie Alden's silhouette refused to coincide with his 
 lordship's image ; and this want of harmony sometimes 
 vexed her more than she thought reasonable. When he 
 was absent it was of course less striking then he seemed 
 to her a sufficiently graceful combination of high responsi- 
 bilities and amiable qualities. But when he sat there 
 within sight, laughing and talking with his customary 
 good -humour and simplicity, she measured it more 
 accurately, and she felt acutely that if Lord Lambeth's 
 position was heroic, there was but little of the hero in 
 the young man himself. Then her imagination wandered 
 away from him very far away ; for it was an incontest- 
 able fact that at such moments he seemed distinctly dull. 
 I am afraid that while Bessie's imagination was thus 
 invidiously roaming, she cannot have been herself a very 
 lively companion ; but it may well have been that these 
 occasional fits of indifference seemed to Lord Lambeth a 
 part of the young girl's personal charm. It had been a 
 part of this charm from the first that he felt that she 
 judged him and measured him more freely and irrespon- 
 sibly more at her ease and her leisure, as it were than 
 several young ladies with whom he had been on the 
 whole about as intimate. To feel this, and yet to feel 
 that she also liked him, was very agreeable to Lord 
 Lambeth. He fancied he had compassed that gratifica- 
 tion so desirable to young men of title and fortune 
 being liked for himself. It is true that a cynical coun- 
 sellor might have whispered to him, * ' Liked for yourself ? 
 
76 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 Yes ; but not so very much !" He had, at any rate, the 
 constant hope of being liked more. 
 
 It may seem, perhaps, a trifle singular but it is never- 
 theless true that Bessie Alden, when he struck her as 
 dull, devoted some time, on grounds of conscience, to 
 trying to like him more. I say on grounds of conscience, 
 because she felt that he had been extremely "nice" to 
 her sister, and because she reflected that it was no more 
 than fair that she should think as well of him as he 
 thought of her. This effort was possibly sometimes not 
 so successful as it might have been, for the result of it 
 was occasionally a vague irritation, which expressed it- 
 self in hostile criticism of several British institutions. 
 Bessie Alden went to some entertainments at which 
 she met Lord Lambeth ; but she went to others at 
 which his lordship was neither actually nor potentially 
 present ; and it was chiefly on these latter occasions 
 that she encountered those literary and artistic cele- 
 brities of whom mention has been made. After a 
 while she reduced the matter to a principle. If Lord 
 Lambeth should appear anywhere, it was a symbol that 
 there would be no poets and philosophers ; and in con- 
 sequence for it was almost a strict consequence she 
 used to enumerate to the young man these objects of 
 her admiration. 
 
 "You seem to be awfully fond of that sort of people," 
 said Lord Lambeth one day, as if the idea had just 
 occurred to him. 
 
 "They are the people in England I am most curious 
 to see," Bessie Alden replied. 
 
 "I suppose that's because you have read so much," 
 said Lord Lambeth, gallantly. 
 
 " I have not read so much. It is because we think 
 so much of them at home. " 
 
 "Oh, I see!" observed the young nobleman. "In 
 Boston." 
 
 " Not only in Boston ; everywhere," said Bessie. 
 
v. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 77 
 
 " We hold them in great honour ; they go to the best 
 dinner-parties." 
 
 "I daresay you are right. I can't say I know many 
 of them." 
 
 " It's a pity you don't," Bessie Alden declared. " It 
 would do you good." 
 
 11 1 daresay it would," said Lord Lambeth, very 
 humbly. " But I must say I don't like the looks of some 
 of them. " 
 
 " Neither do I of some of them. But there are all 
 kinds, and many of them are charming. " 
 
 " I have talked with two or three of them," the young 
 man went on, " and I thought they had a kind of fawn- 
 ing manner." 
 
 "Why should they fawn?" Bessie Alden demanded. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know. Why, indeed?" 
 
 " Perhaps you only thought so," said Bessie. 
 
 "Well, of course," rejoined her companion, "that's a 
 kind of thing that can't be proved." 
 
 " In America they don't fawn," said Bessie. 
 
 "Ah ! well, then, they must be better company." 
 
 Bessie was silent a moment. " That is one of the 
 things I don't like about England," she said; "your 
 keeping the distinguished people apart." 
 
 "How do you mean, apart?" 
 
 "Why, letting them come only to certain places. You 
 never see them." 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. 
 
 "What people do you mean?" 
 
 "The eminent people the authors and artists the 
 clever people." 
 
 " Oh, there are other eminent people besides those !" 
 said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "Well, you certainly keep them apart," repeated the 
 young girl. 
 
 "And there are other clever people," added Lord 
 Lambeth, simply. 
 
78 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. v. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him, and she gave a light laugh. 
 " Not many," she said. 
 
 On another occasion just after a dinner-party she told 
 him that there was something else in England she did not like. 
 
 "Oh, I say!" he cried; "haven't you abused us 
 enough?" 
 
 " I have never abused you at all," said Bessie ; "but 
 I don't like your precedence. " 
 
 "It isn't my precedence !" Lord Lambeth declared, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Yes, it is yours just exactly yours ; and I think it's 
 odious," said Bessie. 
 
 " I never saw such a young lady for discussing things ! 
 Has some one had the impudence to go before you?" 
 asked his lordship. 
 
 " It is not the going before me that I object to," said 
 Bessie; "it is their thinking that they have a right to 
 do it a right that I should recognise." 
 
 "I never saw such a young lady as you are for not 
 'recognising.' I have no doubt the thing is beastly, 
 but it saves a lot of trouble." 
 
 " It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid ! " said Bessie. 
 
 " But how would you have the first people go ?' ; asked 
 Lord Lambeth. " They can't go last." 
 
 " Whom do you mean by the first people ? " 
 
 "Ah, if you mean to question first principles !" said 
 Lord Lambeth. 
 
 ' * If those are your first principles, no wonder some 
 of your arrangements are horrid," observed Bessie Alden, 
 with a very pretty ferocity. " I am a young girl, so of 
 course I go last ; but imagine what Kitty must feel on 
 being informed that she is not at liberty to budge until 
 certain other ladies have passed out ! " 
 
 "Oh, I say, she is not 'informed'!" cried Lord 
 Lambeth. " No one would do such a thing as that." 
 
 " She is made to feel it," the young girl insisted " as 
 if they were afraid she would make a rush for the door. 
 
vi. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 79 
 
 No, you have a lovely country," said Bessie Alden, " but 
 your precedence is horrid." 
 
 " I certainly shouldn't think your sister would like it," 
 rejoined Lord Lambeth, with even exaggerated gravity. 
 But Bessie Alden could induce him to enter no formal 
 protest against this repulsive custom, which he seemed 
 to think an extreme convenience. 
 
 VI. 
 
 PERCY BEAUMONT all this time had been a very much 
 less frequent visitor at Jones's Hotel than his noble 
 kinsman ; he had in fact called but twice upon the 
 two American ladies. Lord Lambeth, who often saw 
 him, reproached him with his neglect, and declared that 
 although Mrs. Westgate had said nothing about it, he was 
 sure that she was secretly wounded by it. " She suffers 
 too much to speak," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " That's all gammon," said Percy Beaumont ; " there's 
 a limit to what people can suffer ! " And, though send- 
 ing no apologies to Jones's Hotel, he undertook in a 
 manner to explain his absence. " You are always there," 
 he said ; " and that's reason enough for my not going." 
 
 " I don't see why. There is enough for both of us." 
 
 " I don't care to be a witness of your your reckless 
 passion," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye, and for 
 a moment said nothing. "It's not so obvious as you 
 might suppose," he rejoined, dryly, " considering what 
 a demonstrative beggar I am." 
 
 " I don't want to know anything about it nothing 
 whatever," said Beaumont. ''Your mother asks me 
 every time she sees me whether I believe you are really 
 lost and Lady Pimlico does the same. I prefer to be 
 
So AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 able to answer that I know nothing about it that I never 
 go there. I stay away for consistency's sake. As I said 
 the other day, they must look after you themselves." 
 
 "You are devilish considerate," said Lord Lambeth. 
 " They never question me." 
 
 " They are afraid of you. They are afraid of irritating 
 you and making you worse. So they go to work very 
 cautiously, and, somewhere or other, they get their infor- 
 mation. They know a great deal about you. They 
 know that you have been with those ladies to the dome 
 of St. Paul's and where was the other place ? to the 
 Thames Tunnel." 
 
 ' < If all their knowledge is as accurate as that, it must 
 be very valuable," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "Well, at any rate, they know that you have been 
 visiting the * sights of the metropolis. ' They think 
 very naturally, as it seems to me that when you take to 
 visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little American 
 girl, there is serious cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth 
 responded to this intimation by scornful laughter, and 
 his companion continued, after a pause: "I said just 
 now I didn't want to know anything about the affair ; 
 but I will confess that I am curious to learn whether you 
 propose to marry Miss Bessie Alden." 
 
 On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor no 
 immediate satisfaction ; he was musing, with a frown. 
 "By Jove," he said, "they go rather too far. They 
 shall find me dangerous I promise them." 
 
 Percy Beaumont began to laugh. ' ' You don't redeem 
 your promises. You said the other day you would make 
 your mother call." 
 
 Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. " I asked her 
 to call," he said, simply. 
 
 "And she declined?" 
 
 " Yes, but she shall do it yet." 
 
 " Upon my word," said Percy Beaumont, " if she gets 
 much more frightened I believe she will." Lord Lam- 
 
vi. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 81 
 
 beth looked at him, and he went on. " She will go to 
 the girl herself." 
 
 " How do you mean, she will go to her?" 
 
 " She will beg her off, or she will bribe her. She will 
 take strong measures." 
 
 Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, and his com- 
 panion watched him take twenty steps and then slowly 
 return. " I have invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to 
 Branches," he said, ' ' and this evening I shall name a day. " 
 
 "And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to 
 meet them?" 
 
 "Explicitly !" 
 
 " That will set the Duchess off," said Percy Beaumont. 
 " I suspect she will come." 
 
 " She may do as she pleases." 
 
 Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. ' ' You do really 
 propose to marry the little sister, then?" 
 
 " I like the way you talk about it !" cried the young 
 man. " She won't gobble me down ; don't be afraid." 
 
 " She won't leave you on your knees," said Percy 
 Beaumont. "What is the inducement?" 
 
 "You talk about proposing wait till I have pro- 
 posed," Lord Lambeth went on. 
 
 " That's right, my dear fellow; think about it," said 
 Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " She's a charming girl," pursued his lordship. 
 
 "Of course she's a charming girl. I don't know a 
 girl more charming, intrinsically. But there are other 
 charming girls nearer home." 
 
 "I like her spirit," observed Lord Lambeth, almost 
 as if he were trying to torment his cousin. 
 
 "What's the peculiarity of her spirit?" 
 
 "She's not afraid, and she says things out, and she 
 thinks herself as good as any one. She is the only girl I 
 have ever seen that was not dying to marry me." 
 
 " How do you know that, if you haven't asked her?" 
 
 "I don't know how ; but I know it." 
 
 G 
 
82 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 " I am sure she asked me questions enough about your 
 property and your titles," said Beaumont. 
 
 " She has asked me questions, too ; no end of them," 
 Lord Lambeth admitted. " But she asked for informa- 
 tion, don't you know." 
 
 " Information ? Ay, I'll warrant she wanted it. De- 
 pend upon it that she is dying to marry you just as much 
 and just as little as all the rest of them." 
 
 " I shouldn't like her to refuse me I shouldn't like 
 that" 
 
 "If the thing would be so disagreeable, then, both to 
 you and to her, in Heaven's name leave it alone," said 
 Percy Beaumont. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, on her side, tlad plenty to say to her 
 sister about the rarity of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the 
 non-appearance of the Duchess of Bayswater. She pro- 
 fessed, however, to derive more satisfaction from this 
 latter circumstance than she could have done from the 
 most lavish attentions on the part of this great lady. 
 " It is most marked," she said, "most marked. It is a 
 delicious proof that we have made them miserable. The 
 day we dined with Lord Lambeth I was really sorry for 
 the poor fellow." It will have been gathered that the 
 entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth to his American 
 friends had not been graced by the presence of his anxious 
 mother. He had invited several choice spirits to meet 
 them ; but the ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. 
 Westgate's sense a sense, possibly, morbidly acute 
 conspicuous by their absence. 
 
 " I don't want to express myself in a manner that you 
 dislike, " said Bessie Alden ; " but I don't know why you 
 should have so many theories about Lord Lambeth's poor 
 mother. You know a great many young men in New 
 York without knowing their mothers." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister, and then turned 
 away. " My dear Bessie, you are superb !" she said. 
 
 " One thing is certain," the young girl continued. 
 
vi. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 83 
 
 "If I believed I were a cause of annoyance how- 
 ever unwitting to Lord Lambeth's family, I should 
 insist " 
 
 "Insist upon my leaving England," said Mrs. West- 
 gate. 
 
 "No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery 
 again ; I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury 
 Cathedral. But I should insist upon his coming to see 
 us no more." 
 
 " That would be very modest and very pretty of you 
 but you wouldn't do it now." 
 
 "Why do you say 'now'?" asked Bessie Alden. 
 " Have I ceased to be modest?" 
 
 " You care for him too much. A month ago, when 
 you said you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at 
 present, my dear child," said Mrs. Westgate, "you 
 wouldn't find it quite so simple a matter never to see 
 Lord Lambeth again. I have seen it coming on." 
 
 " You are mistaken," said Bessie. " You don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 "My dear child, don't be perverse," rejoined her 
 sister. 
 
 "I know him better, certainly, if you mean that," said 
 Bessie. "And I like him very much. But I don't like 
 him enough to make trouble for him with his family. 
 However, I don't believe in that." 
 
 "I like the way you say 'however !'" Mrs. Westgate 
 exclaimed. " Come, you would not marry him ?" 
 
 " Oh no," said the young girl. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, for a moment, seemed vexed. " Why 
 not, pray?" she demanded. 
 
 " Because I don't care to," said Bessie Alden. 
 
 The morning after Lord Lambeth had had, with Percy 
 Beaumont, that exchange of ideas which has just been 
 narrated, the ladies at Jones's Hotel received from his 
 lordship a written invitation to pay their projected visit 
 to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday. " I think 
 
84 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 I have made up a very pleasant party," the young noble- 
 man said. " Several people whom you know, and my 
 mother and sisters, who have so long been regrettably 
 prevented from making your acquaintance." Bessie 
 Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to the 
 injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose 
 hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion. 
 
 " Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 " And if she is to meet us at her son's house the obliga- 
 tion was all the greater for her to call upon us." 
 
 Bessie had not to wait long, and it appeared that 
 Lord Lambeth's mother now accepted Mrs. Westgate's 
 view of her duties. On the morrow, early in the after- 
 noon, two cards were brought to the apartment of the 
 American ladies one of them bearing the name of the 
 Duchess of Bayswater and the other that of the Countess 
 of Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. " It 
 is not yet four," she said ; " they have come early ; they 
 wish to see us. We will receive them." And she gave 
 orders that her visitors should be admitted. A few 
 moments later they were introduced, and there was a 
 solemn exchange of amenities. The Duchess was a large 
 lady, with a fine fresh colour ; the Countess of Pimlico 
 was very pretty and elegant. 
 
 The Duchess looked about her as she sat down 
 looked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. " I daresay 
 my son has told you that I have been wanting to come 
 and see you," she observed. 
 
 " You are very kind," said Mrs. Westgate, vaguely 
 her conscience not allowing her to assent to this proposi- 
 tion and indeed not permitting her to enunciate her 
 own with any appreciable emphasis. 
 
 " He says you were so kind to him in America," said 
 the Duchess. 
 
 "We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to 
 have been able to make him a little more a little less 
 a little more comfortable." 
 
vi. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 85 
 
 * ' I think he stayed at your house, " remarked the 
 Duchess of Bayswater, looking at Bessie Alden. 
 
 "A very short time," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " Oh !" said the Duchess ; and she continued to look 
 at Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with her 
 daughter. 
 
 "Do you like London?" Lady Pimlico had asked of 
 Bessie, after looking at her a good deal at her face and 
 her hands, her dress and her hair. 
 
 "Very much indeed," said Bessie. 
 
 "Do you like this hotel?" 
 
 "It is very comfortable," said Bessie. 
 
 "Do you like stopping at hotels?" inquired Lady 
 Pimlico, after a pause. 
 
 "I am very fond of travelling," Bessie answered, 
 ' * and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But 
 they are not the part I am fondest of." 
 
 " Oh, I hate travelling !" said the Countess of Pimlico, 
 and transferred her attention to Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "My son tells me you are going to Branches," the 
 Duchess presently resumed. 
 
 "Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said 
 Mrs. Westgate, who perceived that her visitor had now 
 begun to look at her, and who had her customary happy 
 consciousness of a distinguished appearance. The only 
 mitigation of her felicity on this point was that, having 
 inspected her visitor's own costume, she said to herself, 
 " She won't know how well I am dressed !" 
 
 "He has asked me to go, but I am not sure I shall 
 be able," murmured the Duchess. 
 
 1 * He had offered us the p the prospect of meet- 
 ing you," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "I hate the country at this season," responded the 
 Duchess. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate gave a little shrug. " I think it is 
 pleasanter than London." 
 
 But the Duchess's eyes were absent again ; she was 
 
86 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 looking very fixedly at Bessie. In a moment she slowly 
 rose, walked to a chair that stood empty at the young 
 girl's right hand, and silently seated herself. As she was 
 a majestic, voluminous woman, this little transaction had, 
 inevitably, an air of somewhat impressive intention. It 
 diffused a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as 
 a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to rectify in 
 turning to Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I daresay you go out a great deal," she observed. 
 
 "No, very little. We are strangers, and we didn't 
 come here for society." 
 
 "I see," said Lady Pimlico. "It's rather nice in 
 town just now." 
 
 "It's charming," said Mrs. Westgate. "But we only 
 go to see a few people whom we like." 
 
 "Of course one can't like every one," said Lady 
 Pimlico. 
 
 "It depends upon one's society," Mrs. Westgate re- 
 joined. 
 
 The Duchess, meanwhile, had addressed herself to 
 Bessie. " My son tells me the young ladies in America 
 are so clever." 
 
 " I am glad they made so good an impression on 
 him," said Bessie, smiling. 
 
 The Duchess was not smiling ; her large fresh face 
 was very tranquil. "He is very susceptible," she said. 
 " He thinks every one clever, and sometimes they are." 
 
 "Sometimes," Bessie assented, smiling still. 
 
 The Duchess looked at her a little and then went on 
 "Lambeth is very susceptible, but he is very volatile, 
 too." 
 
 "Volatile?" asked Bessie. 
 
 "He is very inconstant. It won't do to depend on 
 him." 
 
 "Ah !" said Bessie ; "I don't recognise that descrip- 
 tion. We have depended on him greatly my sister and 
 I and he has never disappointed us." 
 
VI. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 87 
 
 " He will disappoint you yet," said the Duchess. 
 
 Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused at 
 the Duchess's persistency. " I suppose it will depend 
 on what we expect of him." 
 
 "The less you expect the better," Lord Lambeth's 
 mother declared. 
 
 "Well," said Bessie, "we expect nothing unreason- 
 able." 
 
 The Duchess, for a moment, was silent, though she 
 appeared to have more to say. * ' Lambeth says he has 
 seen so much of you," she presently began. 
 
 " He has been to see us very often he has been very 
 kind," said Bessie Alden. 
 
 " I daresay you are used to that. I am told there is 
 a great deal of that in America." 
 
 "A great deal of kindness?" the young girl inquired, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Is that what you call it? I know you have different 
 expressions. " 
 
 "We certainly don't always understand each other," 
 said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of whose interview 
 with Lady Pimlico allowed her to give her attention to 
 their elder visitor. 
 
 " I am speaking of the young men calling so much 
 upon the young ladies," the Duchess explained. 
 
 "But surely in England," said Mrs. Westgate, "the 
 young ladies don't call upon the young men?" 
 
 "Some of them do almost!" Lady Pimlico de- 
 clared. "When the young men are a great/^r^*." 
 
 "Bessie, you must take a note of that," said Mrs. 
 Westgate. "My sister," she added, "is a model tra- 
 veller. She writes down all the curious facts she hears, 
 in a little book she keeps for the purpose." 
 
 The Duchess was a little flushed ; she looked all about 
 the room, while her daughter turned to Bessie. "My 
 brother told us you were wonderfully clever," said Lady 
 Pimlico. 
 
88 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 "He should have said my sister," Bessie answered 
 "when she says such things as that." 
 
 " Shall you be long at Branches?" the Duchess asked, 
 abruptly, of the young girl. 
 
 "Lord Lambeth has asked us for three days," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " I shall go," the Duchess declared, "and my daughter 
 too." 
 
 "That will be charming !" Bessie rejoined. 
 
 " Delightful !" murmured Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I shall expect to see a deal of you," the Duchess 
 continued. " When I go to Branches I monopolise my 
 son's guests." 
 
 "They must be most happy," said Mrs. Westgate, 
 very graciously. 
 
 "I want immensely to see it to see the Castle," said 
 Bessie to the Duchess. " I have never seen one in Eng- 
 land at least ; and you know we have none in America." 
 
 " Ah ! you are fond of castles ? " inquired her Grace. 
 
 " Immensely ! " replied the young girl. " It has 
 been the dream of my life to live in one." 
 
 The Duchess looked at her a moment, as if she hardly 
 knew how to take this assurance, which, from her Grace's 
 point of view, was either very artless or very audacious. 
 "Well," she said, rising, "I will show you Branches 
 myself." And upon this the two great ladies took their 
 departure. 
 
 "What did they mean by it?" asked Mrs. Westgate, 
 when they were gone. 
 
 "They meant to be polite," said Bessie, " because we 
 are going to meet them." 
 
 "It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied, 
 almost grimly. "They meant to overawe us by their 
 fine manners and their grandeur, and to make you l&cher 
 prise." 
 
 " L&cher prise ? What strange things you say!" 
 murmured Bessie Alden. 
 
vi. AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 89 
 
 "They meant to snub us, so that we shouldn't dare 
 to go to Branches," Mrs. Westgate continued. 
 
 "On the contrary," said Bessie, "the Duchess offered 
 to show me the place herself." 
 
 "Yes, you may depend upon it she won't let you out 
 of her^ sight. She will show you the place from morning 
 till night." 
 
 "You have a theory for everything," said Bessie. 
 
 " And you apparently have none for anything." 
 
 " I saw no attempt to 'overawe' us," said the young 
 girl. "Their manners were not fine." 
 
 "They were not even good ! " Mrs. Westgate declared. 
 
 Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she 
 observed that she had a veiy good theory. " They came 
 to look at me ! " she said, as if this had been a very 
 ingenious hypothesis. Mrs. Westgate did it justice ; she 
 greeted it with a smile, and pronounced it most brilliant ; 
 while in reality she felt that the young girl's scepticism, 
 or her chanty, or, as she had sometimes called it, 
 appropriately, her idealism, was proof against irony. 
 Bessie, however, remained meditative all the rest of that 
 day, and well on into the morrow. 
 
 On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had 
 occasion to go out for an hour, and left her sister writing 
 a letter. When she came back she met Lord Lambeth 
 at the door of the hotel, coming away. She thought he 
 looked slightly embarrassed ; he was certainly very grave, 
 1 ' I am sorry to have missed you. Won't you come back ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " No," said the young man, "I can't. I have seen 
 your sister. I can never come back." Then he looked 
 at her a moment, and took her hand. " Good-bye, Mrs. 
 Westgate," he said. " You have been very kind to me." 
 And with what she thought a strange sad look in his 
 handsome young face, he turned away. 
 
 She went in and she found Bessie still writing her 
 letter ; that is, Mrs. Westgate perceived she was sitting 
 
90 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. vi. 
 
 at the table with the pen in her hand, and not writing. 
 "Lord Lambeth has been here," said the elder lady at last. 
 
 Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious 
 face. She bent this face upon her sister for some time, 
 confessing silently and, a little, pleading. " I told him," 
 she said at last, "that we could not go to Branches." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation. 
 "He might have waited," she said, with a smile, "till 
 one had seen the Castle." Later, an hour afterwards, she 
 said, " Dear Bessie, I wish you might have accepted him." 
 
 " I couldn't," said Bessie, gently. 
 
 " He is a dear good fellow," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I couldn't," Bessie repeated. 
 
 " If it is only," her sister added, " because those women 
 will think that they succeeded that they paralysed us ! " 
 
 Bessie Alden turned away ; but presently she added, 
 " They were interesting ; I should have liked to see them 
 again. " 
 
 "So should I !" cried Mrs. Westgate, significantly. 
 
 "And I should have liked to see the Castle," said 
 Bessie. "But now, we must leave England," she added. 
 
 Her sister looked at her. "You will not wait to go 
 to the National Gallery ? " 
 
 "Not now." 
 
 " Nor to Canterbury Cathedral ? '' 
 
 Bessie reflected a moment. "We can stop there on 
 our way to Paris," she said. 
 
 Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beaumont that the 
 contingency he was not prepared at all to like had 
 occurred ; but Percy Beaumont, on hearing that the two 
 ladies had left London, wondered with some intensity 
 what had happened ; wondered, that is, until the Duchess 
 of Bayswater came, a little, to his assistance. The two 
 ladies went to Paris, and Mrs. Westgate beguiled the 
 journey to that city by repeating several times, "That's 
 what I regret ; they will think they petrified us." But 
 Bessie Alden seemed to regret nothing. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 I. 
 
 I WAS not rich on the contrary ; and I had been told 
 the Pension Beaurepas was cheap. I had, moreover, 
 been told that a boarding-house is a capital place for the 
 study of human nature. I had a fancy for a literary 
 career, and a friend of mine had said to me, " If you 
 mean to write you ought to go and live in a boarding- 
 house ; there is no other such place to pick up material." 
 I had read something of this kind in a letter addressed 
 by Stendhal to his sister: "I have a passionate desire 
 to know human nature, and have a great mind to live in 
 a boarding-house, where people cannot conceal their real 
 characters." I was an admirer of La Chartreuse de 
 Parme, and it appeared to me that one could not do 
 better than follow in the footsteps of its author. I 
 remembered, too, the magnificent boarding-house in 
 Balzac's Pere Goriot, the "pension botirgeoise des deux 
 sexes et autres" kept by Madame Vauquer, nee De Con- 
 flans. Magnificent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture ; 
 the establishment, as an establishment, was certainly 
 sordid enough, and I hoped for better things from the 
 Pension Beaurepas. This institution was one of the 
 most esteemed in Geneva, and, standing in a little garden 
 
94 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. I. 
 
 of its own, not far from the lake, had a very homely, 
 comfortable, sociable aspect. The regular entrance was, 
 as one might say, at the back, which looked upon the 
 street, 'or rather upon a little place, adorned like every 
 place in Geneva, great or small, with a fountain. This 
 fact was not prepossessing, for on crossing the threshold 
 you found yourself more or less in the kitchen, encom- 
 passed with culinary odours. This, however, was no 
 great matter, for at the Pension Beaurepas there was no 
 attempt at gentility or at concealment of the domestic 
 machinery. The latter was of a very simple sort. 
 Madame Beaurepas was an excellent little old woman 
 she was very far advanced in life, and had been keeping 
 a pension for forty years whose only faults were that 
 she was slightly deaf, that she was fond of a surreptitious 
 pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of seventy-three, she 
 wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition in the 
 house that she was not so deaf as she pretended ; that 
 she feigned this infirmity in order to possess herself of 
 the secrets of her lodgers. But I never subscribed to 
 this theory ; I am convinced that Madame Beaurepas 
 had outlived the period of indiscreet curiosity. She was 
 a philosopher, on a matter-of-fact basis ; she had been 
 having lodgers for forty years, and all that she asked of 
 them was that they should pay their bills, make use of 
 the door-mat, and fold their napkins. She cared very 
 little for their secrets. "J'en ai vus de toutes les 
 couleurs," she said to me. She had quite ceased to care 
 for individuals ; she cared only for types, for categories. 
 Her large observation had made her acquainted with a 
 great number, and her mind was a complete collection 
 of " heads." She flattered herself that she knew at a 
 glance where to pigeon-hole a new-comer, and if she 
 made any mistakes her deportment never betrayed them. 
 I think that, as regards individuals, she had neither likes 
 nor dislikes ; but she was capable of expressing esteem 
 or contempt for a species. She had her own ways, I 
 
i. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 95 
 
 suppose, of manifesting her approval, but her manner of 
 indicating the reverse was simple and unvarying. " Je 
 trouve que c'est deplace !" this exhausted her view of 
 the matter. If one of her inmates had put arsenic into 
 \he pot-au-feu, I believe Madame Beaurepas would have 
 contented herself with remarking that the proceeding was 
 out of place. The line of misconduct to which she most 
 objected was an undue assumption of gentility ; she had 
 no patience with boarders who gave themselves airs. 
 ' ' When people come ckez moi, it is not to cut a figure in 
 the world ; I have never had that illusion," I remember 
 hearing her say; "and when you pay seven francs a 
 day, tout compris, it comprises eveiything but the right 
 to look down upon the others. But there are people 
 who, the less they pay, the more they take themselves 
 au serieux. My most difficult boarders have always 
 been those who have had the little rooms." 
 
 Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of 
 some forty odd years ; and the two ladies, with the 
 assistance of a couple of thick-waisted, red-armed peasant 
 women, kept the house going. If on your exits and 
 entrances you peeped into the kitchen, it made very little 
 difference ; for Celestine, the cook, had no pretension to 
 be an invisible functionary or to deal in occult methods. 
 She was always at your service, with a grateful grin : 
 she blacked your boots ; she trudged off to fetch a cab ; 
 she would have carried your baggage, if you had allowed 
 her, on her broad little back. She was always tramping 
 in and out, between her kitchen and the fountain in the 
 place, where it often seemed to me that a large part of 
 the preparation for our dinner went forward the wring- 
 ing out of towels and table-cloths, the washing of potatoes 
 and cabbages, the scouring of saucepans and cleansing 
 of water-bottles. You enjoyed, from the doorstep, a 
 perpetual back-view of Celestine and of her large, loose, 
 woollen ankles, as she craned, from the waist, over into 
 the fountain and dabbled in her various utensils. This 
 
96 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. I. 
 
 sounds as if life went on in a very make-shift fashion at 
 the Pension Beaurepas as if the tone of the establish- 
 ment were sordid. But such was not at all the case. 
 We were simply very bourgeois ; we practised the good 
 old Genevese principle of not sacrificing to appearances. 
 This is an excellent principle when you have the reality. 
 We had the reality at the Pension Beaurepas : we had 
 it in the shape of soft short beds, equipped with fluffy 
 duvets ; of admirable coffee, served to us in the morning 
 by Celestine in person, as we lay recumbent on these 
 downy couches ; of copious, wholesome, succulent 
 dinners, conformable to the best provincial traditions. 
 For myself, I thought the Pension Beaurepas picturesque, 
 and this, with me, at that time was a great word. I 
 was young and ingenuous : I had just come from America. 
 I wished to perfect myself in the French tongue, and I 
 innocently believed that it flourished by Lake Leman. 
 I used to go to lectures at the Academy, and come home 
 with a violent appetite. I always enjoyed my morning 
 walk across the long bridge (there was only one, just 
 there, "in those days) which spans the deep blue out-gush 
 of the lake, and up the dark steep streets of the old 
 Calvinistic city. The garden faced this way, toward the 
 lake and the old town ; and this was the pleasantest 
 approach to the house. There was a high wall, with a 
 double gate in the middle, flanked by a couple of ancient 
 massive posts ; the big rusty grille contained some old- 
 fashioned iron-work. The garden was rather mouldy 
 and weedy, tangled and untended ; but it contained a 
 little thin -flowing fountain, several green benches, a 
 rickety little table of the same complexion, and three 
 orange-trees, in tubs, which were deposited as effectively 
 as possible in front of the windows of the salon. 
 
ii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 97 
 
 II. 
 
 As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the rustle of 
 petticdats was, at the Pension Beaurepas, the most familiar 
 form of the human tread. There was the usual allotment 
 of economical widows and old maids, and to maintain 
 the balance of the sexes there were only an old Frenchman 
 and a young American. It hardly made the matter 
 easier that the old Frenchman came from Lausanne. He 
 was a native of that estimable town, but he had once 
 spent six months in Paris, he had tasted of the tree of 
 knowledge ; he had got beyond Lausanne, whose re- 
 sources he pronounced inadequate. Lausanne, as he 
 said, " manquait cVagrements" When obliged, for 
 reasons which he never specified, to bring his residence 
 in Paris to a close, he had fallen back on Geneva ; he 
 had broken his fall at the Pension Beaurepas. Geneva 
 was, after all, more like Paris, and at a Genevese board- 
 ing-house there was sure to be plenty of Americans with 
 whom one could talk about the French metropolis. M. 
 Pigeonneau was a little lean man, with a large narrow 
 nose, who sat a great deal in the garden, reading with 
 the aid of a large magnifying glass a volume from the 
 cabinet de lecture. 
 
 One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the Pension 
 Beaurepas, I came back rather earlier than usual from 
 my academic session ; it wanted half an hour of the 
 midday breakfast. I went into the salon with the design 
 of possessing myself of the day's Galigriani before one 
 of the little English old maids should have removed it 
 to her virginal bower a privilege to which Madame 
 Beaurepas frequently alluded as one of the attractions of 
 the establishment. In the salon I found a new-comer, 
 a tall gentleman in a high black hat, whom I immediately 
 recognised as a compatriot. I had often seen him, or 
 
 H 
 
98 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. n. 
 
 his equivalent, in the hotel parlours of my native land. 
 He apparently supposed himself to be at the present 
 moment in a hotel parlour ; his hat was on his head, or, 
 rather, half off it pushed back from his forehead, and 
 rather suspended than poised. He stood before a table 
 on which old newspapers were scattered, one of which 
 he had taken up and, with his eye-glass on his nose, 
 was holding out at arm's-length. It was that honourable 
 but extremely diminutive sheet, the Journal de Geneve, 
 a newspaper of about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. 
 As I drew near, looking for my Galignani^ the tall 
 gentleman gave me, over the top of his eye-glass, a 
 somewhat solemn stare. Presently, however, before I 
 had time to lay my hand on the object of. my search, he 
 silently offered me the Journal de Geneve. 
 
 "It appears," he said, "to be the paper of the 
 country." 
 
 "Yes," I answered, " I believe it's the best." 
 
 He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm's-length, 
 as if it had been a looking-glass. " Well," he said, " I 
 suppose it's natural a small country should have small 
 papers. You could wrap it up, mountains and all, in 
 one of our dailies ! " 
 
 I found my Galignani, and went off with it into the 
 garden, where I seated myself on a bench in the shade. 
 Presently I saw the tall gentleman in the hat appear in 
 one of the open windows of the salon, and stand there 
 with his hands in his pockets and his legs a little apart. 
 He looked very much bored, and I don't know why 
 I immediately began to feel sorry for him. He was not 
 at all a picturesque personage ; he looked like a jaded, 
 faded man of business. But after a little he came into 
 the garden and began to stroll about ; and then his 
 restless, unoccupied carriage, and the vague, unacquainted 
 manner in which his eyes wandered over the place, seemed 
 to make it proper that, as an older resident, I should 
 exercise a certain hospitality. I said something to him, 
 
ii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 99 
 
 and he came and sat down beside me on my bench, 
 clasping one of his long knees in his hands. 
 
 "When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off?" 
 he inquired. " That's what I call it the little breakfast 
 and the big breakfast. I never thought I should live to 
 see the time when I should care to eat two breakfasts. 
 But a man's glad to do anything over here." 
 
 " For myself," I observed, " I find plenty to do." 
 
 He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, 
 deliberate, kind-looking eye. "You're getting used to 
 the life, are you ? " 
 
 " I like the life very much," I answered, laughing. 
 
 " How long have you tried it ?" 
 
 " Do you mean in this place ?" 
 
 "Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty 
 much the same all over." 
 
 " I have been in this house only a fortnight," I said. 
 
 "Well, what should you say, from what you have 
 seen?" my companion asked. 
 
 " Oh," said I, "you can see all there is immediately. 
 It's very simple." 
 
 " Sweet simplicity, eh ? I'm afraid my two ladies 
 will find it too simple." 
 
 "Everything is very good," I went on. "And 
 Madame Beaurepas is a charming old woman. And then 
 it's very cheap." 
 
 "Cheap, is it?" my friend repeated meditatively. 
 
 "Doesn't it strike you so?" I asked. I thought it 
 very possible he had not inquired the terms. But he 
 appeared not to have heard me ; he sat there, clasping 
 his knee and blinking, in a contemplative manner, at the 
 sunshine. 
 
 "Are you from the United States, sir?" he presently 
 demanded, turning his head again. 
 
 "Yes, sir," I replied; and I mentioned the place of 
 my nativity. 
 
 "I presumed," he said, "that you were American or 
 
ioo THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. n. 
 
 English. I'm from the United States myself; from New 
 York city. Many of our people here ? " 
 
 "Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes 
 been. There are two or three ladies." 
 
 "Well," my interlocutor declared, "I am very fond 
 of ladies' society. I think when it's superior there's 
 nothing comes up to it. I've got two ladies here myself; 
 I must make you acquainted with them." 
 
 I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I inquired 
 of my friend whether he had been long in Europe. 
 
 "Well, it seems precious long," he said, "but my 
 time's not up yet. We have been here fourteen weeks 
 and a half." 
 
 "Are you travelling for pleasure?" I asked. 
 
 My companion turned his head again and looked at 
 me looked at me so long in silence that I at last also 
 turned and met his eyes. 
 
 " No, sir," he said presently. " No, sir," he repeated, 
 after a considerable interval. 
 
 " Excuse me," said I, for there was something so 
 solemn in his tone that I feared I had been indiscreet. 
 
 He took no notice of my ejaculation ; he simply con- 
 tinued to look at me. " I'm travelling," he said, at 
 last, "to please the doctors. They seemed to think 
 they would like it." 
 
 " Ah, they sent you abroad for your health ?" 
 
 "They sent me abroad because they were so con- 
 foundedly muddled they didn't know what else to do." 
 
 " That's often the best thing," I ventured to remark. 
 
 "It was a confession of weakness; they wanted me 
 to stop plaguing them. They didn't know enough to 
 cure me, and that's the way they thought they would 
 get round it. I wanted to be cured I didn't want to 
 be transported. I hadn't done any harm." 
 
 I assented to the general proposition of the inefficiency 
 of doctors, and asked my companion if he had been 
 seriously ill. 
 
ii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 101 
 
 " I didn't sleep," he said, after some delay. 
 
 * ' Ah, that's very annoying. I suppose you were 
 overworked. " 
 
 " I didn't eat ; I took no interest in my food." 
 
 "Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now," I said. 
 
 " I couldn't hold a pen, " my neighbour went on. 
 " I couldn't sit still. I couldn't walk from my house to 
 the cars and it's only a little way. I lost my interest 
 in business." 
 
 " You needed a holiday," I observed. 
 
 "That's what the doctors said. It wasn't so very 
 smart of them. I had been paying strict attention to 
 business for twenty-three years." 
 
 "In all that time you have never had a holiday?" 
 I exclaimed with horror. 
 
 My companion waited a little. " Sundays," he said 
 at last. 
 
 "No wonder, then, you were out of sorts." 
 
 "Well, sir," said my friend, "I shouldn't have been 
 where I was three years ago if I had spent my time 
 travelling round Europe. I was in a very advantageous 
 position. I did a very large business. I was consider- 
 ably interested in lumber." He paused, turned his head, 
 and looked at me a moment. " Have you any business 
 interests yourself?" I answered that I had none, and 
 he went on again, slowly, softly, deliberately. "Well, 
 sir, perhaps you are not aware that business in the 
 United States is not what it was a short time since. 
 Business interests are very insecure. There seems to be 
 a general falling -off. Different parties offer different 
 explanations of the fact, but so far as I am aware none 
 of their observations have set things going again." I 
 ingeniously intimated that if business was dull, the time 
 was good for coming away ; whereupon my neighbour 
 threw back his head and stretched his legs a while. 
 "Well, sir, that's one view of the matter certainly. 
 There's something to be said for that. These things 
 
102 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. n. 
 
 should be looked at all round. That's the ground my wife 
 took. That's the ground," he added in a moment, "that 
 a lady would naturally take ;" and he gave a little dry 
 laugh. 
 
 "You think it's slightly illogical," I remarked. 
 
 * ' Well, sir, the ground I took was, that the worse a 
 man's business is, the more it requires looking after. I 
 shouldn't want to go out to take a walk not even to go 
 to church if my house was on fire. My firm is not 
 doing the business it was ; it's like a sick child, it requires 
 nursing. What I wanted the doctors to do was to fix 
 me up, so that I could go on at home. I'd have taken 
 anything they'd have given me, and as many times a 
 day. I wanted to be right there ; I had my reasons ; I 
 have them still. But I came off all the same, " said my 
 friend, with a melancholy smile. 
 
 I was a great deal younger than he, but there was 
 something so simple and communicative in his tone, so 
 expressive of a desire to fraternise, and so exempt from 
 any theory of human differences, that I quite forgot his 
 seniority, and found myself offering him paternal advice. 
 "Don't think about all that," said I. "Simply enjoy 
 yourself, amuse yourself, get well. Travel about and 
 see Europe. At the end of a year, by the time you are 
 ready to go home, things will have improved over there, 
 and you will be quite well and happy." 
 
 My friend laid his hand on my knee ; he looked at 
 me for some moments, and I thought he was going to 
 say, "You are very young!" But he said presently, 
 " You have got used to Europe any way !" 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 103 
 
 III. 
 
 AT breakfast I encountered his ladies his wife and 
 daughter. They were placed, however, at a distance 
 from me, and it was not until the pensionnaires had dis- 
 persed, and some of them, according to custom, had 
 come out into the garden, that he had an opportunity of 
 making me acquainted with them. 
 
 " Will you allow me to introduce you to my daughter?" 
 he said, moved apparently by a paternal inclination to 
 provide this young lady with social diversion. She was 
 standing with her mother, in one of the paths, looking 
 about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the 
 homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeon- 
 neau was hovering near, hesitating apparently between 
 the desire to be urbane and the absence of a pretext. 
 "Mrs. Ruck Miss Sophy Ruck," said my friend, lead- 
 ing me up. 
 
 Mrs. Ruck was a large, plump, light-coloured person, 
 with a smooth fair face, a somnolent eye, and an elaborate 
 coiffure. Miss Sophy was a girl of one-and-twenty, very 
 small and very pretty what I suppose would have been 
 called a lively brunette. Both of these ladies were 
 attired in black silk dresses, very much trimmed ; they 
 had an air of the highest elegance. 
 
 "Do you think highly of this pension?" inquired 
 Mrs. Ruck, after a few preliminaries. 
 
 "It's a little rough, but it seems to me comfortable," 
 I answered. 
 
 "Does it take a high rank in Geneva?" Mrs. Ruck 
 pursued. 
 
 " I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame," I said, smiling. 
 
 " I should never dream of comparing it to a New 
 York boarding-house," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 
 "It's quite a different style," her daughter observed. 
 
104 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. in. 
 
 Miss Ruck had folded her arms ; she was holding her 
 elbows with a pair of white little hands, and she was 
 tapping the ground with a pretty little foot. 
 
 "We hardly expected to come to a pension," said 
 Mrs. Ruck. "But we thought we would try; we had 
 heard so much about Swiss pensions. I was saying to 
 Mr. Ruck that I wondered whether this was a favourable 
 specimen. I was afraid we might have made a mistake." 
 
 "We knew some people who had been here; they 
 thought everything of Madame Beaurepas," said Miss 
 Sophy. " They said she was a real friend." 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Parker perhaps you have heard her 
 speak of them," Mrs. Ruck pursued. 
 
 " Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Americans ; 
 she is very fond of Americans," I replied. 
 
 " Well, I must say I should think she would be, if she 
 compares them with some others." 
 
 " Mother is always comparing," observed Miss Ruck. 
 
 "Of course I am always comparing," rejoined the 
 elder lady. * ' I never had a chance till now ; I never 
 knew my privileges. Give me an American ! " And 
 Mrs. Ruck indulged in a little laugh. 
 
 "Well, I must say there are some things I like over 
 here," said Miss Sophy, with courage. And indeed I 
 could see that she was a young woman of great decision. 
 
 "You like the shops that's what you like," her 
 father affirmed. 
 
 The young lady addressed herself to me, without heed- 
 ing this remark. "I suppose you feel quite at home 
 here." 
 
 "Oh, he likes it; he has got used to the life!" ex- 
 claimed Mr. Ruck. 
 
 " I wish you'd teach Mr. Ruck," said his wife. " It 
 seems as if he couldn't get used to anything." 
 
 "I'm used to you, my dear," the husband retorted, 
 giving me a humorous look. 
 
 " He's intensely restless," continued Mrs, Ruck, 
 
in. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 105 
 
 "That's what made me want to come to a pension. I 
 thought he would settle down more." 
 
 " I don't think I am used to you, after all," said her 
 husband. 
 
 In view of a possible exchange of conjugal repartee I 
 took refuge in conversation with Miss Ruck, who seemed 
 perfectly able to play her part in any colloquy. I learned 
 -from this young lady that, with her parents, after visiting 
 the British Islands, she had been spending a month in 
 Paris, and that she thought she should have died when 
 she left that city. "I hung out of the carriage, when 
 we left the hotel," said Miss Ruck, " I assure you I did. 
 And mother did, too." 
 
 " Out of the other window, I hope," said I. 
 
 " Yes, one out of each window," she replied promptly. 
 "Father had hard work, I can tell you. We hadn't 
 half finished ; there were ever so many places we wanted 
 to go to." 
 
 "Your father insisted on coming away?" 
 
 "Yes; after we had been there about a month he 
 said he had enough. He's fearfully restless ; he's very 
 much out of health. Mother and I said to him that if 
 he was restless in Paris he needn't hope for peace any- 
 where. We don't mean to leave him alone till he takes 
 us back." There was an air of keen resolution in Miss 
 Ruck's pretty face, of lucid apprehension of desirable 
 ends, which made me, as she pronounced these words, 
 direct a glance of covert compassion toward her poor 
 recalcitrant father. He had walked away a little with 
 his wife, and I saw only his back and his stooping, 
 patient-looking shoulders, whose air of acute resignation 
 was thrown into relief by the voluminous tranquillity of 
 Mrs. Ruck. " He will have to take us back in Septem- 
 ber, any way," the young girl pursued; "he will have 
 to take us back to get some things we have ordered." 
 
 "Have you ordered a great many things?" I asked 
 jocosely. 
 
io6 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. in. 
 
 "Well, I guess \ve have ordered some. Of course we 
 wanted to take advantage of being in Paris ladies always 
 do. We have left the principal things till we go back. 
 Of course that is the principal interest, for ladies. 
 Mother said she should feel so shabby if she just passed 
 through. We have promised all the people to be back 
 in September, and I never broke a promise yet. So 
 Mr. Ruck has got to make his plans accordingly." 
 
 "And what are his plans?" 
 
 " I don't know ; he doesn't seem able to make any. 
 His great idea was to get to Geneva ; but now that he 
 has got here he doesn't seem to care. It's the effect of 
 ill health. He used to be so bright ; but now he is quite 
 subdued. It's about time he should improve, any way. 
 We went out last night to look at the jewellers' windows 
 in that street behind the hotel. I had always heard 
 of those jewellers' windows. We saw some lovely things, 
 but it didn't seem to rouse father. He'll get tired of 
 Geneva sooner than he did of Paris." 
 
 "Ah," said I, "there are finer things here than the 
 jewellers' windows. We are very near some of the most 
 beautiful scenery in Europe." 
 
 " I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we have 
 seen plenty of mountains at home. We used to go to 
 the mountains every summer. We are familiar enough 
 with the mountains. Aren't we, mother?" the young 
 lady demanded, appealing to Mrs. Ruck, who, with her 
 husband, had drawn near again. 
 
 "Aren't we what?" inquired the elder lady. 
 
 "Aren't we familiar with the mountains?" 
 
 "Well, I hope so," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 
 Mr. Ruck, with his hands in his pockets, gave me a 
 sociable wink. "There's nothing much you can tell 
 them ! " he said. 
 
 The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, sur- 
 veying each other's garments. "Don't you want to go 
 out ?" the young girl at last inquired of her mother. 
 
in. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 107 
 
 " Well, I think we had better ; we have got to go up 
 to that place." 
 
 "To what place?" asked Mr. Ruck. 
 
 " To that jeweller's to that big one." 
 
 " They all seemed big enough ; they were too big ! " 
 And Mr.^ Ruck gave me another wink. 
 
 "That one where we saw the blue cross," said his 
 daughter. 
 
 "Oh, come, what do you want of that blue cross?" 
 poor Mr. Ruck demanded. 
 
 " She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon and 
 tie it round her neck," said his wife. 
 
 "A black velvet ribbon? No, I thank you!" cried 
 the young lady. "Do you suppose I would wear that 
 cross on a black velvet ribbon ? On a nice little gold 
 chain, if you please a little narrow gold chain, like an 
 old-fashioned watch-chain. That's the proper thing for 
 that blue cross. I know the sort of chain I mean ; I'm 
 going to look for one. When I want a thing," said 
 Miss Ruck, with decision, " I can generally find it." 
 
 "Look here, Sophy," her father urged, "you don't 
 want that blue cross." 
 
 " I do want it I happen to want it." And Sophy 
 glanced at me with a little laugh. 
 
 Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested that 
 there were various relations in which one might stand to 
 Miss Ruck ; but I think I was conscious of a certain 
 satisfaction in not occupying the paternal one. " Don't 
 worry the poor child," said her mother. 
 
 "Come on, mother," said Miss Ruck. 
 
 "We are going to look about a little," explained the 
 elder lady to me, by way of taking leave. 
 
 "I know what that means," remarked Mr. Ruck, as 
 his companions moved away. He stood looking at them 
 a moment, while he raised his hand to his head, behind, 
 and stood rubbing it a little, with a movement that dis- 
 placed his hat. (I may remark in parenthesis that I 
 
io8 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 never saw a hat more easily displaced than Mr. Ruck's.) 
 I supposed he was going to say something querulous, but 
 I was mistaken. Mr. Ruck was unhappy, but he was 
 very good-natured. " Well, they want to pick up some- 
 thing," he said. "That's the principal interest, for 
 ladies." 
 
 IV. 
 
 MR. RUCK distinguished me, as the French say. He 
 honoured me with his esteem, and, as the days elapsed, 
 with a large portion of his confidence. Sometimes he 
 bored me a little, for the tone of his conversation was not 
 cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melan- 
 choly dirge over the financial prostration of our common 
 country. "No, sir, business in the United States is not 
 what it once was," he found occasion to remark several 
 times a day. " There's not the same spring there's 
 not the same hopeful feeling. You can see it in all 
 departments." He used to sit by the hour in the little 
 garden of the pension, with a roll of American newspapers 
 in his lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of 
 his long legs and reading the New York Herald. He 
 paid a daily visit to the American banker's, on the other 
 side of the Rhone, and remained there a long time, 
 turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in 
 the middle of the Salon des Strangers, and fraternising 
 with chance compatriots. But in spite of these diversions 
 his time hung heavily upon his hands. I used sometimes 
 to propose to him to take a walk ; but he had a mortal 
 horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for 
 it as a morbid form of activity. " You'll kill yourself, 
 if you don't look out," he said, "walking all over the 
 country. I don't want to walk round that way ; I ain't 
 a postman ! " Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few re- 
 
iv. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 109 
 
 sources. His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it 
 was to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that 
 could not be apparent to an unobtrusive young man. 
 They also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon, 
 side by side, with folded hands, contemplating material 
 objects, and were remarkably independent of most of 
 the usual feminine aids to idleness light literature, 
 tapestry, the use of the piano. They were, however, 
 much fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I 
 often met them in the Rue du Rhone and on the quays, 
 loitering in front of the jewellers' windows. They might 
 have had a cavalier in the person of old M. Pigeonneau, 
 who possessed a high appreciation of their charms, but 
 who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was 
 deprived of the pleasures of intimacy. He knew no 
 English, and Mrs. Ruck and her daughter had, as it 
 seemed, an incurable mistrust of the beautiful tongue 
 which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon 
 them, was pre-eminently the language of conversation. 
 
 "They have a tournure de princesse a distinction 
 supreme" he said to me. "One is surprised to find 
 them in a little pension, at seven francs a day. " 
 
 "Oh, they don't come for economy," I answered. 
 "They must be rich." 
 
 "They don't come for my beaux yeux for mine," 
 said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. " Perhaps it's for yours, 
 young man. Je vous recommande la mere." 
 
 I reflected a moment. "They came on account of 
 Mr. Ruck because at hotels he's so restless." 
 
 M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. " Of course 
 he is, with such a wife as that ! a femme superbe. 
 Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection a miraculous 
 fraicheur. I like those large, fair, quiet women ; they 
 are often, dans rintimite^ the most agreeable. I'll 
 warrant you that at heart Madame Ruck is a finished 
 coquette." 
 
 " I rather doubt it," I said. 
 
no THE PENSION I3EAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 "You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas ! 
 
 " It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake. 
 
 "You young Americans are droll," said M. Pigeon- 
 neau ; "you never have anything at stake! But the 
 little one, for example ; I'll warrant you she's not cold. 
 She is admirably made." 
 
 " She is very pretty." 
 
 " ' She is very pretty ! ' Vous dites cela d'un ton ! 
 When you pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I 
 hope that's not the way you do it." 
 
 " I don't pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck." 
 
 "Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, "you young 
 Americans are droll ! " 
 
 I should have suspected that these two ladies would not 
 especially commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas ; 
 that as a maitresse de salon, which she in some degree 
 aspired to be, she would have found them wanting in a 
 certain flexibility of deportment. But I should have 
 gone quite wrong ; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at 
 all to find with her new pensionnaires. " I have no obser- 
 vation whatever to make about them," she said to me one 
 evening. " I see nothing in those ladies which is at all 
 deplace. They don't complain of anything; they don't 
 meddle ; they take what's given them ; they leave me 
 tranquil. The Americans are often like that. Often, 
 but not always," Madame Beaurepas pursued. "We are 
 to have a specimen to-morrow of a very different sort." 
 
 "An American?" I inquired. 
 
 " Two Americaines a mother and a daughter. There 
 are Americans and Americans : when you are difficiles, 
 you are more so than any one, and when you have pre- 
 tensions ah, par exemple, it's serious. I foresee that 
 with this little lady everything will be serious, beginning 
 with her cafe au lait. She has been staying at the 
 Pension Chamousset my concurrent, you know, farther 
 up the street ; but she is coming away because the coffee 
 is bad. She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don't 
 
iv. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. in 
 
 know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have in- 
 vented, but we will do the best we can for her. Only, 
 I know she will make me des histoires about something 
 else. She will demand a new lamp for the salon ; vous 
 allez voir cela. She wishes to pay but eleven francs a 
 day for herself and her daughter, tout compris ; and for 
 their eleven francs they expect to be lodged like princesses. 
 But she is veiy * ladylike ' isn't that what you call it in 
 English ? Oh, pour cela, she is ladylike ! " 
 
 I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this ladylike 
 person, who was arriving at her new residence as I came 
 in from a walk. She had come in a cab, with her 
 daughter and her luggage ; and, with an air of perfect 
 softness and serenity, she was disputing the fare as she 
 stood among her boxes, on the steps. She addressed 
 her cabman in a very English accent, but with extreme 
 precision and correctness. " I wish to be perfectly 
 reasonable, but I don't wish to encourage you in ex- 
 orbitant demands. With a franc and a half you are 
 sufficiently paid. It is not the custom at Geneva to give 
 a pour-boire for so short a drive. I have made inquiries, 
 and I find it is not the custom, even in the best families. 
 I am a stranger, yes, but I always adopt the custom of the 
 native families. I think it my duty toward the natives." 
 
 "But I am a native, too, mot/" said the cabman, 
 with an angry laugh. 
 
 "You seem to me to speak with a German accent," 
 continued the lady. "You are probably from Basel. 
 A franc and a half is sufficient. I see you have left 
 behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold 
 between your knees ; you will please to go back to the 
 other house and get it. Very well, if you are impolite I 
 will make a complaint of you to-morrow at the admini- 
 stration. Aurora, you will find a pencil in the outer 
 pocket of my embroidered satchel ; please to write down 
 his number, 87 ; do you see it distinctly? in case we 
 should forget it." 
 
H2 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 The young lady addressed as "Aurora" a slight, 
 fair girl, holding a large parcel of umbrellas stood at 
 hand while this allocution went forward, but she appar- 
 ently gave no heed to it. She stood looking about her, 
 in a listless manner, at the front of the house, at the 
 corridor, at Celestine tucking up her apron in the door- 
 way, at me as I passed in amid the disseminated luggage ; 
 her mother's parsimonious attitude seeming to produce 
 in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At 
 dinner the two ladies were placed on the same side of 
 the table as myself, below Mrs. Ruck and her daughter, 
 my own position being on the right of Mr. Ruck. I had 
 therefore little observation of Mrs. Church such I 
 learned to be her name but I occasionally heard her 
 soft, distinct voice. 
 
 " White wine, if you please ; we prefer white wine. 
 There is none on the table ? Then you will please to 
 get some, and to remember to place a bottle of it always 
 here ? between my daughter and myself." 
 
 " That lady seems to know what she wants," said Mr. 
 Ruck, "and she speaks so I can understand her. I 
 can't understand every one, over here. I should like to 
 make that lady's acquaintance. Perhaps she knows 
 what / want, too ; it seems hard to find out. But I 
 don't want any of their sour white wine ; that's one of 
 the things I don't want. I expect she'll be an addition 
 to the pension." 
 
 Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that 
 evening in the parlour, being presented to her by his 
 wife, who presumed on the rights conferred upon herself 
 by the mutual proximity, at table, of the two ladies. I 
 suspected that in Mrs. Church's view Mrs. Ruck pre- 
 sumed too far. The fugitive from the Pension Cham- 
 ousset, as M. Pigeonneau called her, was a little fresh, 
 plump, comely woman, looking less than her age, with 
 a round, bright, serious face. She was very simply and 
 frugally dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. Ruck's 
 
iv. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 113 
 
 companions, and she had an air of quiet distinction 
 which was an excellent defensive weapon. She ex- 
 hibited a polite disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck 
 might have to say, but her manner was equivalent to an 
 intimation that what she valued least in boarding-house 
 life was its social opportunities. She had placed herself 
 near a lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it up, 
 and she had opened in her lap, with the assistance of a 
 large embroidered marker, an octavo volume, which I 
 perceived to be in German. To Mrs. Ruck and her 
 daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her economical 
 attire and her expensive culture. The two younger 
 ladies, however, had begun to fraternise very freely, and 
 Miss Ruck presently went wandering out of the room 
 with her arm round the waist of Miss Church. It was 
 a very warm evening ; the long windows of the salon 
 stood wide open into the garden, and, inspired by the 
 balmy darkness, M. Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beau- 
 repas, a most obliging little woman, who lisped and 
 always wore a huge cravat, declared they would organise 
 a. fete de nuit. They engaged in this undertaking, and 
 the fete developed itself, consisting of half-a-dozen red 
 paper lanterns, hung about on the trees, and of several 
 glasses of sirop^ carried on a tray by the stout-armed 
 Celestine. As the festival deepened to its climax I went 
 out into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was master 
 of ceremonies. 
 
 " But where are those charming young ladies," he 
 cried, " Miss Ruck and the new-comer, Faimable trans- 
 fuge ? Their absence has been remarked, and they are 
 wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. Voyez I have 
 selected a glass of syrup a generous glass for Made- 
 moiselle Ruck, and I advise you, my young friend, if 
 you wish to make a good impression, to put aside one 
 which you may offer to the other young lady. What is 
 her name ? Miss Church. I see ; it's a singular name. 
 There is a church in which I would willingly worship ! " 
 
 I 
 
U4 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having 
 concluded his interview with Mrs. Church. Through 
 the open window I saw the latter lady sitting under the 
 lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Ruck, estab- 
 lished, empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, gazed 
 at her with an air of fascination. 
 
 "Well, I told you she would know what I want," 
 said Mr. Ruck. " She says I want to go up to Appen- 
 zell, wherever that is ; that I want to drink whey and 
 live in a high latitude what did she call it ? a high 
 altitude. She seemed to think we ought to leave for 
 Appenzell to-morrow ; she'd got it all fixed. She says 
 this ain't a high enough lat a high enough altitude. 
 And she says I mustn't go too high either ; that would 
 be just as bad ; she seems to know just the right figure. 
 She says she'll give me a list of the hotels where we 
 must stop, on the way to Appenzell. I asked her if 
 she didn't want to go with us, but she says she'd rather 
 sit still and read. I expect she's a big reader." 
 
 The daughter of this accomplished woman now re- 
 appeared, in company with Miss Ruck, with whom she had 
 been strolling through the outlying parts of the garden. 
 
 "Well, "said Miss Ruck, glancing at the red paper 
 lanterns, "are they trying to stick the flower-pots into 
 the trees?" 
 
 " It's an illumination in honour of our arrival," the 
 other young girl rejoined. " It's a triumph over 
 Madame Chamousset." 
 
 " Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset," I ventured 
 to suggest, "they have put out their lights; they are 
 sitting in darkness, lamenting your departure." 
 
 She looked at me, smiling ; she was standing in the 
 light that came from the house. M. Pigeonneau, mean- 
 while, who had been awaiting his chance, advanced to 
 Miss Ruck with his glass of syrup. " I have kept it for 
 you, Mademoiselle," he said ; "I have jealously guarded 
 it. It is very delicious !" 
 
iv. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 115 
 
 Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup, without 
 any motion to take the glass. " Well, I guess it's sour," 
 she said in a moment ; and she gave a little shake of her 
 head. 
 
 M. Pigeonneau stood staring with his syrup in his 
 hand f then he slowly turned away. He looked about 
 at the rest of us, as if to appeal from Miss Ruck's 
 insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute on 
 a bench. 
 
 ."Won't you give it to me?" asked Miss Church, in 
 faultless French. "J'adore le sirop, moi.' 7 
 
 M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented 
 the glass with a very low bow. "I adore good 
 manners," murmured the old man. 
 
 This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with 
 quickened interest. She was not strikingly pretty, but 
 in her charming irregular face there was something 
 brilliant and ardent. Like her mother, she was very 
 simply dressed. 
 
 " She wants to go to America, and her mother won't 
 let her," said Miss Sophy to me, explaining her com- 
 panion's situation. 
 
 " I am very sorry for America," I answered, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Well, I don't want to say anything against your 
 mother, but I think it's shameful," Miss Ruck pursued. 
 
 " Mamma has very good reasons ; she will tell you 
 them all." 
 
 "Well, I'm sure I don't want to hear them," said 
 Miss Ruck. "You have got a right to go to your own 
 country ; every one has a right to go to their own 
 country." 
 
 " Mamma is not very patriotic," said Aurora Church, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Well, I call that dreadful," her companion declared. 
 " I have heard that there are some Americans like that, 
 but I never believed it." 
 
n6 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 "There are all sorts of Americans, " I said, laughing. 
 
 " Aurora's one of the right sort," rejoined Miss Ruck, 
 who had apparently become very intimate with her new 
 friend. 
 
 "Are you very patriotic?" I asked of the young 
 girl. 
 
 "She's right down homesick," said Miss Sophy; 
 "she's dying to go. If I were you my mother would 
 have to take me." 
 
 " Mamma is going to take me to Dresden." 
 
 " Well, I declare I never heard of anything so dread- 
 ful !" cried Miss Ruck. "It's like something in a 
 story. " 
 
 " I never heard there was anything very dreadful in 
 Dresden," I interposed. 
 
 Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. "Well, I don't 
 believe you are a good American," she replied, "and I 
 never supposed you were. You had better go in there 
 and talk to Mrs. Church." 
 
 " Dresden is really very nice, isn't it ?" I asked of her 
 companion. 
 
 " It isn't nice if you happen to prefer New York," 
 said Miss Sophy. " Miss Church prefers New York. 
 Tell him you are dying to see New York ; it will make 
 him angry," she went on. 
 
 " I have no desire to make him angry." said Aurora, 
 smiling. 
 
 "It is only Miss Ruck who can do that," I rejoined. 
 " Have you been a long time in Europe ?" 
 
 "Always." 
 
 " I call that wicked !" Miss Sophy declared. 
 
 "You might be in a worse place," I continued. " I 
 find Europe very interesting." 
 
 Miss Ruck gave a little laugh. "I was saying that 
 you wanted to pass for a European." 
 
 "Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian." 
 
 Miss Ruck looked at me a moment. " Well, you had 
 
iv. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 117 
 
 better not come home," she said. " No one will speak 
 to you." 
 
 "Were you born in these countries?" I asked of her 
 companion. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I came to Europe when I was a small 
 child. * But I remember America a little, and it seems 
 delightful." 
 
 "Wait till you see it again. It's just too lovely," 
 said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " It's the grandest country in the world," I added. 
 
 Miss Ruck began to toss her head. "Come away, 
 my dear," she said. " If there's a creature I despise it's 
 a man that tries to say funny things about his own 
 country. 
 
 "Don't you think one can be tired of Europe?" 
 Aurora asked, lingering. 
 
 " Possibly after many years." 
 
 "Father was tired of it after three weeks," said Miss 
 Ruck. 
 
 " I have been here sixteen years," her friend went on, 
 looking at me with a charming intentness, as if she had 
 a purpose in speaking. " It used to be for my educa- 
 tion. I don't know what it's for now." 
 
 " She's beautifully educated," said Miss Ruck. " She 
 knows four languages." 
 
 " I am not very sure that I know English." 
 
 "You should go to Boston!" cried Miss Sophy. 
 * * They speak splendidly in Boston. " 
 
 "C'est mon reve," said Aurora, still looking at me. 
 
 " Have you been all over Europe," I asked "in all 
 the different countries?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " Everywhere that there's 
 a pension. Mamma is devoted to pensions. We have 
 lived, at one time or another, in every pension in Europe." 
 
 "Well, I should think you had seen about enough," 
 said Miss Ruck. 
 
 "It's a delightful way of seeing Europe," Aurora 
 
n8 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. iv. 
 
 rejoined, with her brilliant smile. "You may imagine 
 how it has attached me to the different countries. I 
 have such charming souvenirs ! There is a pension await- 
 ing us now at Dresden, eight francs a day, without 
 wine. That's rather dear. Mamma means to make 
 them give us wine. Mamma is a great authority on 
 pensions; she is known, that way, all over Europe. 
 Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at 
 Piacenza, four francs a day. We made economies." 
 
 "Your mother doesn't seem to mingle much," ob- 
 served Miss Ruck, glancing through the window at the ' 
 scholastic attitude of Mrs. Church. 
 
 "No, she doesn't mingle, except in the native society. 
 Though she lives in pensions, she detests them." 
 
 "Why does she live in them, then?" asked Miss 
 Sophy, rather resentfully. 
 
 "Oh, because we are so poor; it's the cheapest way 
 to live. We have tried having a cook, but the cook 
 always steals. Mamma used to set me to watch her ; 
 that's the way I passed my jeunesse my belle jetmesse. 
 We are frightfully poor," the young girl went on, with 
 the same strange frankness a curious mixture of girlish 
 grace and conscious cynicism. "Nous n'avons pas le 
 sou. That's one of the reasons we don't go back to 
 America ; mamma says we can't afford to live there." 
 
 "Well, any one can see that you're an American girl/' 
 Miss Ruck remarked, in a consolatory manner. " I can 
 tell an American girl a mile off. You've got the Ameri- 
 can style." 
 
 "I'm afraid I haven't the American toilette" said 
 Aurora, looking at the other's superior splendour. 
 
 "Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can 
 see that. " 
 
 "Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, "my dress was 
 cut in France at Avranches." 
 
 " Well, you've got a lovely figure, any way," pursued 
 her companion. 
 
v. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 119 
 
 "Ah," said the young girl, "at Avranches, too, my 
 figure was admired." And she looked at me askance, 
 with a certain coquetry. But I was an innocent youth, 
 and I only looked back at her, wondering. She was a 
 great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck 
 would hot have said that. "I try to be like an Ameri- 
 can girl," she continued; "I do my best, though 
 mamma doesn't at all encourage it. I am very patriotic. 
 I try to copy them, though mamma has brought me up 
 a la fran$aise ; that is, as much as one can in pensions. 
 For instance, I have never been out of the house without 
 mamma ; oh, never, never. But sometimes I despair ; 
 American girls are so wonderfully frank. I can't be 
 frank, like that. I am always afraid. But I do what I 
 can, as you see. Excusez du peu ! " 
 
 I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as 
 most of her unexpatriated sisters ; there was something 
 almost comical in her despondency. But she had by no 
 means caught, as it seemed to me, the American tone. 
 Whatever her tone was, however, it had a fascination ; 
 there was something dainty about it, and yet it was 
 decidedly audacious. 
 
 The young ladies began to stroll about the garden 
 again, and I enjoyed their society until M. Pigeonneau's 
 festival came to an end. 
 
 V. 
 
 MR. RUCK did not take his departure for Appenzell on 
 the morrow, in spite of the eagerness to witness such an 
 event which he had attributed to Mrs. Church. He 
 continued, on the contrary, for many days after, to hang 
 about the garden, to wander up to the banker's and back 
 again, to engage in desultory conversation with his 
 fellow-boarders, and to endeavour to assuage his constitu- 
 
120 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. v. 
 
 tional restlessness by perusal of the American journals. 
 But on the morrow I had the honour of making Mrs. 
 Church's acquaintance. She came into the salon, after 
 the midday breakfast, with her German octavo under her 
 arm, and she appealed to me for assistance in selecting a 
 quiet corner. 
 
 "Would you very kindly," she said, "move that large 
 fauteuil a little more this way ? Not the largest ; the 
 one with the little cushion. The fauteuils here are very 
 insufficient ; I must ask Madame Beaurepas for another. 
 Thank you ; a little more to the left, please ; that will 
 do. Are you particularly engaged ? " she inquired, after 
 she had seated herself. " If not, I should like to have 
 some conversation with you. It is some time since I 
 have met a young American of your what shall I call 
 it? your affiliations. I have learned your name from 
 Madame Beaurepas ; I think I used to know some of 
 your people. I don't know what has become of all my 
 friends. I used to have a charming little circle at home, 
 but now I meet no one I know. Don't you think there 
 is a great difference between the people one meets and 
 the people one would like to meet ? Fortunately, some- 
 times," added my interlocutress graciously, "it's quite 
 the same. I suppose you are a specimen, a favourable 
 specimen," she went on, "of young America. Tell me, 
 now, what is young America thinking of in these days of 
 ours? What are its feelings, its opinions, its aspirations? 
 What is its ideal?" I had seated myself near Mrs. 
 Church, and she had pointed this interrogation with the 
 gaze of her bright little eyes. I felt it embarrassing to 
 be treated as a favourable specimen of young America, 
 and to be expected to answer for the great republic. 
 Observing my hesitation, Mrs. Church clasped her hands 
 on the open page of her book and gave an intense, 
 melancholy smile. " Has it an ideal?" she softly 
 asked. "Well, we must talk of this," she went on, 
 without insisting. ' * Speak, for the present, for yourself 
 
v. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 121 
 
 simply. Have you come to Europe with any special 
 design?" 
 
 " Nothing to boast of," I said. "I am studying a 
 little." 
 
 "Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering up 
 a little European culture ; that's what we lack, you 
 know, at home. No individual can do much, of course. 
 But you must not be discouraged ; every little counts. " 
 
 " I see that you, at least, are doing your part," I 
 rejoined gallantly, dropping my eyes on my companion's 
 learned volume. 
 
 " Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. There 
 is no one, after all, like the Germans. That is, for facts. 
 For opinions I by no means always go with them. I 
 form my opinions myself. I am sorry to say, however," 
 Mrs. Church continued, "that I can hardly pretend to 
 diffuse my acquisitions. I am afraid I am sadly selfish ; 
 I do little to irrigate the soil. I belong I frankly 
 confess it to the class of absentees. " 
 
 " I had the pleasure, last evening," I said, " of making 
 the acquaintance of your daughter. She told me you 
 had been a long time in Europe." 
 
 Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. "Can one ever be 
 too long ? We shall never leave it. " 
 
 "Your daughter won't like that," I said, smiling too. 
 
 " Has she been taking you into her confidence? She 
 is a more sensible young lady than she sometimes appears. 
 I have taken great pains with her ; she is really I may 
 be permitted to say it superbly educated." 
 
 " She seemed to me a very charming girl," I rejoined. 
 "And I learned that she speaks four languages." 
 
 "It is not only that," said Mrs. Church, in a tone 
 which suggested that this might be a very superficial 
 species of culture. " She has made what we call de 
 fortes etudes such as I suppose you are making now. 
 She is familiar with the results of modern science ; she 
 keeps pace with the new historical school." 
 
122 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. v. 
 
 "Ah," said I, "she has gone much farther than I !" 
 
 ' * You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force me, 
 therefore, to mention the fact that I am able to speak of 
 such matters with a certain intelligence." 
 
 " That is very evident," I said. " But your daughter 
 thinks you ought to take her home." I began to fear, 
 as soon as I had uttered these words, that they savoured 
 of treachery to the young lady, but I was reassured by 
 seeing that they produced on her mother's placid counte- 
 nance no symptom whatever of irritation. 
 
 " My daughter has her little theories," Mrs. Church 
 observed; "she has, I may say, her illusions. And 
 what wonder ! What would youth be without its illu- 
 sions ? Aurora has a theory that she would be happier 
 in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, than in one of 
 the charming old cities in which our lot is cast. But 
 she is mistaken, that is all. We must allow our children 
 their illusions, must we not ? But we must watch over 
 them." 
 
 Although she herself seemed proof against discom- 
 posure, I found something vaguely irritating in her soft, 
 sweet positiveness. 
 
 "American cities," I said, "are the paradise of young 
 girls." 
 
 "Do you mean," asked Mrs. Church, "that the 
 young girls who come from those places are angels ?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, resolutely. 
 
 "This young lady what is her odd name? with 
 whom my daughter has formed a somewhat precipitate 
 acquaintance : is Miss Ruck an angel ? But I won't 
 force you to say anything uncivil. It would be too 
 cruel to make a single exception." 
 
 "Well," said I, "at any rate, in America young girls 
 have an easier lot. They have much more liberty." 
 
 My companion laid her hand for an instant on my 
 arm. " My dear young friend, I know America, I know 
 the conditions of life there, so well. There is perhaps 
 
v. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 123 
 
 no subject on which I have reflected more than on our 
 national idiosyncrasies. " 
 
 " I am afraid you don't approve of them," said I, a 
 little brutally. 
 
 Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. Church 
 was not prepared to assent to it in this rough shape. 
 She dropped her eyes on her book, with an air of acute 
 meditation. Then, raising them, "We are very crude," 
 she softly observed "we are very crude." Lest even 
 this delicately-uttered statement should seem to savour 
 of the vice that she deprecated, she went on to explain. 
 * ' There are two classes of minds, you know those that 
 hold back, and those that push forward. My daughter 
 and I are not pushers ; we move with little steps. We 
 like the old, trodden paths ; we like the old, old world." 
 
 "Ah," said I, "you know what you like; there is a 
 great virtue in that." 
 
 "Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it. We like the 
 opportunities of Europe ; we like the rest. There is so 
 much in that, you know. The world seems to me to be 
 hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without knowing 
 where it is going. 'Whither?' I often ask, in my little 
 quiet way. But I have yet to learn that any one can 
 tell me." 
 
 "You're a great conservative," I observed, while I 
 wondered whether I myself could answer this inquiry. 
 
 Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equivalent 
 to a confession. " I wish to retain a little just a little. 
 Surely, we have done so much, we might rest a while ; 
 we might pause. That is all my feeling just to stop a 
 little, to wait ! I have seen so many changes. I wish 
 to draw in, to draw in to hold back, to hold back." 
 
 " You shouldn't hold your daughter back !" I answered, 
 laughing and getting up. I got up, not by way of ter- 
 minating our interview, for I perceived Mrs. Church's 
 exposition of her views to be by no means complete, but 
 in order to offer a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this 
 
124 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. v. 
 
 moment drew near. She thanked me and remained 
 standing, but without at first, as I noticed, meeting her 
 mother's eye. 
 
 " You have been engaged with your new acquaintance, 
 my dear ?" this lady inquired. 
 
 " Yes, mamma, dear," said the young girl, gently. 
 
 " Do you find her very edifying ?" 
 
 Aurora was silent a moment ; then she looked at her 
 mother. " I don't know, mamma ; she is very fresh." 
 
 I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. "Your 
 mother has another word for that. " But I must not," 
 I added, "be crude." 
 
 "Ah, vous m'en voulez?" inquired Mrs. Church. 
 "And yet I can't pretend I said it in jest. I feel it too 
 much. We have been having a little social discussion," 
 she said to her daughter. * * There is still so much to 
 be said. "And I wish," she continued, turning to me, 
 *' that I could give you our point of view. Don't you 
 wish, Aurora, that we could give him our point of 
 view ?" 
 
 "Yes, mamma," said Aurora. 
 
 "We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of 
 view, don't we, dearest?" mamma demanded. 
 
 "Very fortunate, indeed, mamma." 
 
 "You see we have acquired an insight into European 
 life," the elder lady pursued. "We have our place at 
 many a European fireside. We find so much to esteem 
 so much to enjoy. Do we not, my daughter?" 
 
 "So very much, mamma," the young girl went on, 
 with a sort of inscrutable submissiveness. I wondered 
 at it ; it offered so strange a contrast to the mocking 
 freedom of her tone the night before ; but while I won- 
 dered I was careful not to let my perplexity take pre- 
 cedence of my good manners. 
 
 " I don't know what you ladies may have found at 
 European firesides," I said, "but there can be very little 
 doubt what you have left there." 
 
vi. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 125 
 
 Mrs. Church got up, to acknowledge my compliment. 
 " We have spent some charming hours. And that 
 reminds me that we have just now such an occasion in 
 prospect. We are to call upon some Genevese friends 
 the family of the Pasteur Galopin. They are to go with 
 us to the old library at the Hotel de Ville, where there 
 are some very interesting documents of the period of the 
 Reformation ; we are promised a glimpse of some manu- 
 scripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you 
 know, of Calvin. Here, of course, one can only speak of 
 Calvin under one's breath, but some day, when we are 
 more private," and Mrs. Church looked round the room, 
 " I will give you my view of him. I think it has a 
 touch of originality. Aurora is familiar with, are you 
 not, my daughter, familiar with my view of Calvin ?" 
 
 "Yes, mamma," said Aurora, with docility, while the 
 two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the Pasteur 
 Galopin. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ''SHE has demanded a new lamp ; I told you she would ! " 
 This communication was made me by Madame Beaurepas 
 a couple of days later. " And she has asked for a new 
 tapis de lit, and she has requested me to provide Celestine 
 with a pair of light shoes. I told her that, as a general 
 thing, cooks are not shod with satin. That poor 
 Celestine !" 
 
 " Mrs. Church may be exacting," I said, "but she is 
 a clever little woman." 
 
 " A lady who pays but five francs and a half shouldn't 
 be too clever. C'est deplace. I don't like the type." 
 
 "What type do you call Mrs. Church's?" 
 
 "Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, "c'est une de 
 ces mamans coinme vous en avez, qui promenent leur fille." 
 
126 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vi. 
 
 " She is trying to marry her daughter? I don't think 
 she's of that sort. " 
 
 But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. 
 " She is tiying it in her own way ; she does it very 
 quietly. She doesn't want an American ; she wants a 
 foreigner. And she wants a mari serieux. But she is 
 travelling over Europe in search of one. She would like 
 a magistrate." 
 
 " A magistrate?" 
 
 ' * A gros bonnet of some kind ; a professor or a 
 deputy." 
 
 " I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, laughing. 
 
 "You needn't pity her too much ; she's a sly thing." 
 
 "Ah, for that, no !" I exclaimed. " She's a charm- 
 ing girl." 
 
 Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. " She has 
 hooked you, eh ? But the mother won't have you. " 
 
 I developed my idea, without heeding this insinuation. 
 " She's a charming girl, but she is a little odd. It's a 
 necessity of her position. She is less submissive to her 
 mother than she has to pretend to be. That's in self- 
 defence ; it's to make her life possible." 
 
 " She wishes to get away from her mother," continued 
 Madame Beaurepas. " She wishes to courir les champs. " 
 
 " She wishes to go to America, her native country." 
 
 " Precisely. And she will certainly go." 
 
 " I hope so !" I rejoined. 
 
 ' * Some fine morning or evening she will go off with 
 a young man ; probably with a young American." 
 
 " Allons done !" said I, with disgust. 
 
 "That will be quite America enough," pursued my 
 cynical hostess. "I have kept a boarding-house for 
 forty years. I have seen that type." 
 
 "Have such things as that happened chez voiisl" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing 
 has happened more than once. Therefore this won't 
 
vi. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 127 
 
 happen here. It will be at the next place they go to, 
 or the next. Besides, here there is no young American 
 pour la partie none except you, Monsieur. You are 
 susceptible, but you are too reasonable." 
 
 "It's lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered. 
 " ItVthanks to that fact that you escape a scolding !" 
 
 One morning, about this time, instead of coming back 
 to breakfast at the pension^ after my lectures at the 
 Academy, I went to partake of this meal with a fellow- 
 student, at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate 
 quarter. On separating from my friend, I took my way 
 along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the 
 Treille, a shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhang- 
 ing a portion of the lower town. There are spreading 
 trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and 
 chimneys of the ville basse there is a view of the snow- 
 crested Alps. On the other side, as you turn your back 
 to the view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of 
 tall, sober-faced kdtels, the dwellings of the local aristo- 
 cracy. I was very fond of the place, and often resorted 
 to it to stimulate my sense of the picturesque. Presently, 
 as I lingered there on this occasion, I became aware that 
 a gentleman was seated not far from where I stood, with 
 his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was 
 brilliant and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his 
 lap. He was not reading, however ; he was staring 
 before him in gloomy contemplation. I don't know 
 whether I recognised first the newspaper or its pro- 
 prietor ; one, in either case, would have helped me to 
 identify the other. One was the New York Herald ; 
 the other, of course, was Mr. Ruck. As I drew nearer, 
 he transferred his eyes from the stony, high - featured 
 masks of the gray old houses on the other side of the 
 terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just 
 how he had been feeling about these distinguished 
 abodes. He had made up his mind that their pro- 
 prietors were a dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable com. 
 
128 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vi. 
 
 pany ; plunging their roots into a superfluous past. I 
 endeavoured, therefore, as I sat down beside him, to 
 suggest something more impersonal. 
 
 " That's a beautiful view of the Alps," I observed. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Ruck, without moving, " I've 
 examined it. Fine thing, in its way fine thing. 
 Beauties of nature that sort of thing. We came up 
 on purpose to look at it." 
 
 " Your ladies, then, have been with you ?" 
 
 " Yes ; they are just walking round. They're awfully 
 restless. They keep saying I'm restless, but I'm as quiet 
 as a sleeping child to them. It takes," he added in a 
 moment, drily, "the form of shopping." 
 
 "Are they shopping now ?" 
 
 "Well, if they ain't, they're trying to. They told 
 me to sit here a while, and they'd just walk round. I 
 generally know what that means. But that's the prin- 
 cipal interest for ladies," he added, retracting his irony. 
 " We thought we'd come up here and see the cathedral ; 
 Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead loss that \ve 
 shouldn't see the cathedral, especially as we hadn't seen 
 many yet. And I had to come up to the banker's any 
 way. Well, we -certainly saw the cathedral. I don't 
 know as we are any the better for it, and I don't know 
 as I should know it again. But we saw it, any way. I 
 don't know as I should want to go there regularly ; but 
 I suppose it will give us, in conversation, a kind of hold 
 on Mrs. Church, eh? I guess we want something of 
 that kind. Well," Mr. Ruck continued, " I stepped in 
 at the banker's to see if there wasn't something, and 
 they handed me out a Herald." 
 
 " I hope the Herald is full of good news," I said. 
 
 " Can't say it is. D d bad news." 
 
 "Political," I inquired, "or commercial?" 
 
 " Oh, hang politics ! It's business, sir. There ain't any 
 business. It's all gone to," and Mr. Ruck became profane. 
 * ' Nine failures in one day. What do you say to that ? " 
 
vi. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 129 
 
 " I hope they haven't injured you," I said. 
 
 "Well, they haven't helped me much. So many 
 houses on fire, that's all. If they happen to take place 
 in your own street, they don't increase the value of your 
 property. When mine catches, I suppose they'll write 
 and tell me one of these days, when they've got nothing 
 else to do. I didn't get a blessed letter this morning ; 
 I suppose they think I'm having such a good time over 
 here it's a pity to disturb me. If I could attend to 
 business for about half an hour, I'd find out something. 
 But I can't, and it's no use talking. The state of my 
 health was never so unsatisfactory as it was about five 
 o'clock this morning." 
 
 "I am very sorry to hear that," I said, "and I re- 
 commend you strongly not to think of business." 
 
 " I don't," Mr. Ruck replied. "I'm thinking of 
 cathedrals ; I'm thinking of the beauties of nature. 
 Come," he went on, turning round on the bench and 
 leaning his elbow on the parapet, "I'll think of those 
 mountains over there ; they are pretty, certainly. Can't 
 you get over there ? " 
 
 " Over where?" 
 
 " Over to those hills. Don't they run a train right 
 up?" 
 
 "You can go to Chamouni," I said. "You can go 
 to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other places. You 
 can't go by rail, but you can drive." 
 
 " All right, we'll drive and not in a one-horse con- 
 cern, either. Yes, Chamouni is one of the places we put 
 down. I hope there are a few nice shops in Chamouni. " 
 Mr. Ruck spoke with a certain quickened emphasis, and 
 in a tone more explicitly humorous than he commonly 
 employed. I thought he was excited, and yet he had 
 not the appearance of excitement. He looked like a 
 man who has simply taken, in the face of disaster, 
 a sudden, somewhat imaginative, resolution not to 
 "worry." He presently twisted himself about on his 
 
 K 
 
130 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vi. 
 
 bench again and began to watch for his companions. 
 " Well, they are walking round," he resumed ; " I guess 
 they've hit on something, somewhere. And they've got 
 a carriage waiting outside of that archway too. They 
 seem to do a big business in archways here, don't they. 
 They like to have a carriage to carry home the things 
 those ladies of mine. Then they're sure they've got 
 them." The ladies, after this, to do them justice, were 
 not very long in appearing. They came toward us, from 
 under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had somewhat 
 invidiously alluded, slowly and with a rather exhausted 
 step and expression. My companion looked at them 
 a moment, as they advanced. " They're tired," he said 
 softly. * When they're tired, like that, it's very expen- 
 sive." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Ruck, " I'm glad you've had some 
 company." Her husband- looked at her, in silence, 
 through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that this 
 gracious observation on the lady's part was prompted by 
 a restless conscience. 
 
 Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straight- 
 forward air of defiance. " It would have been more 
 proper if we had had the company. Why didn't you 
 come after us, instead of sitting there ?" she asked of Mr. 
 Ruck's companion. 
 
 "I was told by your father," I explained, " that you 
 were engaged in sacred rites." Miss Ruck was not 
 gracious, though I doubt whether it was because her 
 conscience was better than her mother's. 
 
 " Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred as 
 ladies' society," replied Miss Ruck, in the manner of a 
 person accustomed to giving neat retorts. 
 
 " I suppose you refer to the Cathedral," said her 
 mother. "Well, I must say, we didn't go back there. 
 I don't know what it may be of a Sunday, but it gave 
 me a chill." 
 
 "We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop," observed 
 
vi. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 131 
 
 the young girl, with a serenity that was superior to 
 bravado. 
 
 Her father looked at her a while ; then turned about 
 again, leaning on the parapet, and gazed away at the 
 "hills." 
 
 "Well, it was certainly cheap," said Mrs. Ruck, also 
 contemplating the Alps. 
 
 "We are going to Chamouni," said her husband. 
 " You haven't any occasion for lace at Chamouni." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad to hear you have decided to go some- 
 where," rejoined his wife. " I don't want to be a fixture 
 at a boarding-house." 
 
 " You can wear lace anywhere," said Miss Ruck, "if 
 you put it on right. That's the great thing, with lace. 
 I don't think they know how to wear lace in Europe. I 
 know how I mean to wear mine ; but I mean to keep it 
 till I get home." 
 
 Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her 
 elaborately-appointed little person ; there was a great 
 deal of very new-looking detail in Miss Ruck's appear- 
 ance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out of consonance 
 with his facial despondency, * ( Have you purchased a 
 great deal?" he inquired. 
 
 " I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss 
 about." 
 
 " He can't make a fuss about that," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 
 "Well, you'll see !" declared the young girl with a 
 little sharp laugh. 
 
 But her father went on, in the same tone : * * Have 
 you got it in your pocket ? Why don't you put it on 
 why don't you hang it round you ?" 
 
 " I'll hang it round you, if you don't look out !" cried 
 Miss Sophy. 
 
 "Don't you want to show it to this gentleman ?" Mr. 
 Ruck continued. 
 
 " Mercy, how you do talk about that lace !" said his 
 wife. 
 
132 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. VH. 
 
 " Well, I want to be lively. There's every reason for 
 it ; we're going to Chamouni. " 
 
 " You're restless ; that's what's the matter with you." 
 And Mrs. Ruck got up. 
 
 "No, I ain't," said her husband. " I never felt so 
 quiet ; I feel as peaceful as a little child. " 
 
 Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humour, 
 looked at her daughter and at me. " Well, I hope you'll 
 improve," she said. 
 
 " Send in the bills," Mr. Ruck went on, rising to his 
 feet. "Don't hesitate, Sophy. I don't care what you 
 do now. In for a penny, in for a pound." 
 
 Miss Ruck joined her mother, with a little toss of her 
 head, and we followed the ladies to the carriage. ' * In 
 your place," said Miss Sophy to her father, " I wouldn't 
 talk so much about pennies and pounds before strangers." 
 
 Poor Mr. Ruck appeared to feel the force of this 
 observation, which, in the consciousness of a man who 
 had never been "mean," could hardly fail to strike a 
 responsive chord. He coloured a little, and he was 
 silent ; his companions got into their vehicle, the front 
 seat of which was adorned with a large parcel. Mr. 
 Ruck gave the parcel a little poke with his umbrella, and 
 then, turning to me with a rather grimly penitential 
 smile, "After all," he said, "for the ladies that's the 
 principal interest." 
 
 VII. 
 
 OLD M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed to 
 me to take a walk, but I had hitherto been unable to 
 respond to so alluring an invitation. It befell, however, 
 one afternoon, that I perceived him going forth upon a 
 desultory stroll, with a certain lonesomeness of demean- 
 our that attracted my sympathy. I hastily overtook him, 
 
vii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 133 
 
 and passed my hand into his venerable arm, a proceeding 
 which produced in the good old man so jovial a sense of 
 comradeship that he ardently proposed we should bend 
 our steps to the English Garden ; no locality less festive 
 was worthy of the occasion. To the English Garden, 
 accordingly, we went ; it lay beyond the bridge, beside 
 the lake. It was very pretty and very animated ; there 
 was a band playing in the middle, and a considerable 
 number of persons sitting under the small trees, on 
 benches and little chairs, or strolling beside the blue 
 water. We joined the strollers, we observed our com- 
 panions, and conversed on obvious topics. Some of 
 these last, of course, were the pretty women who em- 
 bellished the scene, and who, in the light of M. Pigeon- 
 neau's comprehensive criticism, appeared surprisingly 
 numerous. He seemed bent upon our making up our 
 minds as to which was the prettiest, and as this was an 
 innocent game I consented to play at it. 
 
 Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my arm 
 with the liveliest emotion. "La voila, la voila, the 
 prettiest!" he quickly murmured, "coming toward us, 
 in a blue dress, with the other." It was at the other I 
 was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was our in- 
 teresting fellow-pensioner, the daughter of a vigilant 
 mother. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, had redoubled his 
 exclamations ; he had recognised Miss Sophy Ruck. 
 "Oh, la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives; the 
 prettiest girl in the world, in effect !" 
 
 We immediately greeted and joined the young ladies, 
 who, like ourselves, were walking arm in arm and enjoy- 
 ing the scene. 
 
 " I was citing you with admiration to my friend even 
 before I had recognised you," said M. Pigeonneau to 
 Miss Ruck. 
 
 " I don't believe in French compliments," remarked 
 this young lady, presenting her back to the smiling old 
 
134 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vn. 
 
 " Are you and Miss Ruck walking alone?" I asked 
 of her companion. "You had better accept of M. 
 Pigeonneau's gallant protection, and of mine." 
 
 Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss Ruck's 
 arm ; she looked at me, smiling, with her head a little 
 inclined, while, upon her shoulder, she made her open 
 parasol revolve. "Which is most improper to walk 
 alone or to walk with gentlemen ? I wish to do what 
 is most improper." 
 
 "What mysterious logic governs your conduct?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 " He thinks you can't understand him when he talks 
 like that," said Miss Ruck. " But I do understand you, 
 always ! " 
 
 "So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss 
 Ruck." 
 
 "Well, if I didn't, it wouldn't be much loss," rejoined 
 this young lady. 
 
 4 ' Allons, en marche ! " cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling 
 still, and undiscouraged by her inhumanity. " Let us 
 make together the tour of the garden." And he imposed 
 his society upon Miss Ruck with a respectful, elderly 
 grace which was evidently unable to see anything in her 
 reluctance but modesty, and was sublimely conscious of 
 a mission to place modesty at its ease. This ill-assorted 
 couple walked in front, while Aurora Church and I 
 strolled along together. 
 
 " I am sure this is more improper," said my companion ; 
 " this is delightfully improper. I don't say that as a 
 compliment to you," she added. " I would say it to any 
 man, no matter how stupid." 
 
 " Oh, I am very stupid," I answered, " but this doesn't 
 seem to me wrong." 
 
 " Not for you, no ; only for me. There is nothing 
 that a man can do that is wrong, is there ? En morale, 
 you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he can steal ; but I think 
 there is nothing else, is there ?" 
 
vii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 135 
 
 " I don't know. One doesn't know those things until 
 after one has done them. Then one is enlightened." 
 
 " And you mean that you have never been enlightened? 
 You make yourself out very good." 
 
 " That is better than making one's self out bad, as you 
 do." k 
 
 The young girl glanced at me a moment, and then, 
 with her charming smile, " That's one of the conse- 
 quences of a false position." 
 
 "Is your position false?" I inquired, smiling too at 
 this large formula. 
 
 " Distinctly so." 
 
 " In what way?" 
 
 " Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to pretend 
 to be & jeune fille. I am not a jeune fille ; no American 
 girl is a jeune fille ; an American girl is an intelligent, 
 responsible creature. I have to pretend to be very inno- 
 cent, but I am not very innocent." 
 
 " You don't pretend to be very innocent ; you pretend 
 to be what shall I call it? very wise." 
 
 "That's no pretence. I am wise." 
 
 " You are not an American girl," I ventured to observe. 
 
 My companion almost stopped, looking at me ; there 
 was a little flush in her cheek. "Voila!" she said. 
 " There's my false position. I want to be an American 
 girl, and I'm not." 
 
 "Do you want me to tell you?" I went on. "An 
 American girl wouldn't talk as you are talking now." 
 
 " Please tell me," said Aurora Church, with expressive 
 eagerness. ." How would she talk ?" 
 
 " I can't tell you all the things an American girl would 
 say, but I think I can tell you the things she wouldn't 
 say. She wouldn't reason out her conduct, as you seem 
 to me to do." 
 
 Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. " I see. 
 She would be simpler. To do very simple things that 
 are not at all simple that is the American girl !" 
 
136 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vn. 
 
 I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. " I 
 don't know whether you are a French girl, or what you 
 are," I said, "but you are very witty." 
 
 " Ah, you mean that I strike false notes i " cried 
 Aurora Church, sadly. "That's just what I want to 
 avoid. I wish you would always tell me." 
 
 The conversational union between Miss Ruck and her 
 neighbour, in front of us, had evidently not become a 
 close one. The young lady suddenly turned round to us 
 with a question : " Don't you want some ice-cream ?" 
 
 "She doesn't strike false notes," I murmured. 
 
 There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which served 
 as a cafe, and at which the delicacies procurable at such 
 an establishment were dispensed. Miss Ruck pointed to 
 the little green tables and chairs which were set out on 
 the gravel ; M. Pigeonneau, fluttering with a sense of 
 dissipation, seconded the proposal, and we presently sat 
 down and gave our order to a nimble attendant. I 
 managed again to place myself next to Aurora Church ; 
 our companions were on the other side of the table. 
 
 My neighbour was delighted with our situation. "This 
 is best of all," she said. " I never believed I should 
 come to a cafe with two strange men ! Now, you can't 
 persuade me this isn't wrong." 
 
 "To make it wrong we ought to see your mother 
 coming down that path." 
 
 "Ah, my mother makes everything wrong," said the 
 young girl, attacking with a little spoon in the shape of 
 a spade the apex of a pink ice. And then she returned 
 to her idea of a moment before : " You must promise to 
 tell me to warn me in some way whenever I strike a 
 false note. You must give a little cough, like that 
 ahem !" 
 
 "You will keep me very busy, and people will think 
 I am in a consumption." 
 
 " Voyons" she continued, " why have you never talked 
 to me more ? Is that a false note ? Why haven't you 
 
vii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 137 
 
 been ' attentive?' That's what American girls call it; 
 that's what Miss Ruck calls it." 
 
 I assured myself that our companions were out of ear- 
 shot, and that Miss Ruck was much occupied with a large 
 vanilla cream. " Because you are always entwined with 
 that young lady. There is no getting near you. " 
 
 Aurora looked at her friend while the latter devoted 
 herself to her ice. "You wonder why I like her so 
 much, I suppose. So does mamma ; elle s'y perd. I 
 don't like her particularly ; je n'en suis pas folle. But 
 she gives me information ; she tells me about America. 
 Mamma has always tried to prevent my knowing any- 
 thing about it, and I am all the more curious. And then 
 Miss Ruck is very fresh." 
 
 " I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck," I said, "but 
 in future, when you want information, I recommend you 
 to come to me for it." 
 
 " Our friend offers to take me to America ; she invites 
 me to go back with her, to stay with her. You couldn't 
 do that, could you?" And the young girl looked at me 
 a moment. " Bon, a false note ! I can see it by your 
 face ; you remind me of a mattre de piano" 
 
 "You overdo the character the poor American girl," 
 I said. "Are you going to stay with that delightful 
 family?" 
 
 4 ' I will go and stay with any one that will take me or 
 ask me. It's a real nostalgic. She says that in New 
 York in Thirty- Seventh Street I should have the most 
 lovely time." 
 
 " I have no doubt you would enjoy it." 
 
 " Absolute liberty to begin with." 
 
 " It seems to me you have a certain liberty here," I 
 rejoined. 
 
 "Ah, thisl Oh, I shall pay for this. I shall be 
 punished by mamma, and I shall be lectured by Madame 
 Galopin." 
 
 " The wife of the pasteur ?" 
 
138 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vn. 
 
 " His digne epouse. Madame Galopin, for mamma, is 
 the incarnation of European opinion. That's what vexes 
 me with mamma, her thinking so much of people like 
 Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame Galopin 
 mamma calls that being in European society. European 
 society ! I'm so sick of that expression ; I have heard it 
 since I was six years old. Who is Madame Galopin 
 who thinks anything of her here ? She is nobody ; she 
 is perfectly third-rate. If I like America better than 
 mamma, I also know Europe better." 
 
 "But your mother, certainly," I objected, a trifle 
 timidly, for my young lady was excited, and had a 
 charming little passion in her eye "your mother has a 
 great many social relations all over the Continent." 
 
 " She thinks so, but half the people don't care for us. 
 They are not so good as we, and they know it I'll do 
 them that justice and they wonder why we should care 
 for them. When we are polite to them, they think the 
 less of us ; there are plenty of people like that. Mamma 
 thinks so much of them simply because they are foreigners. 
 If I could tell you all the dull, stupid, second-rate people 
 I have had to talk to, for no better reason than that they 
 were de leur pays ! Germans, French, Italians, Turks, 
 everything. When I complain, mamma always says that 
 at any rate it's practice in the language. And she makes 
 so much of the English, too ; I don't know what that's 
 practice in." 
 
 Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as regards 
 this latter point, I saw something that made me rise, 
 with a certain solemnity, from my chair. This was 
 nothing less than the neat little figure of Mrs. Church 
 a perfect model of the femme comme il faut approaching 
 our table with an impatient step, and followed most un- 
 expectedly in her advance by the pre-eminent form of 
 Mr. Ruck. She had evidently come in quest of her 
 daughter, and if she had commanded this gentleman's 
 attendance, it had been on no softer ground than that of 
 
vii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 139 
 
 his unenvied paternity to her guilty child's accomplice. 
 My movement had given the alarm, and Aurora Church 
 and M. Pigeonneau got up ; Miss Ruck alone did not, 
 in the local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. Church, 
 beneath her modest little bonnet, looked very serious, 
 but not at all fluttered; she came straight to her daughter, 
 who received her with a smile, and then she looked all 
 round at the rest of us, very fixedly and tranquilly, with- 
 out bowing. I must do both these ladies the justice 
 to mention that neither of them made the least little 
 "scene." 
 
 1 ' I have come for you, dearest, " said the mother. 
 
 "Yes, dear mamma." 
 
 " Come for you come for you," Mrs. Church repeated, 
 looking down at the relics of our little feast. " I was 
 obliged to ask Mr. Ruck's assistance. I was puzzled ; I 
 thought a long time." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you puzzled 
 once in your life ! " said Mr. Ruck, with friendly jocosity. 
 " But you came pretty straight for all that. I had hard 
 work to keep up with you." 
 
 " We will take a cab, Aurora," Mrs. Church went on, 
 without heeding this pleasantry " a closed one. Come, 
 my daughter." 
 
 "Yes, dear mamma." The young girl was blushing, 
 yet she was still smiling; she looked round at us all, 
 and, as her eyes met mine, I thought she was beautiful. 
 "Good-bye," she said to us. "I have had a lovely 
 time." 
 
 "We must not linger," said her mother; ''it is five 
 o'clock. We are to dine, you know, with Madame 
 Galopin." 
 
 "I had quite forgotten," Aurora declared. "That 
 will be charming." 
 
 "Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, 
 ma'am ?" asked Mr. Ruck. 
 
 Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene little 
 
140 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vin. 
 
 gaze. " Do you prefer, then, to leave your daughter to 
 finish the evening with these gentlemen ?" 
 
 Mr. Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the top 
 of his head. "Well, I don't know. How would you 
 like that, Sophy?" 
 
 "Well, I never !" exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. Church 
 marched off with her daughter. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I HAD half expected that Mrs. Church would make me 
 feel the weight of her disapproval of my own share in 
 that little act of revelry in the English Garden. But she 
 maintained her claim to being a highly reasonable woman 
 I could not but admire the justice of this pretension 
 by recognising my irresponsibility. I had taken her 
 daughter as I found her, which was, according to Mrs. 
 Church's view, in a very equivocal position. The natural 
 instinct of a young man, in such a situation, is not to 
 protest but to profit ; and it was clear to Mrs. Church 
 that I had had nothing to do with Miss Aurora's appear- 
 ing in public under the insufficient chaperonage of Miss 
 Ruck. Besides, she liked to converse, and she apparently 
 did me the honour to believe that of all the members of 
 the Pension Beaurepas I had the most cultivated under- 
 standing. I found her in the salon a couple of evenings 
 after the incident I have just narrated, and I approached 
 her with a view of making my peace with her, if this 
 should prove necessary. But Mrs. Church was as gracious 
 as I could have desired ; she put her marker into her 
 book, and folded her plump little hands on the cover. 
 She made no specific allusion to the English Garden ; she 
 embarked, rather, upon those general considerations in 
 which her refined intellect was so much at home. 
 
viii. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 141 
 
 "Always at your studies, Mrs. Church," I ventured 
 to observe. 
 
 " Que voulez-vous ? To say studies is to say too much ; 
 one doesn't study in the parlour of a boarding-house. 
 But I do what I can ; I have always done what I can. 
 That is^all I have ever claimed." 
 
 " No one can do more, and you seem to have done a 
 great deal." 
 
 "Do you know my secret?" she asked, with an air 
 of brightening confidence. And she paused a moment 
 before she imparted her secret "To care only for the 
 best! To do the best, to know the best to have, to 
 desire, to recognise, only the best. That's what I have 
 always done, in my quiet little way. I have gone through 
 Europe on my devoted little errand, seeking, seeing, 
 heeding, only the best. And it has not been for myself 
 alone ; it has been for my daughter. My daughter has 
 had the best. We are not rich, but I can say that." 
 
 " She has had you, madam," I rejoined finely. 
 
 " Certainly, such as I am, I have been devoted. We 
 have got something everywhere ; a little here, a little 
 there. That's the real secret to get something every- 
 where ; you always can if you are devoted. Sometimes 
 it has been a little music, sometimes a little deeper insight 
 into the history of art ; every little counts you know. 
 Sometimes it has been just a glimpse, a view, a lovely 
 landscape, an impression. We have always been on the 
 look-out. Sometimes it has been a valued friendship, a 
 delightful social tie." 
 
 " Here comes the * European society,' the poor daugh- 
 ter's bugbear, " I said to myself. "Certainly," I remarked 
 aloud I admit, rather perversely "if you have lived a 
 great deal in pensions, you must have got acquainted with 
 lots of people." 
 
 Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment ; and then, 
 with considerable gravity, "I think the European pen- 
 sion system in many respects remarkable, and in some 
 
142 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vm. 
 
 satisfactory. But of the friendships that we have 
 formed, few have been contracted in establishments of 
 this kind." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that ! " I said, laughing. 
 
 " I don't, say it for you, though I might say it for some 
 others. We have been interested in European homes." 
 
 "Oh, I see!" 
 
 " We have the entree of the old Genevese society. I 
 like its tone. I prefer it to that of Mr. Ruck," added 
 Mrs. Church, calmly; "to that of Mrs. Ruck and Miss 
 Ruck of Miss Ruck especially." 
 
 "Ah, the poor Rucks haven't any tone at all," I said. 
 "Don't take them more seriously than they take them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Tell me this," my companion rejoined, "are they 
 fair examples ?" 
 
 "Examples of what?" 
 
 " Of our American tendencies." 
 
 "'Tendencies' is a big word, dear lady; tendencies 
 are difficult to calculate. And you shouldn't abuse those 
 good Rucks, who have been very kind to your daughter. 
 They have invited her to go and stay with them in Thirty - 
 Seventh Street." 
 
 " Aurora has told me. It might be very serious." 
 
 " It might be very droll," I said. 
 
 " To me," declared Mrs. Church, "it is simply terrible. 
 I think we shall have to leave the Pension Beaurepas. I 
 shall go back to Madame Chamousset." 
 
 " On account of the Rucks ?" I asked. 
 
 " Pray, why don't they go themselves ? I have given 
 them some excellent addresses written down the very 
 hours of the trains. They were going to Appenzell ; I 
 thought it was arranged." 
 
 "They talk of Chamouni now," I said; "but they 
 are very helpless and undecided." 
 
 " I will give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. 
 Ruck will send a chaise & porteurs ; I will give her the 
 
vni. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 143 
 
 name of a man who lets them lower than you get them 
 at the hotels. After that they must go." 
 
 "Well, I doubt," I observed, "whether Mr. Ruck 
 will ever really be seen on the Mer de Glace in a high 
 hat. He's not like you ; he doesn't value his European 
 privileges. He takes no interest. He regrets Wall 
 Street, acutely. As his wife says, he is very restless, but 
 he has no curiosity about Chamouni. So you must not 
 depend too much on the effect of your addresses. " 
 
 4 ' Is it a frequent type?" asked Mrs. Church, with an 
 air of self-control. 
 
 " I am afraid so. Mr. Ruck is a broken-down man 
 of business. He is broken down in health, and I suspect 
 he is broken down in fortune. He has spent his whole 
 life in buying and selling ; he knows how to do nothing 
 else. His wife and daughter have spent their lives, not 
 in selling, but in buying ; and they, on their side, know 
 how to do nothing else. To get something in a shop 
 that they can put on their backs that is their one idea ; 
 they haven't another in their heads. Of course they 
 spend no end of money, and they do it with an implacable 
 persistence, with a mixture of audacity and of cunning. 
 They do it in his teeth and they do it behind his back ; 
 the mother protects the daughter, and the daughter eggs 
 on the mother. Between them they are bleeding him to 
 death." 
 
 "Ah,, what a picture !" murmured Mrs. Church. " I 
 am afraid they are very uncultivated." 
 
 " I share your fears. They are perfectly ignorant ; 
 they have no resources. The vision of fine clothes occu- 
 pies their whole imagination. They have not an idea 
 even a worse one to compete with it. Poor Mr. Ruck, 
 who is extremely good-natured and soft, seems to me a 
 really tragic figure. He is getting bad news every day 
 from home ; his business is going to the dogs. He is 
 unable to stop it ; he has to stand and watch his fortunes 
 ebb. He has been used to doing things in a big way, 
 
144 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vm. 
 
 and he feels * mean ' if he makes a fuss about bills. So 
 the ladies keep sending them in." 
 
 " But haven't they common sense ? Don't they know 
 they are ruining themselves?" 
 
 "They don't believe it. The duty of an American 
 husband and father is to keep them going. If he asks 
 them how, that's his own affair. So, by way of not 
 being mean, of being a good American husband and 
 father, poor Ruck stands staring at bankruptcy." 
 
 Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in quickened 
 meditation. " Why, if Aurora were to go to stay with 
 them, she might not even be properly fed ! " 
 
 " I don't, on the whole, recommend," I said, laughing, 
 " that your daughter should pay a visit to Thirty- Seventh 
 Street." 
 
 " Why should I be subjected to such trials so sadly 
 eprouveel Why should a daughter of mine like that 
 dreadful girl?" 
 
 " Does she like her?" 
 
 "Pray, do you mean," asked my companion, softly, 
 " that Aurora is a hypocrite ?" 
 
 I hesitated a moment. " A little, since you ask me. 
 I think you have forced her to be." 
 
 Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptuous 
 charge with a tranquil, candid exultation. " I never 
 force my daughter ! " 
 
 " She is nevertheless in a false position," I rejoined. 
 " She hungers and thirsts to go back to her own country ; 
 she wants ' to come ' out in New York, which is certainly, 
 socially speaking, the El Dorado of young ladies. She 
 likes any one, for the moment, who will talk to her of 
 that, and serve as a connecting-link with her native 
 shores. Miss Ruck performs this agreeable office." 
 
 " Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with Miss 
 Ruck to America she would drop her afterwards." 
 
 I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical mind, 
 but I repudiated this cynical supposition. "I can't 
 
vin. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 145 
 
 imagine her when it should come to the point em- 
 barking with the famille Ruck. But I wish she might 
 go, nevertheless." 
 
 Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and smiled at 
 my inappropriate zeal. "I trust my poor child may 
 never be guilty of so fatal a mistake. She is completely 
 in error ; she is wholly unadapted to the peculiar condi- 
 tions of American life. It would not please her. She 
 would not sympathise. My daughter's ideal is not the 
 ideal of the class of young women to which Miss Ruck 
 belongs. I fear they are very numerous ; they give the 
 tone they give the tone." 
 
 " It is you that are mistaken," I said ; "go home for 
 six months and see." 
 
 ' * I have not, unfortunately, the means to make costly 
 experiments. My daughter has had great advantages 
 rare advantages and I should be very sorry to believe 
 that ait fond she does not appreciate them. One thing 
 is certain : I must remove her from this pernicious influ- 
 ence. We must part company with this deplorable 
 family. If Mr. Ruck and his ladies cannot be induced 
 to go to Chamouni a journey that no traveller with the 
 smallest self-respect would omit my daughter and I 
 shall be obliged to retire. We shall go to Dresden." 
 
 "To Dresden?" 
 
 " The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go there 
 for the autumn, but it will be simpler to go immediately. 
 There are several works in the gallery with which my 
 daughter has not, I think, sufficiently familiarised her- 
 self; it is especially strong in the seventeenth century 
 schools. " 
 
 As my companion offered me this information I per- 
 ceived Mr. Ruck come lounging in, with his hands in 
 his pockets-, and his elbows making acute angles. He 
 had his usual anomalous appearance of both seeking and 
 avoiding society, and he wandered obliquely toward Mrs. 
 Church, whose last words he had overheard. "The 
 
146 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. vm. 
 
 seventeenth century schools," he said, slowly, as if he 
 were weighing some very small object in a very large 
 pair of scales. " Now, do you suppose they had schools 
 at that period ?" 
 
 Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, mak- 
 ing no answer to this incongruous jest. She clasped her 
 large volume to her neat little bosom, and she fixed a 
 gentle, serious eye upon Mr. Ruck. 
 
 "I had a letter this morning from Chamouni," she 
 said. 
 
 "Well," replied Mr. Ruck, "I suppose you've got 
 friends all over." 
 
 " I have friends at Chamouni, but they are leaving. 
 To their great regret. " I had got up, too ; I listened 
 to this statement, and I wondered. I am almost ashamed 
 to mention the subject of my agitation. I asked myself 
 whether this was a sudden improvisation, consecrated by 
 maternal devotion ; but this point has never been eluci- 
 dated. " They are giving up some charming rooms ; 
 perhaps you would like them. I would suggest your 
 telegraphing. The weather is glorious," continued Mrs. 
 Church, " and the highest peaks are now perceived with 
 extraordinary distinctness." 
 
 Mr. Ruck listened, as he always listened, respect- 
 fully. "Well," he said, "I don't know as I want to 
 go up Mount Blank. That's the principal attraction, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " There are many others. I thought I would offer 
 you an an exceptional opportunity." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Ruck, "you're right down friendly. 
 But I seem to have more opportunities than I know 
 what to do with. I don't seem able to take hold." 
 
 "It only needs a little decision," remarked Mrs. 
 Church, with an air which was an admirable example of 
 this virtue. "I wish you good-night, sir." And she 
 moved noiselessly away. 
 
 Mr. Ruck, with his long legs apart, stood staring after 
 
ix. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 147 
 
 her ; then he transferred his perfectly quiet eyes to me. 
 " Does she own a hotel over there ?" he asked. " Has 
 she got any stock in Mount Blank?" 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with her 
 own elderly fingers, a missive, which proved to be a 
 telegram. After glancing at it, I informed her that it 
 was apparently a signal for my departure ; my brother 
 had arrived in England, and proposed to me to meet 
 him there ; he had come on business, and was to spend 
 but three weeks in Europe. " But my house empties 
 itself !" cried the old woman. " The famille Ruck talks 
 of leaving me, and Madame Church nous fait la 
 reverence. " 
 
 " Mrs. Church is going away?" 
 
 " She is packing her trunk ; she is a very extraordinary 
 person. Do you know what she asked me this morning ? 
 To invent some combination by which the famille Ruck 
 should move away. I informed her that I was not an 
 inventor. That poor famille Ruck ! ' Oblige me by 
 getting rid of them,' said Madame Church, as she would 
 have asked Celestine to remove a dish of cabbage. She 
 speaks as if the world were made for Madame Church. 
 I intimated to her that if she objected to the company 
 there was a very simple remedy ; and at present ellefait 
 ses paquets. " 
 
 " She really asked you to get the Rucks out of the 
 house ?" 
 
 "She asked me to tell them that their rooms had 
 been let, three months ago, to another family. She has 
 an aplomb /" 
 
 Mrs. Church's aplomb caused me considerable diver- 
 
148 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. ix. 
 
 sion ; I am not sure that it was not, in some degree, to 
 laugh over it at my leisure that I went out into the 
 garden that evening to smoke a cigar. The night was 
 dark and not particularly balmy, and most of my fellow- 
 pensioners, after dinner, had remained in-doors. A long 
 straight walk conducted from the door of the house to 
 the ancient grille that I have described, and I stood here 
 for some time, looking through the iron bars at the 
 silent empty street. The prospect was not entertaining, 
 and I presently turned away. At this moment I saw, in 
 the distance, the door of the house open and throw a 
 shaft of lamplight into the darkness. Into the lamplight 
 there stepped the figure of a female, who presently closed 
 the door behind her. She disappeared in the dusk of the 
 garden, and I had seen her but for an instant, but I re- 
 mained under the impression that Aurora Church, on the 
 eve of her departure, had come out for a meditative stroll. 
 
 I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of my 
 cigar turned toward the house, and before long a young 
 lady emerged from among the shadows of the trees and 
 encountered the light of a lamp that stood just outside 
 the gate. It was in fact Aurora Church, but she seemed 
 more bent upon conversation than upon meditation. 
 She stood a moment looking at me, and then she said, 
 
 " Ought I to retire to return to the house?" 
 
 " If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you so," 
 I answered. 
 
 * ' But we are all alone ; there is no one else in the 
 garden." 
 
 " It is not the first time that I have been alone with a 
 young lady. I am not at all terrified. " 
 
 "Ah, but I?" said the young girl. "I have never 
 
 been alone " then, quickly, she interrupted herself. 
 
 " Good, there's another false note ! " 
 
 " Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very false." 
 
 She stood looking at me. "I am going away to- 
 morrow ; after that there will be no one to tell me. " 
 
ix. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 149 
 
 " That will matter little," I presently replied. " Tell- 
 ing you will do no good." 
 
 "Ah, why do you say that?" murmured Aurora 
 Church. 
 
 I said it partly because it was true ; but I said it for 
 other reasons as well, which it was hard to define. 
 Standing there bare-headed, in the night air, in the vague 
 light, this young lady looked extremely interesting ; and 
 the interest of her appearance was not diminished by a 
 suspicion on my own part that she had come into the 
 garden knowing me to be there. I thought her a charm- 
 ing girl, and I felt very sorry for her ; but, as I looked 
 at her, the terms in which Madame Beaurepas had ven- 
 tured to characterise her recurred to me with a certain 
 force. I had professed a contempt for them at the time, 
 but it now came into my head that perhaps this un- 
 fortunately situated, this insidiously mutinous young 
 creature, was looking out for a preserver. She was 
 certainly not a girl to throw herself at a man's head, but 
 it was possible that in her intense her almost morbid 
 desire to put into effect an ideal which was perhaps 
 after all charged with as many fallacies as her mother 
 affirmed, she might do something reckless and irregular 
 something in which a sympathetic compatriot, as yet 
 unknown, would find his profit. The image, unshaped 
 though it was, of this sympathetic compatriot, filled me 
 with a sort of envy. For some moments I was silent, 
 conscious of these things, and then I answered her 
 question. " Because some things some differences 
 are felt, not learned. To you liberty is not natural ; you 
 are like a person who has bought a repeater, and, in his 
 satisfaction, is constantly making it sound. To a real 
 American girl her liberty is a very vulgarly-ticking old 
 clock." 
 
 "Ah, you mean, then," said the poor girl, "that my 
 mother has ruined me ? " 
 
 "Ruined you?" 
 
150 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. ix. 
 
 "She has so perverted my mind, that when I try to 
 be natural I am necessarily immodest." 
 
 "That again is a false note," I said, laughing. 
 
 She turned away. " I think you are cruel." 
 
 "By no means," I declared; "because, for my own 
 taste, I prefer you as as " 
 
 I hesitated, and she turned back. " As what ? " 
 
 "As you are." 
 
 She looked at me a while again, and then she said, in 
 a little reasoning voice that reminded me of her mother's, 
 only that it was conscious and studied, " I was not aware 
 that I am under any particular obligation to please you !" 
 And then she gave a clear laugh, quite at variance with 
 her voice. 
 
 "Oh, there is no obligation," I said, "but one has 
 preferences. I am veiy sorry you are going away." 
 
 "What does it matter to you? You are going 
 yourself. " 
 
 "As I am going in a different direction that makes all 
 the greater separation." 
 
 She answered nothing ; she stood looking through the 
 bars of the tall gate at the empty, dusky street. " This 
 grille is like a cage," she said, at last. 
 
 "Fortunately, it is a cage that will open." And I 
 laid my hand on the lock. 
 
 " Don't open it," and she pressed the gate back. " If 
 you should open it I would go out and never return." 
 
 " Where should you go ? " 
 
 "To America." 
 
 " Straight away ? " 
 
 "Somehow or other. I would go to the American 
 consul. I would beg him to give me money to help 
 me." 
 
 I received this assertion without a smile ; I was not in 
 a smiling humour. On the contrary, I felt singularly 
 excited, and I kept my hand on the lock of the gate. I 
 believed (or I thought I believed) what my companion 
 
ix. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 151 
 
 said, and I had absurd as it may appear an irritated 
 vision of her throwing herself upon consular sympathy. 
 It seemed to me, for a moment, that to pass out of that 
 gate with this yearning, straining, young creature, would 
 be to pass into some mysterious felicity. If I were only 
 a heto of romance, I would offer, myself, to take her to 
 America. 
 
 In a moment more, perhaps, I should have persuaded 
 myself that I was one, but at this juncture I heard a 
 sound that was not romantic. It proved to be the very 
 realistic tread of Celestine, the cook, who stood grinning 
 at us as we turned about from our colloquy. 
 
 "I ask bien pardon" said Celestine. "The mother 
 of Mademoiselle desires that Mademoiselle should come 
 in immediately. M. le Pasteur Galopin has come to 
 make his adieux to ces dames. " 
 
 Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touching 
 one. Then she slowly departed with Celestine. 
 
 The next morning, on coming into the garden, I found 
 that Mrs. Church and her daughter had departed. I 
 was informed of this fact by old M. Pigeonneau, who sat 
 there under a tree, having his coffee at a little green table. 
 
 " I have nothing to envy you," he said ; "I had the 
 last glimpse of that charming Miss Aurora." 
 
 " I had a very late glimpse," I answered, " and it was 
 all I could possibly desire." 
 
 "I have always noticed," rejoined M. Pigeonneau, 
 " That your desires are more moderate than mine. Que 
 voulez-vous ? I am of the old school. Je crois que la 
 race se perd. I regret the departure of that young girl : 
 she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme 
 d'esprit. For the mother, I can console myself. I am 
 not sure that she was a femme d'esprit, though she wished 
 to pass for one. Round, rosy, potelee, she yet had not 
 the temperament of her appearance ; she was a femme 
 austere. I have often noticed that contradiction in 
 American ladies. You see a plump little woman, with 
 
152 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. ix. 
 
 a speaking eye, and the contour and complexion of a 
 ripe peach, and if you venture to conduct yourself in the 
 smallest degree in accordance with these indices^ you dis- 
 cover a species of Methodist of what do you call it ? 
 of Quakeress. On the other hand, you encounter a tall, 
 lean, angular person, without colour, without grace, all 
 elbows and knees, and you find it's a nature of the 
 tropics ! The women of duty look like coquettes, and 
 the others look like alpenstocks ! However, we have 
 still the handsome Madame Ruck a real femme de 
 Rtibens, celle-lci. It is very true that to talk to her one 
 must know the Flemish tongue ! " 
 
 I had determined, in accordance with my brother's 
 telegram, to go away in the afternoon ; so that, having 
 various duties to perform, I left M. Pigeonneau to his 
 international comparisons. Among other things, I went 
 in the course of the morning to the banker's, to draw 
 money for my journey, and there I found Mr. Ruck, with 
 a pile of crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back, 
 and his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green 
 plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that he 
 had got better news from home ; whereupon he gave me 
 a look in which, considering his provocation, the absence 
 of irritation was conspicuous. 
 
 He took up his letters in his large hand, and crushing 
 them together, held it out to me. "That epistolary 
 matter," he said, "is worth about five cents. But I 
 guess," he added, rising, "I have taken it in by this 
 time." When I had drawn my money I asked him to 
 come and breakfast with me at the little brasserie^ much 
 favoured by students, to which I used to resort in the 
 old town. "I couldn't eat, sir," he said, "I couldn't 
 eat. Bad news takes away the appetite. But I guess 
 I'll go with you, so that I needn't go to table down there 
 at the pension. The old woman down there is always 
 accusing me of turning up my nose at her food. Well, 
 I guess I shan't turn up my nose at anything now." 
 
ix. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 153 
 
 We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. Ruck 
 made the lightest possible breakfast. But if he ate very 
 little, he talked a great deal ; he talked about business, 
 going into a hundred details in which I was quite unable 
 to follow him. His talk was not angry nor bitter ; it 
 was'a long, meditative, melancholy monologue ; if it had 
 been a trifle less incoherent I should almost have called 
 it philosophic. I was very sorry for him ; I wanted to 
 do something for him, but the only thing I could do was, 
 when we had breakfasted, to see him safely back to the 
 Pension Beaurepas. We went across the Treille and 
 down the Corraterie, out of which we turned into the 
 Rue du Rhone. In this latter street, as all the world 
 knows, are many of those brilliant jewellers' shops for 
 which Geneva is famous. I always admired their glitter- 
 ing windows, and never passed them without a lingering 
 glance. Even on this occasion, pre-occupied as I was 
 with my impending departure, and with my companion's 
 troubles, I suffered my eyes to wander along the precious 
 tiers that flashed and twinkled behind the huge clear 
 plates of glass. Thanks to this inveterate habit, I made 
 a discovery. In the largest and most brilliant of these 
 establishments I perceived two ladies, seated before the 
 counter with an air of absorption, which sufficiently pro- 
 claimed their identity. I hoped my companion would 
 not see them, but as we came abreast of the door, a little 
 beyond, we found it open to the warm summer air. Mr. 
 Ruck happened to glance in, and he immediately recog- 
 nised his wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, looking 
 at them ; I wondered what he would do. The salesman 
 was holding up a bracelet before them, on its velvet 
 cushion, and flashing it about in an irresistible manner. 
 
 Mr. Ruck said nothing, but he presently went in, and 
 I did the same. 
 
 " It will be an opportunity," I remarked, as cheerfully 
 as possible, "for me to bid good-bye to the ladies." 
 
 They turned round when Mr. Ruck came in, and 
 
154 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. ix, 
 
 looked at him without confusion. "Well, you had 
 better go home to breakfast," remarked his wife. Miss 
 Sophy made no remark, but she took the bracelet from 
 the attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. Mr. Ruck 
 seated himself on an empty stool and looked round the 
 shop. 
 
 " Well, you have been here before," said his wife ; 
 1 * you were here the first day we came. " 
 
 Miss Ruck extended the precious object in her hands 
 towards me. "Don't you think that sweet?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 I looked at it a moment. "No, I think it's ugly." 
 
 She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. "Well, 
 I don't believe you have any taste." 
 
 " Why, sir, it's just lovely," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 
 "You'll see it some day on me, any way," her 
 daughter declared. 
 
 "No, he won't," said Mr. Ruck, quietly. 
 
 " Jt will be his own fault, then," Miss Sophy observed. 
 
 "Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to get 
 something here," said Mrs. Ruck. "We may not have 
 another chance." 
 
 Mr. Ruck was still looking round the shop, whistling 
 in a very low tone. "We ain't going to Chamouni. 
 We are going to New York city, straight." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad to hear that," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 * ' Don't you suppose we want to take something home ? " 
 
 "If we are going straight back I must have that 
 bracelet," her daughter declared, " Only I don't want 
 a velvet case ;' I want a satin case." 
 
 " I must bid you good-bye," I said to the ladies. " I 
 am leaving Geneva in an hour or two." 
 
 " Take a good look at that bracelet, so you'll know it 
 when you see it," said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " She's bound to have something," remarked her 
 mother, almost proudly. 
 
 Mr. Ruck was still vaguely inspecting the shop ; he 
 
ix. THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 155 
 
 was still whistling a little. " I am afraid he is not at 
 all well," I said, softly, to his wife. 
 
 She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him. 
 
 "Well, I wish he'd improve !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "A satin case, and a nice one !" said Miss Ruck to 
 the shopman. 
 
 I bade Mr. Ruck good-bye. "Don't wait for me," 
 he said, sitting there on his stool, and not meeting my 
 eye. "I've got to see this thing through." 
 
 I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, an 
 hour later, I left it with my luggage, the family had not 
 returned. 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH, AT SEA, TO 
 MISS WHITESIDE, IN PARIS. 
 
 . . . MY dear child, the bromide of sodium (if that's 
 what you call it) proved perfectly useless. I don't mean 
 that it did me no good, but that I never had occasion to 
 take the bottle out of my bag. It might have done 
 wonders for me if I had needed it ; but I didn't, simply 
 because I have been a wonder myself. Will you believe 
 that I have spent the whole voyage on deck, in the most 
 animated conversation and exercise ? Twelve times round 
 the deck make a mile, I believe ; and by this measure- 
 ment I have been walking twenty miles a day. And 
 down to every meal, if you please, where I have dis- 
 played the appetite of a fish-wife. Of course the 
 weather has been lovely ; so there's no great merit. 
 The wicked old Atlantic has been as blue as the sapphire 
 in my only ring (a rather good one), and as smooth as 
 the slippery floor of Madame Galopin's dining-room. 
 We have been for the last three hours in sight of land, 
 and we are soon to enter the Bay of New York, which 
 is said to be exquisitely beautiful. But of course you 
 
i6o THE POINT OF VIEW. i. 
 
 recall it, though they say that everything changes so fast 
 over here. I find I don't remember anything, for my 
 recollections of our voyage to Europe, so many years ago, 
 are exceedingly dim ; I only have a painful impresssion 
 that mamma shut me up for an hour every day in the 
 state-room, and made me learn by heart some religious 
 poem. I was only five years old, and I believe that as 
 a child I was extremely timid ; on the other hand, 
 mamma, as you know, was dreadfully severe. She is 
 severe to this day; only I have become indifferent ; I 
 have been so pinched and pushed morally speaking, bim 
 entendu. It is true, however, that there are children of 
 five on the vessel to-day who have been extremely con- 
 spicuous ranging all over the ship, and always under 
 one's feet. Of course they are little compatriots, which 
 means that they are little barbarians. I don't mean that 
 all our compatriots are barbarous ; they seem to improve, 
 somehow, after their first communion. I don't know 
 whether it's that ceremony that improves them, especially 
 as so few of them go in for it ; but the women are 
 certainly nicer than the little girls ; I mean, of course, 
 in proportion, you know. You warned me not to 
 generalise, and you see I have already begun, before we 
 have arrived. But I suppose there is no harm in it so 
 long as it is favourable. Isn't it favourable when I say 
 that I have had the most lovely time ? I have never had 
 so much liberty in my life, and I have be'en out alone, 
 as you may say, every day of the voyage. If it is a fore- 
 taste of what is to come, I shall take to that very kindly. 
 When I say that I have been out alone, I mean that we 
 have always been two. But we two were alone, so to 
 speak, and it was not like always having mamma, or Madame 
 Galopin, or some lady in the pension, or the temporary 
 cook. Mamma has been very poorly ; she is so very well 
 on land, it's a wonder to see her at all taken down. She 
 says, however, that it isn't the being at sea ; it's, on the 
 contrary, approaching the land. She is not in a hurry 
 
i. THE POINT OF VIEW. 161 
 
 to arrive ; she says that great disillusions await us. I 
 didn't know that she had any illusions she's so stern, so 
 philosophic. She is very serious ; she sits for hours in 
 perfect silence, with her eyes fixed on the horizon. I 
 heard her say yesterday to an English gentleman a very 
 odd Mr. Antrobus, the only person with whom she con- 
 verses that she was afraid she shouldn't like her native 
 land, and that she shouldn't like not liking it. But this 
 is a mistake she will like that immensely (I mean not 
 liking it). If it should prove at all agreeable, mamma 
 will be furious, for that will go against her system. 
 You know all about mamma's system ; I have explained 
 that so often. It goes against her system that we should 
 come back at all ; that was my system I have had at 
 last to invent one ! She consented to come only because 
 she saw that, having no dot, I should never marry in 
 Europe ; and I pretended to be immensely pre-occupied 
 with this idea, in order to make her start. In reality cela 
 irfest parfaitement egal. I am only afraid I shall like it 
 too much (I don't mean marriage, of course, but one's 
 native land). Say what you will, it's a charming thing to 
 go out alone, and I have given notice to mamma that I 
 mean to be always en course. When I tell her that, she 
 looks at me in the same silence ; her eye dilates, and then 
 she slowly closes it. It's as if the sea were affecting her 
 a little, though it's so beautifully calm. I ask her if she 
 will try my bromide, which is there in my bag ; but she 
 motions me off, and I begin to walk again, tapping my 
 little boot-soles upon the smooth clean deck. This 
 allusion to my boot-soles, by the way, is not prompted 
 by vanity ; but it's a fact that at sea one's feet and one's 
 shoes assume the most extraordinary importance, so that 
 we should take the precaution to have nice ones. They 
 are all you seem to see as the people walk about the 
 deck ; you get to know them intimately, and to dislike 
 some of them so much. I am afraid you will think that 
 I have already broken loose ; and for aught I know, I am 
 
1 62 THE POINT OF VIEW. i. 
 
 writing as a demoiselle bien-elevee should not write. I 
 don't know whether it's the American air ; if it is, all I 
 can say is that the American air is very charming. It 
 makes me impatient and restless, and I sit scribbling 
 here because I am so eager to arrive, and the time passes 
 better if I occupy myself. I am in the saloon, where we 
 have our meals, and opposite to me is a big round port- 
 hole, wide open, to let in the smell of the land. Every 
 now and then I rise a little and look through it, to see 
 whether we are arriving. I mean in the Bay, you know, 
 for we shall not come up to the city till dark. I don't 
 want to lose the Bay ; it appears that it's so wonderful. 
 I don't exactly understand what it contains, except some 
 beautiful islands ; but I suppose you will know all about 
 that. It is easy to see that these are the last hours, for 
 all the people about me are writing letters to put into 
 the post as soon as we come up to the dock. I be- 
 lieve they are dreadful at the custom-house, and you will 
 remember how many new things you persuaded mamma 
 that (with my pre - occupation of marriage) I should 
 take to this country, where even the prettiest girls are 
 expected not to go unadorned. We ruined ourselves in 
 Paris (that is part of mamma's solemnity) ; mats au moins 
 je serai belle ! Moreover, I believe that mamma is pre- 
 pared to say or to do anything that may be necessary for 
 escaping from their odious duties ; as she very justly 
 remarks, she can't afford to be ruined twice. I don't 
 know how one approaches these terrible dotianiers, but I 
 mean to invent something very charming. I mean to say, 
 " Voyons 9 Messieurs, a young girl like me, brought up in 
 the strictest foreign traditions, kept always in the back- 
 ground by a very superior mother la voila ; you can see 
 for yourself ! what is it possible that she should attempt 
 to smuggle in? Nothing but a few simple relics of her con- 
 vent ! " I won't tell them that my convent was called the 
 Magasin du Bon Marche. Mamma began to scold me three 
 days ago for insisting on so many trunks, and the truth is 
 
I. THE POINT OF VIEW. 163 
 
 that, between us, we have not fewer than seven. For 
 relics, that's a good many ! We are all writing very long 
 letters or at least we are writing a great number. 
 There is no news of the Bay as yet. Mr. Antrobus, 
 mamma's friend, opposite to me, is beginning on his ninth. 
 He is an Honourable, and a Member of Parliament ; he 
 has written, during the voyage, about a hundred letters, 
 and he seems greatly alarmed at the number of stamps 
 he will have to buy when he arrives. He is full of 
 information ; but he has not enough, for he asks as many 
 questions as mamma when she goes to hire apartments. 
 He is going to " look into " various things ; he speaks as 
 if they had a little hole for the purpose. He walks 
 almost as much as I, and he has very big shoes. He 
 asks questions even of me, and I tell him again and again 
 that I know nothing about America. But it makes no 
 difference ; he always begins again, and, indeed, it is not 
 strange that he should find my ignorance incredible. 
 " Now, how would it be in one of your South-Western 
 States?" that's his favourite way of opening conversation. 
 Fancy me giving an account of the South-Western States ! 
 I tell him he had better ask mamma a little to tease 
 that lady, who knows no more about such places than I. 
 Mr. Antrobus is very big and black ; he speaks with a 
 sort of brogue ; he has a wife and ten children ; he is not 
 very romantic. But he has lots of letters to people la-bas 
 (I forget that we are just arriving), and mamma, who 
 takes an interest in him in spite of his views (which are 
 dreadfully advanced, and not at all like mamma's own), 
 has promised to give him the entree to the best society. 
 I don't know what she knows about the best society over 
 here to-day, for we have not kept up our connections at 
 all, and no one will know (or, I am afraid, care) anything 
 about us. She has an idea that we shall be immensely 
 recognised ; but really, except the poor little Rucks, who 
 are bankrupt, and, I am told, in no society at all, I don't 
 know on whom we can count. Cest egal. Mamma has 
 
1 64 THE POINT OF VIEW. i. 
 
 an idea that, whether or not we appreciate America our- 
 selves, we shall at least be universally appreciated. It's 
 true that we have begun to be, a little ; you would see 
 that by the way that Mr. Cockerel and Mr. Louis Leverett 
 are always inviting me to walk. Both of these gentlemen, 
 who are Americans, have asked leave to call upon me in 
 New York, and I have said, Mon Dieu, OKI, if it's the 
 custom of the country. Of course I have not dared to 
 tell this to mamma, who flatters herself that we have 
 brought with us in our trunks a complete set of customs 
 of our own, and that we shall only have to shake them 
 out a little and put them on when we arrive. If only 
 the two gentlemen I just spoke of don't call at the same 
 time, I don't think I shall be too much frightened. If 
 they do, on the other hand, I won't answer for it. They 
 have a particular aversion to each other, and they are 
 ready to fight about poor little me. I am only the pre- 
 text, however ; for, as Mr. Leverett says, it's really the 
 opposition of temperaments. I hope they won't cut each 
 other's throats, for I am not crazy about either of them. 
 They are very well for the deck of a ship, but I shouldn't 
 care about them in a salon ; they are not at all distin- 
 guished. They think they are, but they are not ; at 
 least Mr. Louis Leverett does ; Mr. Cockerel doesn't 
 appear to care so much. They are extremely different 
 (with their opposed temperaments), and each very amusing 
 for a while ; but I should get dreadfully tired of passing 
 my life with either. Neither has proposed that, as yet ; 
 but it is evidently what they are coming to. It will be 
 in a great measure to spite each other, for I think that 
 an fond they don't quite believe in me. If they don't, 
 it's the only point on which they agree. They hate each 
 other awfully ; they take such different views. That is, 
 Mr. Cockerel hates Mr. Leverett he calls him a sickly 
 little ass ; he says that his opinions are half affectation, 
 and the other half dyspepsia. Mr. Leverett speaks of 
 Mr. Cockerel as a "strident savage," but he declares he 
 
i. THE POINT OF VIEW. 165 
 
 finds him most diverting. He says there is nothing in 
 which we can't find a certain entertainment, if we only 
 look at it in the right way, and that we have no business 
 with either hating or loving ; we ought only to strive to 
 understand. To understand is to forgive, he says. That 
 is very pretty, but I don't like the suppression of our 
 affections, though I have no desire to fix mine upon Mr. 
 Leverett. He is very artistic, and talks like an article 
 in some review. He has lived a great deal in Paris, and 
 Mr. Cockerel says that is what has made him such an 
 idiot. That is not complimentary to you, dear Louisa, 
 and still less to your brilliant brother ; for Mr. Cockerel 
 explains that he means it (the bad effect of Paris) chiefly 
 of the men. In fact, he means the bad effect of Europe 
 altogether. This, however, is compromising to mamma ; 
 and I am afraid there is no doubt that (from what I have 
 told him) he thinks mamma also an idiot (I am not 
 responsible, you know I have always wanted to go 
 home.) If mamma knew him, which she doesn't, for 
 she always closes her eyes when I pass on his arm, she 
 would think him disgusting. Mr. Leverett, however, 
 tells me he is nothing to what we shall see yet He is 
 from Philadelphia (Mr. Cockerel) ; he insists that we 
 shall go and see Philadelphia, but mamma says she saw 
 it in 1855, and it was then affreux. Mr. Cockerel says 
 that mamma is evidently not familiar with the march of 
 improvement in this country; he speaks of 1855 as if it 
 were a hundred years ago. Mamma says she knows it 
 goes only too fast it goes so fast that it has time to do 
 nothing well ; and then Mr. Cockerel, who, to do him 
 justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that she had 
 better wait till she has been ashore and seen the improve- 
 ments. Mamma rejoins that she sees them from here, 
 the improvements, and that they give her a sinking of the 
 heart. (This little exchange of ideas is carried on through 
 me ; they have never spoken to each other. ) Mr. 
 Cockerel, as I say, is extremely good-natured, and he 
 
166 THE POINT OF VIEW. I. 
 
 carries out what I have heard said about the men in 
 America being very considerate of the women. They 
 evidently listen to them a great deal ; they don't contra- 
 dict them, but it seems to me that this is rather negative. 
 There is very little gallantry in not contradicting one ; 
 and it strikes me that there are some things the men 
 don't express. There are others on the ship whom I've 
 noticed. It's as if they were all one's brothers or one's 
 cousins. But I promised you not to generalise, and per- 
 haps there will be more expression when we arrive. 
 Mr. Cockerel returns to America, after a general tour, 
 with a renewed conviction that this is the only country. 
 I left him on deck an hour ago looking at the coast-line 
 with an opera-glass, and saying it was the prettiest thing 
 he had seen in all his tour. When I remarked that the 
 coast seemed rather low, he said it would be all the easier 
 to get ashore ; Mr. Leverett doesn't seem in a hurry 
 to get ashore ; he is sitting within sight of me in a corner 
 of the saloon writing letters, I suppose, but looking, 
 from the way he bites his pen and rolls his eyes about, 
 as if he were composing a sonnet and waiting for a rhyme. 
 Perhaps the sonnet is addressed to me ; but I forget that 
 he suppresses the affections ! The only person in whom 
 mamma takes much interest is the great French critic, 
 M. Lejaune, whom we have the honour to carry with 
 us. We have read a few of his works, though mamma 
 disapproves of his tendencies and thinks him a dreadful 
 materialist. We have read them for the style ; you know 
 he is one of the new Academicians. He is a Frenchman 
 like any other, except that he is rather more quiet ; and 
 he has a gray mustache and the ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honour. He is the first French writer of distinction 
 who has been to America since De Tocqueville ; the 
 French, in such matters, are not veiy enterprising. Also, 
 he has the air of wondering what he is doing dans cette 
 galere. He has come with his beau-frere> who is an 
 engineer, and is looking after some mines, and he talks 
 
I. THE POINT OF VIEW. 167 
 
 with scarcely any one else, as he speaks no English, 
 and appears to take for granted that no one speaks 
 French. Mamma would be delighted to assure him of 
 the contrary ; she has never conversed with an Academi- 
 cian. She always makes a little vague inclination, with 
 a smile, when he passes her, and he answers with a most 
 respectful bow ; but it goes no farther, to mamma's 
 disappointment. He is always with the beau-frere, a 
 rather untidy, fat, bearded man, decorated, too, always 
 smoking and looking at the feet of the ladies, whom 
 mamma (though she has very good feet) has not the 
 courage to aborder. I believe M. Lejaune is going to 
 write a book about America, and Mr. Leverett says it 
 will be terrible. Mr. Leverett has made his acquaintance, 
 and says M. Lejaune will put him into his book ; he says 
 the movement of the French intellect is superb. As a 
 general thing, he doesn't care for Academicians, but he 
 thinks M. Lejaune is an exception, he is so living, so 
 personal. I asked Mr. Cockerel what he thought of M. 
 Lejaune's plan of writing a book, and he answered that 
 he didn't see what it mattered to him that a Frenchman 
 the more should make a monkey of himself. I asked 
 him why he hadn't written a book about Europe, and he 
 said that, in the first place, Europe isn't worth writing 
 about, and, in the second, if he said what he thought, 
 people would think it was a joke. He said they are very 
 superstitious about Europe over here ; he wants people 
 in America to behave as if Europe didn't exist. I told 
 this to Mr. Leverett, and he answered that if Europe 
 didn't exist America wouldn't, for Europe keeps us alive 
 by buying our corn. He said, also, that the trouble with 
 America in the future will be that she will produce things 
 in such enormous quantities that there won't be enough 
 people in the rest of the world to buy them, and that we 
 shall be left with our productions most of them very 
 hideous on our hands. I asked him if he thought corn 
 a hideous production, and he replied that there is nothing 
 
1 68 THE POINT OF VIEW. I. 
 
 more unbeautiful than too much food. I think that to 
 feed the world too well, however, that will be, after all, 
 a beau rdle. Of course I don't understand these things, 
 and I don't believe Mr. Leverett does ; but Mr. Cockerel 
 seems to know what he is talking about, and he says that 
 America is complete in herself. I don't know exactly 
 what he means, but he speaks as if human affairs had 
 somehow moved over to this side of the world. It may 
 be a very good place for them, and Heaven knows I am 
 extremely tired of Europe, which mamma has always 
 insisted so on my appreciating ; but I don't think I like 
 the idea of our being so completely cut off. Mr. Cockerel 
 says it is not we that are cut off, but Europe, and he 
 seems to think that Europe has deserved it somehow. 
 That may be ; our life over there was sometimes 
 extremely tiresome, though mamma says it is now that 
 our real fatigues will begin. I like to abuse those 
 dreadful old countries myself, but I am not sure that I 
 am pleased when others do the same. We had some 
 rather pretty moments there, after all ; and at Piacenza 
 we certainly lived on four francs a day. Mamma is 
 already in a terrible state of mind about the expenses 
 here ; she is frightened by what people on the ship (the 
 few that she has spoken to) have told her. There is one 
 comfort, at any rate we have spent, so much money in 
 coming here that we shall have none left to get away. 
 I am scribbling along, as you see, to occupy me till we 
 get news of the islands. Here comes Mr. Cockerel to 
 bring it. Yes, they are in sight ; he tells me that they are 
 lovelier than ever, and that I must come right up right 
 away. I suppose you will think that I am already 
 beginning to use ' the language of the country. It is 
 certain that at the end of a month I shall speak nothing 
 else. I have picked up eveiy dialect, wherever we have 
 travelled ; you have heard my Platt-Deutsch and my 
 Neapolitan. But, voyons un pen the Bay ! I have just 
 called to Mr. Leverett to remind him of the islands. 
 
ii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 169 
 
 "The islands the islands? Ah, my dear young lady, 
 I have seen Capri, I have seen Ischia ! " Well, so have 
 I, but that doesn't prevent . . . (A little later.} I 
 have seen the islands ; they are rather queer. 
 
 II. 
 
 MRS. CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO MADAME GALOPIN, 
 AT GENEVA. 
 
 October 17, 1880. 
 
 IF I felt far away from you in the middle of that deplor- 
 able Atlantic, chere Madame, how do I feel now, in the 
 heart of this extraordinary city ? We have arrived, we 
 have arrived, dear friend ; but I don't know whether to 
 tell you that I consider that an advantage. If we had 
 been given our choice of coming safely to land or going 
 down to the bottom of the sea, I should doubtless have 
 chosen the former course ; for I hold, with your noble 
 husband, and in opposition to the general tendency of 
 modern thought, that our lives are not our own to dispose 
 of, but a sacred trust from a higher power, by whom we 
 shall be held responsible. Nevertheless, if I had foreseen 
 more vividly some of the impressions that aw r aited me 
 here, I am not sure that, for my daughter at least, I 
 should not have preferred on the spot to hand in our 
 account. Should I not have been less (rather than more) 
 guilty in presuming to dispose of her destiny, than of my 
 own? There is a nice point for dear M. Galopin to 
 settle- one of those points which I have heard him dis- 
 cuss in the pulpit with such elevation. We are safe, 
 however, as I say ; by which I mean that we are physi- 
 cally safe. We have taken up the thread of our familiar 
 pension-life, but under strikingly different conditions. 
 We have found a refuge in a boarding-house which has 
 
I ;o THE POINT OF VIEW. n. 
 
 been highly recommended to me, and where the arrange- 
 ments partake of that barbarous magnificence which in 
 this country is the only alternative from primitive rude- 
 ness. The terms, per week, are as magnificent as all the 
 rest. The landlady wears diamond ear-rings ; and the 
 drawing-rooms are decorated with marble statues. I 
 should indeed be sorry to let you know how I have 
 allowed myself to be ran$onnee ; and I should be still 
 more sorry that it should come to the ears of any of my 
 good friends in Geneva, who know me less well than you 
 and might judge me more harshly. There is no wine 
 given for dinner, and I have vainly requested the person 
 who conducts the establishment to garnish her table more 
 liberally. She says I may have all the wine I want if I 
 will order it at the merchant's, and settle the matter with 
 him. But I have never, as you know, consented to re- 
 gard our modest allowance of eau rougie as an extra ; 
 indeed, I remember that it is largely to your excellent 
 advice that I have owed my habit of being firm on this 
 point. There are, however, greater difficulties than the 
 question of what we shall drink for dinner, chere Madame. 
 Still, I have never lost courage, and I shall not lose 
 courage now. At the worst, we can re-embark again, 
 and seek repose and refreshment on the shores of your 
 beautiful lake. (There is absolutely no scenery here !) 
 We shall not, perhaps, in that case have achieved what 
 we desired, but we shall at least have made an honour- 
 able retreat. What we desire I know it is just this 
 that puzzles you, dear friend ; I don't think you ever 
 really comprehended my motives in taking this formid- 
 able step, though you were good enough, and your mag- 
 nanimous husband was good enough, to press my hand 
 at parting in a way that seemed to say that you would 
 still be with me, even if I was wrong. To be very brief, 
 I wished to put an end to the reclamations of my daughter. 
 Many Americans had assured her that she was wasting 
 her youth in those historic lands which it was her privi- 
 
II. THE POINT OF VIEW. 171 
 
 lege to see so intimately, and this unfortunate convic- 
 tion had taken possession of her. " Let me at least see 
 for myself," she used to say; "if I should dislike it 
 over there as much as you promise me, so much the 
 better for you. In that case we will come back and 
 make a new arrangement at Stuttgart." The experiment 
 is a terribly expensive one ; but you know that my 
 devotion never has shrunk from an ordeal. There is 
 another point, moreover, which, from a mother to a 
 mother, it would be affectation not to touch upon. I 
 remember the just satisfaction with which you announced 
 to me the betrothal of your charming Cecile. You 
 know with what earnest care my Aurora has been edu- 
 cated, how thoroughly she is acquainted with the prin- 
 cipal results of modern research. We have always studied 
 together ; we have always enjoyed together. It will per- 
 haps surprise you to hear that she makes these very 
 advantages a reproach to me, represents them as an 
 injury to herself. "In this country," she says, "the 
 gentlemen have not those accomplishments ; they care 
 nothing for the results of modern research ; and it will 
 not help a young person to be sought in marriage that 
 she can give an account of the last German theory of 
 Pessimism." That is possible ; and I have never con- 
 cealed from her that it was not for this country that I 
 had educated her. If she marries in the United States 
 it is, of course, my intention that my son-in-law shall 
 accompany us to Europe. But, when she calls my 
 attention more and more to these facts, I feel that we 
 are moving in a different world. This is more and more 
 the country of the many ; the few find less and less place 
 for them ; and the individual well, the individual has 
 quite ceased to be recognised. He is recognised as a 
 voter, but he is not recognised as a gentleman still less 
 as a lady. My daughter and I, of course, can only pre- 
 tend to constitute a. few! You know that I have never 
 for a moment remitted my pretensions as an individual, 
 
172 THE POINT OF VIEW. n. 
 
 though, among the agitations of pension-life, I have 
 sometimes needed all my energy to uphold them. " Oh, 
 yes, I may be poor," I have had occasion to say, "I 
 may be unprotected, I may be reserved, I may occupy a 
 small apartment in the quatrieme, and be unable to scatter 
 unscrupulous bribes among the domestics ; but at least I 
 am a person, with personal rights." In this country the 
 people have rights, but the person has none. You would 
 have perceived that if you had come with me to make 
 arrangements at this establishment. The very fine lady 
 who condescends to preside over it kept me waiting 
 twenty minutes, and then came sailing in without a word 
 of apology. I had sat very silent, with my eyes on the 
 clock ; Aurora amused herself with a false admiration of 
 the room, a wonderful drawing-room, with magenta 
 curtains, frescoed walls, and photographs of the landlady's 
 friends as if one cared anything about her friends ! 
 When this exalted personage came in, she simply re- 
 marked that she had just been trying on a dress that it 
 took so long to get a skirt to hang. " It seems to take 
 very long indeed !" I answered. " But I hope the skirt 
 is right at last. You might have sent for us to come up 
 and look at it !" She evidently didn't understand, and 
 when I asked her to show us her rooms, she handed us 
 over to a negro as degingande as herself. While we 
 looked at them I heard her sit down to the piano in the 
 drawing-room ; she began to sing an air from a comic 
 opera. I began to fear we had gone quite astray ; I 
 didn't know in what house we could be, and was only 
 reassured by seeing a Bible in every room. When we 
 came down our musical hostess expressed no hope that 
 the rooms had pleased us, and seemed quite indifferent 
 to our taking them. She would not consent, moreover, 
 to the least diminution, and was inflexible, as I told you, 
 on the subject of wine. When I pushed this point, she 
 was so good as to observe that she didn't keep a cabaret. 
 One is not in the least considered ; there is no respect 
 
ii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 173 
 
 for one's privacy, for one's preferences, for one's reserves. 
 The familiarity is without limits, and I have already 
 made a dozen acquaintances, of whom I know, and wish 
 to know, nothing. Aurora tells me that she is the " belle 
 of the boarding-house." It appears that this is a great 
 distinction. It brings me back to my poor child and her 
 prospects. She takes a very critical view of them herself: 
 she tells me that I have given her a false education, and 
 that no one will marry her to-day. No American will 
 marry her, because she is too much of a foreigner, and 
 no foreigner will marry her because she is too much of 
 an American. I remind her that scarcely a day passes 
 that a foreigner, usually of distinction, doesn't select an 
 American bride, and she answers me that in these cases 
 the young lady is not married for her fine eyes. Not 
 always, I reply ; and then she declares that she would 
 marry no foreigner who should not be one of the first of 
 the first. You will say, doubtless, that she should con- 
 tent herself with advantages that have not been deemed 
 insufficient for Cecile ; but I will not repeat to you the 
 remark she made when I once made use of this argument. 
 You will doubtless be surprised to hear that I have ceased 
 to argue ; but it is time I should tell you that I have at 
 last agreed to let her act for herself. She is to live for 
 three months cl I Americaine, and I am to be a mere 
 spectator. You will feel with me that this is a cruel 
 position for a cceur de mire. I count the days till our 
 three months are over, and I know that you will join with 
 me in my prayers. Aurora walks the streets alone. She 
 goes out in the tramway ; a voitttre de place costs five 
 francs for the least little course. (I beseech you not to 
 let it be known that I have sometimes had the weak- 
 ness . . .) My daughter is sometimes accompanied by a 
 gentleman by a dozen gentlemen ; she remains out for 
 hours, and her conduct excites no surprise in this estab- 
 lishment. I know but too well the emotions it will ex- 
 cite in your quiet home. If you betray us, chere Madame, 
 
174 THE POINT OF VIEW. n. 
 
 we are lost ; and why, after all, should any one know of 
 these things in Geneva ? Aurora pretends that she has 
 been able to persuade herself that she doesn't care who 
 knows them ; but there is a strange expression in her 
 face, which proves that her conscience is not at rest. I 
 watch her, I let her go, but I sit with my hands clasped. 
 There is a peculiar custom in this country I shouldn't 
 know how to express it in Genevese it is called " being 
 attentive, " and young girls are the object of the attention. 
 It has not necessarily anything to do with projects of 
 marriage though it is the privilege only of the un- 
 married, and though, at the same time (fortunately, and 
 this may surprise you) it has no relation to other pro- 
 jects. It is simply an invention by which young persons 
 of the two sexes pass their time together. How shall I 
 muster courage to tell you that Aurora is now engaged 
 in this delassement) in company with several gentlemen ? 
 Though it has no relation to marriage, it happily does 
 not exclude it, and marriages have been known to take 
 place in consequence (or in spite) of it. It is true that 
 even in this country a young lady may marry but one 
 husband at a time, whereas she may receive at once the 
 attentions of several gentlemen, who are equally entitled 
 "admirers." My daughter, then, has admirers to an 
 indefinite number. You will think I am joking, perhaps, 
 when I tell you that I am unable to be exact I who 
 was formerly V exactitude mhne. Two of these gentlemen 
 are, to a certain extent, old friends, having been pas- 
 sengers on the steamer which carried us so far from you. 
 One of them, still young, is typical of the American 
 character, but a respectable person, and a lawyer in con- 
 siderable practice. Every one in this country follows a 
 profession ; but it must be admitted that the professions 
 are more highly remunerated than chez vous. Mr. 
 Cockerel, even while I write you, is in complete posses- 
 sion of my daughter. He called for her an hour ago in 
 a "boghey," a strange, unsafe, rickety vehicle, mounted 
 
ii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 175 
 
 on enormous wheels, which holds two persons very near 
 together ; and I watched her from the window take her 
 place at his side. Then he whirled her away, behind 
 two little horses with terribly thin legs ; the whole equi- 
 page and most of all her being in it was in the most 
 questionable taste. But she will return, and she will 
 return very much as she went. It is the same when she 
 goes down to Mr. Louis Leverett, who has no vehicle, 
 and who merely comes and sits with her in the front 
 salon. He has lived a great deal in Europe, and is very 
 fond of the arts, and though I am not sure I agree with 
 him in his views of the relation of art to life and life to 
 art, and in his interpretation of some of the great works 
 that Aurora and I have studied together, he seems to me 
 a sufficiently serious and intelligent young man. I do 
 not regard him as intrinsically dangerous ; but on the 
 other hand, he offers absolutely no guarantees. I have 
 no means whatever of ascertaining his pecuniary situation. 
 There is a vagueness on these points which is extremely 
 embarrassing, and it never occurs to young men to offer 
 you a reference. In Geneva I should not be at a loss ; 
 I should come to you, chere Madame, with my little 
 inquiry, and what you should not be able to tell me 
 would not be worth knowing. But no one in New York 
 can give me the smallest information about the etat de 
 fortune of Mr. Louis Leverett. It is true that he is a 
 native of Boston, where most of his friends reside ; I 
 cannot, however, go to the expense of a journey to 
 Boston simply to learn, perhaps, that Mr. Leverett (the 
 young Louis) has an income of five thousand francs. As 
 I say, however, he does not strike me as dangerous. 
 When Aurora comes back to me, after having passed an 
 hour with the young Louis, she says that he has described 
 to her his emotions on visiting the home of Shelley, or 
 discussed some of the differences between the Boston Tem- 
 perament and that of the Italians of the Renaissance. 
 You will not enter into these rapprochements, and I 
 
176 THE POINT OF VIEW. in. 
 
 can't blame you. But you won't betray me, chtre 
 Madame ? 
 
 III. 
 
 FROM MISS STURDY, AT NEWPORT, TO MRS. DRAPER, 
 IN FLORENCE. 
 
 September 30. 
 
 I PROMISED to tell you how I like it, but the truth is, 
 I have gone to and fro so often that I have ceased to 
 like and dislike. Nothing strikes me as unexpected ; I 
 expect everything in its order. Then, too, you know, I 
 am not a critic ; I have no talent for keen analysis, as 
 the magazines say; I don't go into the reasons of things. 
 It is true I have been for a longer time than usual on 
 the wrong side of -the water, and I admit that I feel a 
 little out of training for American life. They are break- 
 ing me in very fast, however. I don't mean that they 
 bully me ; I absolutely decline to be bullied. I say 
 what I think, because I believe that I have, on the 
 whole, the advantage of knowing what I think when I 
 think anything which is h?lf the battle. Sometimes, 
 indeed, I think nothing at all. They don't like that 
 over here ; they like you to have impressions. That 
 they like these impressions to be favourable appears to 
 me perfectly natural ; I don't make a crime to them of 
 that ; it seems to me, on the contrary, a very amiable 
 quality. When individuals have it, we call them sym- 
 pathetic ; I don't see why we shouldn't give nations the 
 same benefit. But there are things I haven't the least 
 desire to have an opinion about. The privilege of in- 
 difference is the dearest one we possess, and I hold that 
 intelligent people are known by the way they exercise it. 
 Life is full of rubbish, and we have at least our share of 
 it over here. When you wake up in the morning you 
 
in. THE POINT OF VIEW. 177 
 
 find that during the night a cartload has been deposited 
 in your front garden. I decline, however, to have any 
 of it in my premises ; there are thousands of things I 
 want to know nothing about. I have outlived the neces- 
 sity of being hypocritical ; I have nothing to gain and 
 everything to lose. When one is fifty years old single, 
 stout, and red in the face one has outlived a good many 
 necessities. They tell me over here that my increase of 
 weight is extremely marked, and though they don't tell 
 me that I am coarse, I am sure they think me so. There 
 is very little coarseness here not quite enough, I think 
 though there is plenty of vulgarity, which is a very 
 different thing. On the whole, the country is becoming 
 much more agreeable. It isn't that the people are 
 charming, for that they always were (the best of them, 
 I mean, for it isn't true of the others), but that places 
 and things as well have acquired the art of pleasing. 
 The houses are extremely good, and they look so extra- 
 ordinarily fresh and clean. European interiors, in com- 
 parison, seem musty and gritty. We have a great deal 
 of taste ; I shouldn't wonder if we should end by invent- 
 ing something pretty ; we only need a little time. Of 
 course, as yet, it's all imitation, except, by the way, these 
 piazzas. I am sitting on one now ; I am writing to you 
 with my portfolio on my knees. This broad light loggia 
 surrounds the house with a movement as free as the 
 expanded wings of a bird, and the wandering airs come 
 up from the deep sea, which murmurs on the rocks at 
 the end of the lawn. Newport is more charming even 
 than you remember it ; like everything else over here, it 
 has improved. It is veiy exquisite to-day ; it is, indeed, 
 I think, in all the world, the only exquisite watering- 
 place, for I detest the whole genus. The crowd has left 
 it now, which makes it all the better, though plenty of 
 talkers remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, 
 which are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all 
 over the green carpet of the cliff. This carpet is very 
 
 N 
 
1 78 THE POINT OF VIEW. in. 
 
 neatly laid and wonderfully well swept, and the sea, just 
 at hand, is capable of prodigies of blue. Here and there 
 a pretty woman strolls over one of the lawns, which all 
 touch each other, you know, without hedges or fences ; 
 the light looks intense as it plays upon her brilliant 
 dress ; her large parasol shines like a silver dome. The 
 long lines of the far shores are soft and pure, though 
 they are places that one hasn't the least desire to visit. 
 Altogether the effect is very delicate, and anything that 
 is delicate counts immensely over here ; for delicacy, I 
 think, is as rare as coarseness. I am talking to you of 
 the sea, however, without having told you a word of my 
 voyage. It was very comfortable and amusing ; I should 
 like to take another next month. You know I am almost 
 offensively well at sea that I breast the weather and 
 brave the storm. We had no storm fortunately, and I 
 had brought with me a supply of light literature ; so I 
 passed nine days on deck in my sea-chair, with my heels 
 up, reading Tauchnitz novels. There was a great lot of 
 people, but no one in particular, save some fifty American 
 girls. You know all about the American girl, however, 
 having been one yourself. They are, on the whole, very 
 nice, but fifty is too many ; there are always too many. 
 There was an inquiring Briton, a radical M.P., by name 
 Mr. Antrobus, who entertained me as much as any one 
 else. He is an excellent man ; I even asked him to 
 come down here and spend a couple of days. He looked 
 rather frightened, till I told him he shouldn't be alone 
 with me, that the house was my brother's, and that I 
 gave the invitation in his name. He came a week ago ; 
 he goes everywhere ; we have heard of him in a dozen 
 places. The English are very simple, or at least they 
 seem so over here. Their old measurements and com- 
 parisons desert them ; they don't know whether it's all a 
 joke, or whether it's too serious by half. We are quicker 
 than they, though we talk so much more slowly. We 
 think fast, and yet we talk as deliberately as if we were 
 
in. THE POINT OF VIEW. 179 
 
 speaking a foreign language. They toss off their sentences 
 with an air of easy familiarity with the tongue, and yet 
 they misunderstand two-thirds of what people say to 
 them. Perhaps, after all, it is only our thoughts they 
 think slowly ; they think their own often to a lively tune 
 enough. Mr. Antrobus arrived here at eight o'clock in 
 the morning ; I don't know how he managed it ; it 
 appears to be his favourite hour; wherever we have 
 heard of him he has come in with the dawn. In Eng- 
 land he would arrive at 5.30 P.M. He asks innumer- 
 able questions, but they are easy to answer, for he has a 
 sweet credulity. He made me rather ashamed ; he is a 
 better American than so many of us ; he takes us more 
 seriously than we take ourselves. He seems to think 
 that an oligarchy of wealth is growing up here, and he 
 advised me to be on my guard against it. I don't know 
 exactly what I can do, but I promised him to look out. 
 He is fearfully energetic ; the energy of the people here 
 is nothing to that of the inquiring Briton. If we should 
 devote half the energy to building up our institutions 
 that they devote to obtaining information about them, we 
 should have a very satisfactory country. Mr. Antrobus 
 seemed to think very well of us, which surprised me, on 
 the whole, because, say what one will, it's not so agree- 
 able as England. It's very horrid that this should be ; 
 and it's delightful, when one thinks of it, that some 
 things in England are, after all, so disagreeable. At the 
 same time, Mr. Antrobus appeared to be a good deal 
 pre-occupied with our dangers. I don't understand, quite, 
 what they are ; they seem to me so few, on a Newport 
 piazza, on this bright, still day. 'But, after all, what one 
 sees on a Newport piazza is not America ; it's the back 
 of Europe ! I don't mean to say that I haven't noticed 
 any dangers since my return ; there are two or three that 
 seem to me very serious, but they are not those that Mr. 
 Antrobus means. One, for instance, is that we shall 
 cease to speak the English language, which I prefer so 
 
i8o THE POINT OF VIEW. in. 
 
 much to any other. It's less and less spoken ; American 
 is crowding it out. All the children speak American, 
 and as a child's language it's dreadfully rough. It's ex- 
 clusively in use in the schools ; all the magazines and 
 newspapers are in American. Of course, a people of 
 fifty millions, who have invented a new civilisation, have 
 a right to a language of their own ; that's what they tell 
 me, and I can't quarrel with it. But I wish they had 
 made it as pretty as the mother-tongue, from which, 
 after all, it is more or less derived. We ought to have 
 invented something as noble as our country. They tell 
 me it's more expressive, and yet some admirable things 
 have been said in the Queen's English. There can be 
 no question of the Queen over here, of course, and 
 American no doubt is the music of the future. Poor 
 dear future, how "expressive " you'll be ! For women 
 and children, as I say, it strikes one as very rough ; and 
 moreover, they don't speak it well, their own though it 
 be. My little nephews, when I first came home, had 
 not gone back to school, and it distressed me to see that, 
 though they are charming children, they had the vocal 
 inflections of little news-boys. My niece is sixteen years 
 old ; she has the sweetest nature possible ; she is ex- 
 tremely well-bred, and is dressed to perfection. She 
 chatters from morning till night ; but it isn't a pleasant 
 sound ! These little persons are in the opposite case 
 from so many English girls, who know how to speak, but 
 don't know how to talk. My niece knows how to talk, but 
 doesn't know how to speak. Apropos of the young people, 
 that is our other danger ; the young people are eating us 
 up, there is nothing in America but the young people. 
 The country is made for the rising generation ; life is ar- 
 ranged for them ; they are the destruction of society. People 
 talk of them, consider them, defer to them, bow down 
 to them. They are always present, and whenever they 
 are present there is an end to everything else. They 
 are often very pretty ; and physically, they are wonder- 
 
in. THE POINT OF VIEW. 181 
 
 fully looked after ; they are scoured and brushed, they 
 wear hygienic clothes, they go every week to the dentist's. 
 But the little boys kick your shins, and the little girls 
 offer to slap your face ! There is an immense literature 
 entirely addressed to them, in which the kicking of shins 
 and the slapping of faces is much recommended. As a 
 woman of fifty, I protest. I insist on being judged by 
 my peers. It's too late, however, for several millions of 
 little feet are actively engaged in stamping out conversa- 
 tion, and I don't see how they can long fail to keep it 
 under. The future is theirs ; maturity will evidently be 
 at an increasing discount. Longfellow wrote a charming 
 little poem called " The Children's Hour," but he ought 
 to have called it "The Children's Century." And by 
 children, of course, I don't mean simple infants ; I mean 
 everything of less than twenty. The social importance 
 of the young American increases steadily up to that age, 
 and then it suddenly stops. The young girls, of course, 
 are more important than the lads ; but the lads are very 
 important too. I am struck with the way they are 
 known and talked about ; they are little celebrities ; they 
 have reputations and pretentions ; they are taken very 
 seriously. As for the young girls, as I said just now, 
 there are too many. You will say, perhaps, that I am 
 jealous of them, with my fifty years and my red face. 
 I don't think so, because I don't suffer ; my red face 
 doesn't frighten people away, and I always find plenty 
 of talkers. The young girls themselves, I believe, like 
 me very much ; and as for me, I delight in the young 
 girls. They are often very pretty; not so pretty as 
 people say in the magazines, but pretty enough. The 
 magazines rather overdo that ; they make a mistake. I 
 have seen no great beauties, but the level of prettiness 
 is high, and occasionally one sees a woman completely 
 handsome. (As a general thing, a pretty person here 
 means a person with a pretty face. The figure is rarely 
 mentioned, though there are several good ones.) The 
 
i82 THE POINT OF VIEW. in. 
 
 level of prettiness is high, but the level of conversation 
 is low ; that's one of the signs of its being a young ladies' 
 country. There are a good many things young ladies 
 can't talk about ; but think of all the things they can, 
 when they are as clever as most of these. Perhaps one 
 ought to content one's self with that measure, but it's 
 difficult if one has lived for a while by a larger one. 
 This one is decidedly narrow ; I stretch it sometimes 
 till it cracks. Then it is that they call me coarse, which 
 I undoubtedly am, thank Heaven ! People's talk is of 
 course much more chdtiee over here than in Europe ; I 
 am struck with that wherever I go. There are certain 
 things that are never said at all, certain allusions that 
 are never made. There are no light stories, no propos 
 risques. I don't know exactly what people talk about, 
 for the supply of scandal is small, and it's poor in 
 quality. They don't seem, however, to lack topics. The 
 young girls are always there ; they keep the gates of 
 conversation ; very little passes that is not innocent. I 
 find we do very well without wickedness ; and, for my- 
 self, as I take my ease, I don't miss my liberties. You 
 remember what I thought of the tone of your table in 
 Florence, and how surprised you were when I asked you 
 why you allowed such things. You said they were like 
 the courses of the seasons ; one couldn't prevent them ; 
 also that to change the tone of your table you would 
 have to change so many other things. Of course, in 
 your house one never saw a young girl ; I was the only 
 spinster, and no one was afraid of me ! Of course, too, 
 if talk is more innocent in this country, manners are so, 
 to begin with. The liberty of the young people is the 
 strongest proof of it. The young girls are let loose in 
 the world, and the world gets more good of it than ces 
 demoiselles get harm. In your world excuse me, but 
 you know what I mean this wouldn't do at all. Your 
 world is a sad affair, and the young ladies would en- 
 counter all sorts of horrors. Over here, considering the 
 
in. THE POINT OF VIEW. 183 
 
 way they knock about, they remain wonderfully simple, 
 and the reason is that society protects them instead of 
 setting them traps. There is almost no gallantry, as you 
 understand it ; the flirtations are child's play. People 
 have no time for making love ; the men, in particular, 
 are extremely busy. I am told that sort of thing con- 
 sumes hours ; I have never had any time for it myself. 
 If the leisure class should increase here considerably, 
 there may possibly be a change ; but I doubt it, for the 
 women seem to me in all essentials exceedingly reserved. 
 Great superficial frankness, but an extreme dread of 
 complications. The men strike me as veiy good fellows. 
 I think that at bottom they are better than the women, 
 who are very subtle, but rather hard. They are not so 
 nice to the men as the men are to them ; I mean, of 
 course, in proportion, you know. But women are not 
 so nice as men, "anyhow," as they say here. The men, 
 of course, are professional, commercial ; there are very 
 few gentlemen pure and simple. This personage needs 
 to be very well done, however, to be of great utility ; 
 and I suppose you won't pretend that he is always well 
 done in your countries. When he's not, the less of him 
 the better. It's very much the same, however, with the 
 system on which the young girls in this countiy are 
 brought up. (You see, I have to come back to the 
 young girls.) When it succeeds, they are the most 
 charming possible ; when it doesn't, the failure is disas- 
 trous. If a girl is a very nice girl, the American method 
 brings her to great completeness makes all her graces 
 flower ; but if she isn't nice, it makes her exceedingly 
 disagreeable elaborately and fatally perverts her. In 
 a word, the American girl is rarely negative, and when 
 she isn't a great success she is a great warning. In nine- 
 teen cases out of twenty, among the people who know 
 how to live I won't say what their proportion is the 
 results are highly satisfactory. The girls are not shy, 
 but I don't know why they should be, for there is really 
 
1 84 THE POINT OF VIEW. in. 
 
 nothing here to be afraid of. Manners are very gentle, 
 very humane ; the democratic system deprives people of 
 weapons that every one doesn't equally possess. No one 
 is formidable ; no one is on stilts ; no one has great pre- 
 tensions or any recognised right to be arrogant. I think 
 there is not much wickedness, and there is certainly less 
 cruelty than with you. Every one can sit ; no one is 
 kept standing. One is much less liable to be snubbed, 
 which you will say is a pity. I think it is to a certain 
 extent ; but, on the other hand, folly is less fatuous, in 
 form, than in your countries ; and as people generally 
 have fewer revenges to take, there is less need of their 
 being stamped on in advance. The general good nature, 
 the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the one 
 hand, and of grievances on the other. There is extremely 
 little impertinence ; there is almost none. You will say 
 I am describing a terrible society, a society without 
 great figures or great social prizes. You have hit it, 
 my dear ; there are no great figures, (the great prize, 
 of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to be a great 
 figure.) You would miss these things a good deal, you 
 who delight to contemplate greatness ; and my advice to 
 you, of course, is never to come back. You would miss 
 the small people even more than the great ; every one is 
 middle-sized, and you can never have that momentary 
 sense of tallness which is so agreeable in Europe. There 
 are no brilliant types ; the most important people seem 
 to lack dignity. They are very bourgeois ; they make 
 little jokes ; on occasion they make puns ; they have no 
 form ; they are too good-natured. The men have no 
 style ; the women, who are fidgety and talk too much, 
 have it only in their coiffure, where they have it super- 
 abundantly. But I console myself with the greater bon- 
 homie. Have you ever arrived at an English country- 
 house in the dusk of a winter's day ? Have you ever 
 made a call in London, when you knew nobody but the 
 hostess ? People here are more expressive, more demon- 
 
in. THE POINT OF VIEW. 185 
 
 strative ; and it is a pleasure, when one comes back (if 
 one happens, like me, to be no one in particular), to feel 
 one's social value rise. They attend to you more ; they 
 have you on their mind ; they talk to you ; they listen 
 to you. That is, the men do ; the women listen very 
 little not enough. They interrupt ; they talk too much ; 
 one feels their presence too much as a sound. I imagine 
 it is partly because their wits are quick, and they think 
 of a good many things to say ; not that they always say 
 such wonders. Perfect repose, after all, is not all self- 
 control ; it is also partly stupidity. American women, 
 however, make too many vague exclamations say too 
 many indefinite things. In short, they have a great deal 
 of nature. On the whole, I find very little affectation, 
 though we shall probably have more as we improve. As 
 yet, people haven't the assurance that carries those things 
 off; they know too much about each other. The trouble 
 is that over here we have all been brought up together. 
 You will think this a picture of a dreadfully insipid 
 society; but I hasten to add that it's not all so tame as 
 that. I have been speaking of the people that one meets 
 socially ; and these are the smallest part of American 
 life. The others those one meets on a basis of mere 
 convenience are much more exciting ; they keep one's 
 temper in healthy exercise. I mean the people in the 
 shops, and on the railroads ; the servants, the hackmen, 
 the labourers, every one of whom you buy anything or 
 have occasion to make an inquiry. With them you need 
 all your best manners, for you must always have enough 
 for two. If you think we are too democratic, taste a 
 little of American life in these walks, and you will be 
 reassured. This is the region of inequality, and you will 
 find plenty of people to make your courtesy to. You 
 see it from below the weight of inequality is on your 
 own back. You asked me to tell you about prices ; they 
 are simply dreadful. 
 
1 86 THE POINT OF VIEW. iv. 
 
 IV. 
 
 FROM THE HONOURABLE EDWARD ANTROBUS, M.P., 
 IN BOSTON, TO THE HONOURABLE MRS. ANTROBUS. 
 
 October 17. 
 
 MY DEAR SUSAN I sent you a post-card on the I3th 
 and a native newspaper yesterday ; I really have had no 
 time to write. I sent you the newspaper partly because 
 it contained a report extremely incorrect of some 
 remarks I made at the meeting of the Association of the 
 Teachers of New England ; partly because it is so 
 curious that I thought it would interest you and the 
 children. I cut out some portions which I didn't think 
 it would be well for the children to see ; the parts 
 remaining contain the most striking features. Please 
 point out to the children the peculiar orthography, which 
 probably will be adopted in England by the time they 
 are grown up ; the amusing oddities of expression, etc. 
 Some of them are intentional ; you will have heard of 
 the celebrated American humour, etc. (remind me, by 
 the way, on my return to Thistleton, to give you a few 
 examples of it) ; others are unconscious, and are perhaps 
 on that account the more diverting. Point out to the 
 children the difference (in so far as you are sure that you 
 yourself perceive it). You must excuse me if these lines 
 are not very legible ; I am writing them by the light of 
 a railway lamp, which rattles above my left ear ; it being 
 only at odd moments that I can find time to look into 
 everything that I wish to. You will say that this is a 
 very odd moment, indeed, when I tell you that I am in 
 bed in a sleeping-car. I occupy the upper berth (I will 
 explain to you the arrangement when I return), while 
 the lower forms the couch the jolts are fearful of an 
 unknown female. You will be very anxious for my 
 
iv. THE POINT OF VIEW. 187 
 
 explanation ; but I assure you that it is the custom of the 
 country. I myself am assured that a lady may travel in 
 this manner all over the Union (the Union of States) 
 without a loss of consideration. In case of her occupy- 
 ing the upper berth I presume it would be different ; but 
 I must make inquiries on this point. Whether it be the 
 fact that a mysterious being of another sex has retired 
 to rest behind the same curtains, or whether it be the 
 swing of the train, which rushes through the air with 
 very much the same movement as the tail of a kite, the 
 situation is, at any rate, so anomalous that I am unable 
 to sleep. A ventilator, is open just over my head, and a 
 lively draught, mingled with a drizzle of cinders, pours in 
 through this ingenious orifice. (I will describe to you its 
 form on my return. ) If I had occupied the lower berth 
 I should have had a whole window to myself, and by 
 drawing back the blind (a safe proceeding at the dead of 
 night), I should have been able, by the light of an 
 extraordinary brilliant moon, to see a little better what I 
 write. The question occurs to me, however, Would 
 the lady below me in that case have ascended to the 
 upper berth? (You know my old taste for contingent 
 inquiries.) I incline to think (from what I have seen) 
 that she would simply have requested me to evacuate my 
 own couch. (The ladies in this country ask for anything 
 they want.) In this case, I suppose, I should have had 
 an extensive view of the country, which, from what I 
 saw of it before I turned in (while the lady beneath me 
 was going to bed), offered a rather ragged expanse, 
 dotted with little white wooden houses, which looked in 
 the moonshine like pasteboard boxes. I have been 
 unable to ascertain as precisely as I should wish by whom 
 these modest residences are occupied ; for they are too 
 small to be the homes of country gentlemen, there is no 
 peasantry here, and (in New England, for all the corn 
 comes from the far West) there are no yeomen nor 
 farmers. The information that one receives in this 
 
1 88 THE POINT OF VIEW. iv. 
 
 country is apt to be rather conflicting, but I am deter- 
 mined to sift the mystery to the bottom. I have already 
 noted down a multitude of facts bearing upon the points 
 that interest me most the operation of the school-boards, 
 the co-education of the sexes, the elevation of the tone of 
 the lower classes, the participation of the latter in political 
 life. Political life, indeed, is almost wholly confined to 
 the lower middle class, and the upper section of the 
 lower class. In some of the large towns, indeed, the 
 lowest order of all participates considerably a very 
 interesting phrase, to which I shall give more attention. 
 It is veiy gratifying to see the taste for public affairs 
 pervading so many social strata ; but the indifference of 
 the gentry is a fact not to be lightly considered. It 
 may be objected, indeed, that there are no gentry ; and 
 it is very true that I have not yet encountered a character 
 of the type of Lord Bottomley, a type which I am free 
 to confess I should be sorry to see disappear from our 
 English system, if system it may be called, where so 
 much is the growth of blind and incoherent forces. It 
 is nevertheless obvious that an idle and luxurious class 
 exists in this country, and that it is less exempt than in 
 our own from the reproach of preferring inglorious ease 
 to the furtherance of liberal ideas. It is rapidly increas- 
 ing, and I am not sure that the indefinite growth of the 
 dilettante spirit, in connection with large and lavishly- 
 expended wealth, is an unmixed good, even in a society 
 in which freedom of development has obtained so many 
 interesting triumphs. The fact that this body is not 
 represented in the governing class, is perhaps as much 
 the result of the jealousy with which it is viewed by the 
 more earnest workers as of its own I dare not, perhaps, 
 apply a harsher term than levity. Such, at least, is 
 the impression I have gathered in the Middle States and 
 in New England ; in the South-west, the North-west, 
 and the far West, it will doubtless be liable to correction. 
 These divisions are probably new to you ; but they are 
 
iv. THE POINT OF VIEW. 189 
 
 the general denomination of large and flourishing com- 
 munities, with which I hope to make myself at least 
 superficially acquainted. The fatigue of traversing, as I 
 habitually do, three or four hundred miles at a bound, 
 is, of course, considerable ; but there is usually much to 
 inquire into by the way. The conductors of the trains, 
 with whom I freely converse, are often men of vigorous 
 and original minds, and even of some social eminence. 
 One of them, a few days ago, gave me a letter of intro- 
 duction to his brother-in-law, who is president of a 
 Western University. Don't have any fear, therefore, 
 that I am not in the best society ! The arrangements 
 for travelling are, as a general thing, extremely ingenious, 
 as you will probably have inferred from what I told you 
 above ; but it must at the same time be conceded that 
 some of them are more ingenious than happy. Some of 
 the facilities, with regard to luggage, the transmission of 
 parcels, etc., are doubtless very useful when explained, 
 but I have not yet succeeded in mastering the intricacies. 
 There are, on the other hand, no cabs and no porters, 
 and I have calculated that I have myself carried my 
 impedimenta which, you know, are somewhat numerous, 
 and from which I cannot bear to be separated some 
 seventy or eighty miles. I have sometimes thought it 
 was a great mistake not to bring Plummeridge ; he would 
 have been useful on such occasions. On the other hand, 
 the startling question would have presented itself Who 
 would have carried Plummeridge's portmanteau? He 
 would have been useful, indeed, for brushing and packing 
 my clothes, and getting me my tub ; I travel with a large 
 tin one there are none to be obtained at the inns and 
 the transport of this receptacle often presents the most 
 insoluble difficulties. It is often, too, an object of con- 
 siderable embarrassment in arriving at private houses, 
 where the servants have less reserve of manner than in 
 England ; and to tell you the truth, I am by no means 
 certain at the present moment that the tub has been 
 
190 THE POINT OF VIEW. iv. 
 
 placed in the train with me. "On board" the train is 
 the consecrated phrase here; it is an allusion to the 
 tossing and pitching of the concatenation of cars, so 
 similar to that of a vessel in a storm. As I was about 
 to inquire, however, Who would get Plummeridge his 
 tub, and attend to his little comforts? We could not 
 veiy well make our appearance, on coming to stay with 
 people, with two of the utensils I have named ; though, 
 as regards a single one, I have had the courage, as 1 
 may say, of a life -long habit. It would hardly be 
 expected that we should both use the same ; though there 
 have been occasions in my travels, as to which I see no 
 way of blinking the fact, that Plummeridge would have 
 had to sit down to dinner with me. Such a contingency 
 would completely have unnerved him ; and, on the whole, 
 it was doubtless the wiser part to leave him respectfully 
 touching his hat on the tender in the Mersey. No one 
 touches his hat over here, and though it is doubtless the 
 sign of a more advanced social order, I confess that when 
 I see poor Plummeridge again, this familiar little gesture 
 familiar, I mean, only in the sense of being often seen 
 will give me a measurable satisfaction. You will see 
 from what I tell you that democracy is not a mere word 
 in this country, and I could give you many more instances 
 of its universal reign. This, however, is what we come 
 here to look at, and, in so far as there seems to be proper 
 occasion, to admire ; though I am by no means sure that 
 we can hope to establish within an appreciable time a 
 corresponding change in the somewhat rigid fabric of 
 English manners. I am not even prepared to affirm 
 that such a change is desirable ; you know this is one of 
 the points on which I do not as yet see my way to going 
 
 as far as Lord B . I have always held that there is 
 
 a certain social ideal of inequality as well as of equality, 
 and if I have found the people of this country, as a 
 general thing, quite equal to each other, I am not sure 
 that I am prepared to go so far as to say that, as a 
 
iv. THE POINT OF VIEW. jgi 
 
 whole, they are equal to excuse that dreadful blot ! 
 The movement of the train and the precarious nature of 
 the light it is close to my nose, and most offensive 
 would, I flatter myself, long since have got the better of 
 a less resolute diarist ! What I was not prepared for 
 was .the very considerable body of aristocratic feeling 
 that lurks beneath this republican simplicity. I have 
 on several occasions been made the confidant of these 
 romantic but delusive vagaries, of which the stronghold 
 appears to be the Empire City, a slang name for New 
 York. I was assured in many quarters that that locality, 
 at least, is ripe for a monarchy, and if one of the Queen's 
 sons would come and talk it over, he would meet with 
 the highest encouragement. This information was given 
 me in strict confidence, with closed doors, as it were ; 
 it reminded me a good deal of the dreams of the old 
 Jacobites, when they whispered their messages to the 
 king across the water. I doubt, however, whether these 
 less excusable visionaries will be able to secure the 
 services of a Pretender, for I fear that in such a case he 
 would encounter a still more fatal Culloden. I have 
 given a good deal of time, as I told you, to the edu- 
 cational system, and have visited no fewer than one 
 hundred and forty -three schools and colleges. It is 
 extraordinary, the number of persons who are being edu- 
 cated in this country ; and yet, at the same time, the 
 tone of the people is less scholarly than one might 
 expect. A lady, a few days since, described to me her 
 daughter as being always "on the go," which I take to 
 be a jocular way of saying that the young lady was very 
 fond of paying visits. Another person, the wife of a 
 United States senator, informed me that if I should go 
 to Washington in January, I should be quite "in the 
 swim." I inquired the meaning of the phrase, but her 
 explanation made it rather more than less ambiguous. 
 To say that I am on the go describes very accurately my 
 own situation. I went yesterday to the Pognanuc High 
 
192 THE POINT OF VIEW. iv. 
 
 School, to hear fifty-seven boys and girls recite in unison 
 a most remarkable ode to the American flag, and shortly 
 afterward attended a ladies' lunch, at which some eighty 
 or ninety of the sex were present. There was only one 
 individual in trousers his trousers, by the way, though 
 he brought a dozen pair, are getting rather seedy. The 
 men in America do not partake of this meal, at which 
 ladies assemble in large numbers to discuss religious, 
 political, and social topics. These immense female 
 symposia (at which every delicacy is provided) are one 
 of the most striking features of American life, and would 
 seem to prove that men are not so indispensable in the 
 scheme of creation as they sometimes suppose. I have 
 been admitted on the footing of an Englishman "just 
 to show you some of our bright women," the hostess 
 yesterday remarked. ("Bright" here has the meaning 
 of intellectual. ) I perceived, indeed, a great many intel- 
 lectual foreheads. These curious collations are organised 
 according to age. I have also been present as an 
 inquiring stranger at several " girls' lunches," from which 
 married ladies are rigidly excluded, but where the fair 
 revellers are equally numerous and equally bright. There 
 is a good deal I should like to tell you about my study 
 of the educational question, but my position is somewhat 
 cramped, and I must dismiss it briefly. My leading 
 impression is that the children in this country are better 
 educated than the adults. The position of a child is, on 
 the whole, one of great distinction. There is a popular 
 ballad of which the refrain, if I am not mistaken, is 
 " Make me a child again, just for to-night !" and which 
 seems to express the sentiment of regret for lost privileges. 
 At all events they are a powerful and independent class, 
 and have organs, of immense circulation, in the press. 
 They are often extremely "bright." I have talked with 
 a great many teachers, most of them lady-teachers, as 
 they are called in this country. The phrase does not 
 mean teachers of ladies, as you might suppose, but 
 
iv. THE POINT OF VIEW. 193 
 
 applies to the sex of the instructress, who often has large 
 classes of young men under her control. I was lately 
 introduced to a young woman of twenty - three, who 
 occupies the chair of Moral Philosophy and Belles-Lettres 
 in a Western college, and who told me with the utmost 
 frankness that she was adored by the undergraduates. 
 This young woman was the daughter of a petty trader in 
 one of the South-western States, and had studied at 
 Amanda College, in Missourah, an institution at which 
 young people of the two sexes pursue their education 
 together. She was very pretty and modest, and ex- 
 pressed a great desire to see something of English 
 country life, in consequence of which I made her promise 
 to come down to Thistleton in the event of her crossing 
 the Atlantic. She is not the least like Gwendolen or 
 Charlotte, and I am not prepared to say how they would 
 get on with her ; the boys would probably do better. 
 Still, I think her acquaintance would be of value to 
 Miss Bumpus, and the two might pass their time very 
 pleasantly in the school-room. I grant you freely that 
 those I have seen here are much less comfortable than 
 the school-room at Thistleton. Has Charlotte, by the 
 way, designed any more texts for the walls? I have 
 been extremely interested in my visit to Philadelphia, 
 where I saw several thousand little red houses with white 
 steps, occupied by intelligent artizans, and arranged (in 
 streets) on the rectangular system. Improved cooking- 
 stoves, rosewood pianos, gas, and hot water, aesthetic 
 furniture, and complete sets of the British Essayists. A 
 tramway through every street ; every block of equal 
 length ; blocks and houses scientifically lettered and 
 numbered. There is absolutely no loss of time, and no 
 need of looking for anything, or, indeed, at anything. 
 The mind always on one's object ; it is very delightful. 
 
194 THE POINT OF VIEW. v. 
 
 V. 
 
 FROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN BOSTON, TO 
 HARVARD TREMONT, IN PARIS. 
 
 November. 
 
 THE scales .have turned, my sympathetic Harvard, and 
 the beam that has lifted you up has dropped me again 
 on this terribly hard spot. I am extremely sorry to have 
 missed you in London, but I received your little note, 
 and took due heed of your injunction to let you know 
 how I got on. I don't get on at all, my dear Harvard 
 I am consumed with the love of the farther shore. I 
 have been so long away that I have dropped out of my 
 place in this little Boston world, and the shallow tides 
 of New England life have closed over it. I am a stranger 
 here, and I find it hard to believe that I ever was a 
 native. It is very hard, very cold, very vacant. I 
 think of your warm, rich Paris ; I think of the Boulevard 
 St. Michel on the mild spring evenings. I see the little 
 corner by the window (of the Cafe de la Jeunesse) where 
 I used to sit ; the doors are open, the soft deep breath of 
 the great city comes in. It is brilliant, yet there is a kind 
 of tone, of body, in the brightness ; the mighty murmur 
 of the ripest civilisation in the world comes in ; the dear 
 old peuple de Paris> the most interesting people in the 
 world, pass by. I have a little book in my pocket ; it is 
 exquisitely printed, a modern Elzevir. It is a lyric 
 cry from the heart of young France, and is full of the 
 sentiment of form. There is no form here, dear Harvard ; 
 I had no idea how little form there was. I don't know 
 what I shall do ; I feel so undraped, so uncurtained, so 
 uncushioned ; I feel as if I were sitting in the centre of 
 a mighty " reflector. " A terrible crude glare is over 
 everything ; the earth looks peeled and excoriated ; the 
 raw heavens seem to bleed with the quick hard light. 
 
v. THE POINT OF VIEW. 195 
 
 I have not got back my rooms in West Cedar Street ; 
 they are occupied by a mesmeric healer. I am staying 
 at an hotel, and it is very dreadful. Nothing for one's 
 self ; nothing for one's preferences and habits. No one 
 to receive you when you arrive ; you push in through a 
 crowd, you edge up to a counter ; you write your name 
 in a horrible book, where every one may come and stare 
 at it and finger it. A man behind the counter stares at 
 you in silence; his stare seems to say to you, "What 
 the devil do you want?" But after this stare he never 
 looks at you again. He tosses down a key at you ; he 
 presses a bell; a savage Irishman arrives. "Take him 
 away," he seems to say to the Irishman; but it is all 
 done in silence ; there is no answer to your own speech, 
 "What is to be done with me, please?" "Wait and 
 you will see," the awful silence seems to say. There is 
 a great crowd around you, but there is also a great still- 
 ness ; every now and then you hear some one expectorate. 
 There are a thousand people in this huge and hideous 
 structure ; they feed together in a big white-walled room. 
 It is lighted by a thousand gas-jets, and heated by cast- 
 iron screens, which vomit forth torrents of scorching air. 
 The temperature is terrible ; the atmosphere is more so ; 
 the furious light and heat seem to intensify the dreadful 
 definiteness. When things are so ugly, they should not 
 be so definite ; and they are terribly ugly here. There 
 is no mystery in the corners ; there is no light and shade 
 in the types. The people are haggard and joyless ; they 
 look as if they had no passions, no tastes, no senses. 
 They sit feeding in silence, in the dry hard light ; 
 occasionally I hear the high firm note of a child. The 
 servants are black and familiar ; their faces shine as they 
 shuffle about ; there are blue tones in their dark masks. 
 They have no manners ; they address you, but they don't 
 answer you ; they plant themselves at your elbow (it 
 rubs their clothes as you eat), and watch you as if your 
 proceedings were strange. They deluge you with iced 
 
196 THE POINT OF VIEW. v. 
 
 water ; it's the only thing they will bring you ; if you 
 look round to summon them, they have gone for more. 
 If you read the newspaper which I don't, gracious 
 Heaven ! I can't they hang over your shoulder and 
 peruse it also. I always fold it up and present it to 
 them ; the newspapers here are indeed for an African 
 taste. There are long corridors defended by gusts of hot 
 air ; down the middle swoops a pale little girl on parlour 
 skates. "Get out of my way!" she shrieks as she 
 passes ; she has ribbons in her hair and frills on her 
 dress ; she makes the tour of the immense hotel. I 
 think of Puck, who put a girdle round the earth in forty 
 minutes, and wonder what he said as he flitted by. A 
 black waiter marches past me, bearing a tray, which he 
 thrusts into my spine as he goes. It is laden with large 
 white jugs ; they tinkle as he moves, and I recognise the 
 unconsoling fluid. We are dying of iced water, of hot 
 air, of gas. I sit in my room thinking of these things 
 this room of mine which is a chamber of pain. The 
 walls are white and bare, they shine in the rays of a 
 horrible chandelier of imitation bronze, which depends 
 from the middle of the ceiling. It flings a patch of 
 shadow on a small table covered with white marble, of 
 which the genial surface supports at the present moment 
 the sheet of paper on which I address you ; and when I 
 go to bed (I like to read in bed, Harvard) it becomes an 
 object of mockery and torment. It dangles at inacces- 
 sible heights ; it stares me in the face ; it flings the light 
 upon the covers of my book, but not upon the page the 
 little French Elzevir that I love so well. I rise and put 
 out the gas, and then my room becomes even lighter 
 than before. Then a crude illumination from the hall, 
 from the neighbouring room, pours through the glass 
 openings that surmount the two doors of my apartment. 
 It covers my bed, where I toss and groan ; it beats in 
 through my closed lids ; it is accompanied by the most 
 vulgar, though the most human, sounds. I spring up to 
 
v. THE POINT OF VIEW. 197 
 
 call for some help, some remedy ; but there is no bell, 
 and I feel desolate and weak. There is only a strange 
 orifice in the wall, through which the traveller in distress 
 may transmit his appeal. I fill it with incoherent sounds, 
 and sounds more incoherent yet come back to me. I 
 gather at last their meaning ; they appear to constitute a 
 somewhat stern inquiry. A hollow impersonal voice 
 wishes to know what I want, and the very question 
 paralyses me. I want everything yet I want nothing 
 nothing this hard impersonality can give ! I want my 
 little corner of Paris ; I want the rich, the deep, the 
 dark Old World ; I want to be out of this horrible 
 place. Yet I can't confide all this to that mechanical 
 tube ; it would be of no use ; a mocking laugh would 
 come up from the office. Fancy appealing in these 
 sacred, these intimate moments, -to an "office"; fancy 
 calling out into indifferent space for a candle, for a 
 curtain ! I pay incalculable sums in this dreadful house, 
 and yet I haven't a servant to wait upon me. I fling 
 myself back on my couch, and for a long time afterward 
 the orifice in the wall emits strange murmurs and rumb- 
 lings. It seems unsatisfied, indignant ; it is evidently 
 scolding me for my vagueness. My vagueness, indeed, 
 dear Harvard ! I loathe their horrible arrangements ; 
 isn't that definite enough? You asked me to tell you 
 whom I see, and what I think of my friends. I haven't 
 very many ; I don't feel at all en rapport. The people 
 are very good, very serious, very devoted to their work ; 
 but there is a terrible absence of variety of type. Every 
 one is Mr. Jones, Mr. Brown ; and every one looks like 
 Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown. They are thin ; they are 
 diluted in the great tepid bath of Democracy ! They 
 lack completeness of identity ; they are quite without 
 modelling. No, they are not beautiful, my poor Harvard ; 
 it must be whispered that they are not beautiful. You 
 may say that they are as beautiful as the French, as the 
 Germans ; but I can't agree with you there. The 
 
198 THE POINT OF VIEW. vi. 
 
 French, the Germans, have the greatest beauty of all 
 the beauty of their ugliness the beauty of the strange, 
 the grotesque. These people are not even ugly ; they 
 are only plain. Many of the girls are pretty ; but to be 
 only pretty is (to my sense) to be plain. Yet I have had 
 some talk. I have seen a woman. She was on the 
 steamer, and I afterward saw her in New York a 
 peculiar type, a real personality ; a great deal of model- 
 ling, a great deal of colour, and yet a great deal of 
 mystery. She was not, however, of this country ; she 
 was a compound of far-off things. But she was looking 
 for something here like me. We found each other, 
 and for a moment that was enough. I have lost her 
 now ; I am sorry, because she liked to listen to me. 
 She has passed away ; I shall not see her again. She 
 liked to listen to me ; she almost understood ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 FROM M. GUSTAVE LEJAUNE, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, 
 TO M. ADOLPHE BOUCHE, IN PARIS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, October 5. 
 
 I GIVE you my little notes ; you must make allowances 
 for haste, for bad inns, for the perpetual scramble, for 
 ill -humour. Everywhere the same impression the 
 platitude of unbalanced democracy intensified by the 
 platitude of the spirit of commerce. Everything on 
 an immense scale everything illustrated by millions of 
 examples. My brother-in-law is always busy ; he has 
 appointments, inspections, interviews, disputes. The 
 people, it appears, are incredibly sharp in conversation, 
 in argument ; they wait for you in silence at the corner 
 of the road, and then they suddenly discharge their 
 
vi. THE POINT OF VIEW. 199 
 
 revolver. If you fall, they empty your pockets ; the 
 only chance is to shoot them first. With that, no 
 amenities, no preliminaries, no manners, no care for the 
 appearance. I wander about while my brother is occu- 
 pied ; I lounge along the streets ; I stop at the corners ; 
 I look into the shops ; je regarde passer les femmes. It's 
 an easy country to see ; one sees everything there is ; the 
 civilisation is skin deep ; you don't have to dig. This 
 positive, practical, pushing bourgeoisie is always about its 
 business ; it lives in the street, in the hotel, in the train ; 
 one is always in a crowd there are seventy-five people 
 in the tramway. They sit in your lap ; they stand on 
 your toes; when they wish to pass they simply push 
 you. Everything in silence ; they know that silence is 
 golden, and they have the worship of gold. When the 
 conductor wishes your fare he gives you a poke, very 
 serious, without a word. As for the types but there is 
 only one they are all variations of the same the com- 
 mis-voyageur minus the gaiety. The women are often 
 pretty ; you meet the young ones in the streets, in the 
 trains, in search of a husband. They look at you frankly, 
 coldly, judicially, to see if you will serve ; but they don't 
 want what you might think (du moins on me fassure) ; 
 they only want the husband. A Frenchman may mis- 
 take ; he needs to be sure he is right, and I always make 
 sure. They begin at fifteen ; the mother sends them 
 out ; it lasts all day (with an interval for dinner at a 
 pastry-cook's) ; sometimes it goes on for ten years. If 
 they haven't found the husband then, they give it up ; 
 they make place for the cadettes, as the number of women 
 is enormous. No salons, no society, no conversation ; 
 people don't receive at home ; the young girls have to 
 look for the husband where they can. It is no disgrace 
 not to find him several have never done so. They con- 
 tinue to go about unmarried from the force of habit, 
 from the love of movement, without hopes, without 
 regret no imagination, no sensibility, no desire for the 
 
200 THE POINT OF VIEW. vi. 
 
 convent. We have made several journeys few of less 
 than three hundred miles. Enormous trains, enormous 
 waggons, with beds and lavatories, and negroes who brush 
 you with a big broom, as if they were grooming a horse. 
 A bounding movement, a roaring noise, a crowd of 
 people who look horribly tired, a boy who passes up and 
 down throwing pamphlets and sweetmeats into your lap 
 that is an American journey. There are windows in 
 the waggons enormous, like everything else ; but there 
 is nothing to see. The country is a void no features, 
 no objects, no details, nothing to show you that you are in 
 one place more than another. Aussi, you are not in one 
 place, you are everywhere, anywhere ; the train goes a 
 hundred miles an hour. The cities are all the same ; 
 little houses ten feet high, or else big ones two hundred ; 
 tramways, telegraph-poles, enormous signs, holes in the 
 pavement, oceans of mud, commis-voyageurs, young ladies 
 looking for the husband. On the other hand, no beggars 
 and no cocottes none, at least, that you see. A colossal 
 mediocrity, except (my brother-in-law tells me) in the 
 machinery, which is magnificent. Naturally, no archi- 
 tecture (they make houses of wood and of iron), no art, 
 no literature, no theatre. I have opened some of the 
 books ; mais Us ne se laissent pas lire. No form, no 
 matter, no style, no general ideas ! they seem to be 
 written for children and young ladies. The most success- 
 ful (those that they praise most) are the facetious ; they, 
 sell in thousands of editions. I have looked into some 
 of the most vantls ; but you need to be forewarned, to 
 know that they are amusing ; des plaisanteries de croque- 
 mort. They have a novelist with pretensions to litera- 
 ture, who writes about the chase for the husband and 
 the adventures of the rich Americans in our corrupt 
 old Europe, where their primaeval candour puts the 
 Europeans to shame. Cest proprement ecrit ; but it's 
 terribly pale. What isn't pale is the newspapers 
 enormous, like everything else (fifty columns of advertise- 
 
vi. THE POINT OF VIEW. 201 
 
 ments), and full of the commlrages of a continent. And 
 such a tone, grand Dim ! The amenities, the personali- 
 ties, the recriminations, are like so many coups de revolver* 
 Headings six inches tall ; correspondences from places 
 one never heard of; telegrams from Europe about 
 Sarah Bernhardt ; little paragraphs about nothing at 
 all ; the menu of the neighbour's dinner ; articles on the 
 European situation a pouffer de rire ; all the tripotage of 
 local politics. The reportage is incredible ; I am chased 
 up and down by the interviewers. The matrimonial 
 infelicities of M. and Madame X. (they give the name), 
 tout ait long, with every detail not in six lines, discreetly 
 veiled, with an art of insinuation, as with us ; but with 
 all the facts (or the fictions), the letters, the dates, the 
 places, the hours. I open a paper at hazard, and I find 
 au beau milieu^ a propos of nothing, the announcement 
 " Miss Susan Green has the longest nose in Western New 
 York. " Miss Susan Green (je me renseigne} is a cele- 
 brated authoress ; and the Americans have the reputa- 
 tion of spoiling their women. They spoil them a coups 
 de poing. We have seen few interiors (no one speaks 
 French) ; but if the newspapers give an idea of the 
 domestic mceurs^ the mceurs must be curious. The pass- 
 port is abolished, but they have printed my signalement 
 in these sheets, perhaps for the young ladies who look 
 for the husband. We went one night to the theatre ; 
 the piece was French (they are the only ones), but the 
 acting was American too American ; we came out in the 
 middle. The want of taste is incredible. An English- 
 man whom I met tells me that even the language corrupts 
 itself from day to day ; an Englishman ceases to under- 
 stand. It encourages me to find that I am not the only 
 one. There are things every day that one can't describe. 
 Such is Washington, where we arrived this morning, 
 coming from Philadelphia. My brother-in-law wishes 
 to see the Bureau of Patents, and on our arrival he went 
 to look at his machines, while I walked about the streets 
 
202 THE POINT OF VIEW. vi. 
 
 and visited the Capitol ! The human machine is what 
 interests me most. I don't even care for the political 
 for that's what they call their Government here "the 
 machine." It operates very roughly, and some day, 
 evidently, it will explode. It is tine that you would 
 never suspect that they have a government ; this is the 
 principal seat, but, save for three or four big buildings, 
 most of them affreux, it looks like a settlement of 
 negroes. No movement, no officials, no authority, no 
 embodiment of the state. Enormous streets, comme tou- 
 jours, lined with little red houses where nothing ever 
 passes but the tramway. The Capitol a vast structure, 
 false classic, white marble, iron and stucco, which has 
 assez grand air must be seen to be appreciated. The 
 goddess of liberty on the top, dressed in a bear's 
 skin ; their liberty over here is the liberty of bears. 
 You go into the Capitol as you would into a railway 
 station ; you walk about as you would in the Palais 
 Royal. No functionaries, no door-keepers, no officers, 
 no uniforms, no badges, no restrictions, no authority 
 nothing but a crowd of shabby people circulating in a 
 labyrinth of spittoons. We are too much governed, 
 perhaps, in France ; but at least we have a certain incar- 
 nation of the national conscience, of the national dignity. 
 The dignity is absent here, and I am told that the con- 
 science is an abyss. " L'etat Jest moi" even I like 
 that better than the spittoons. These implements are 
 architectural, monumental ; they are the only monuments. 
 En somme, the country is interesting, now that we too 
 have the Republic ; it is the biggest illustration, the 
 biggest warning. It is the last word of democracy, and 
 that word is flatness. It is very big, very rich, and 
 perfectly ugly. A Frenchman couldn't live here ; for 
 life with us, after all, at the worst is a sort of appreciation. 
 Here, there is nothing to appreciate. As for the people, 
 they are the English minus the conventions. You can 
 fancy what remains. The women, poiirtant^ are sometimes 
 
vii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 203 
 
 rather well turned. There was one at Philadelphia I 
 made her acquaintance by accident whom it is probable 
 I shall see again. She is not looking for the husband ; she 
 has already got one. It was at the hotel ; I think the hus- 
 band doesn't matter. A Frenchman, as I have said, may 
 mistake, and he needs to be sure he is right. Aussi, I 
 always make sure ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 FROM MARCELLUS COCKEREL, IN WASHINGTON, TO MRS. 
 COOLER, NEE COCKEREL, AT OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 October 25. 
 
 I OUGHT to have written to you long before this, for I 
 have had your last excellent letter for four months in my 
 hands. The first half of that time I was still in Europe ; 
 the last I have spent on my native soil. I think, there- 
 fore, my silence is owing to the fact that over there I was 
 too miserable to write, and that here I have been too 
 happy. I got back the 1st of September you will have 
 seen it in the papers. Delightful country, where one 
 sees everything in the papers the big, familiar, vulgar, 
 good-natured, delightful papers, none of which has any 
 reputation to keep up for anything but getting the news ! 
 I really think that has had as much to do as anything 
 else with my satisfaction at getting home the difference 
 in what they call the " tone of the press." In Europe 
 it's too dreary the sapience, the solemnity, the false 
 respectability, the verbosity, the long disquisitions on 
 superannuated subjects. Here the newspapers are like 
 the railroad trains, which carry everything that comes to 
 the station, and have only the religion of punctuality. 
 As a woman, however, you probably detest them ; you 
 think they are (the great word) vulgar. I admitted it 
 
204 THE POINT OF VIEW. vn. 
 
 just now, and I am very happy to have an early oppor- 
 tunity to announce to you that that idea has quite ceased 
 to have any terrors for me. There are some conceptions 
 to which the female mind can never rise. Vulgarity is a 
 stupid, superficial, question-begging accusation, which has 
 become to-day the easiest refuge of mediocrity. Better 
 than anything else, it saves people the trouble of thinking, 
 and anything which does that, succeeds. You must know 
 that in these last three years in Europe I have become 
 terribly vulgar myself ; that's one service my travels have 
 rendered me. By three years in Europe I mean three 
 years in foreign parts altogether, for I spent several 
 months of that time in Japan, India, and the rest of the 
 East. Do you remember when you bade me good-bye in 
 San Francisco, the night before I embarked for Yoko- 
 hama ? You foretold that I should take such a fancy to 
 foreign life that America would never see me more, and 
 that it you should wish to see me (an event you were 
 good enough to regard as possible), you would have to 
 make a rendezvous in Paris or in Rome. I think we 
 made one (which you never kept), but I shall never make 
 another for those cities. It was in Paris, however, that 
 I got your letter ; I remember the moment as well as if 
 it were (to my honour) much more recent. You must 
 know that, among many places I dislike, Paris carries 
 the palm. I am bored to death there ; it's the home of 
 every humbug. The life is full of that false comfort 
 which is worse than discomfort, and the small, fat, irri- 
 table people, give me the shivers. I had been making 
 these reflections even more devoutly than usual one very 
 tiresome evening toward the beginning of last summer, 
 when, as I re-entered my hotel at ten o'clock, the little 
 reptile of a portress handed me your gracious lines. I 
 was in a villainous humour. I had been having an over- 
 dressed dinner in a stuffy restaurant, and had gone from 
 there to a suffocating theatre, where, by way of amuse- 
 ment, I saw a play in which blood and lies were the 
 
vii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 205 
 
 least of the horrors. The theatres over there are insup- 
 portable ; the atmosphere is pestilential. People sit with 
 their elbows in your sides ; they squeeze past you every 
 half-hour. It was one of my bad moments ; I have a 
 great many in Europe. The conventional perfunctory 
 play, all in falsetto, which I seemed to have seen a 
 thousand times ; the horrible faces of the people ; the 
 pushing, bullying ouvreuse, with her false politeness, and 
 her real rapacity, drove me out of the place at the end 
 of an hour ; and, as it was too early to go home, I sat 
 down before a cafe on the Boulevard, where they served 
 me a glass of sour, watery beer. There on the Boulevard, 
 in the summer night, life itself was even uglier than the 
 play, and it wouldn't do for me to tell you what I saw. 
 Besides, I was sick of the Boulevard, with its eternal 
 grimace, and the deadly sameness of the article de Paris, 
 which pretends to be so various the shop-windows a 
 wilderness of rubbish, and the passers-by a procession of 
 manikins. Suddenly it came over me that I was sup- 
 posed to be amusing myself my face was a yard long 
 and that you probably at that moment were saying to 
 your husband : " He stays away so long ! What a good 
 time he must be having ! " The idea was the first thing 
 that had made me smile for a month ; I got up and 
 walked home, reflecting, as I went, that I was "seeing 
 Europe," and that, after all, one must see Europe. It 
 was because I had been convinced of this that I came out, 
 and it is because the operation has been brought to a 
 close that I have been so happy for the last eight weeks. 
 I was very conscientious about it, and, though your letter 
 that night made me abominably homesick, I held out to 
 the end, knowing it to be once for all. I sha'n't trouble 
 Europe again ; I shall see America for the rest of my 
 days. My long delay has had the advantage that now, 
 at least, I can give you my impressions I don't mean 
 of Europe ; impressions of Europe are easy to get but 
 of this country, as it strikes the re-instated exile. Very 
 
206 THE POINT OF VIEW. vn. 
 
 likely you'll think them queer ; but keep my letter, and 
 twenty years hence they will be quite commonplace. 
 They won't even be vulgar. It was very deliberate, my 
 going round the world. I knew that one ought to see 
 for one's self, and that I should have eternity, so to speak, 
 to rest. I travelled energetically ; I went everywhere 
 and saw everything ; took as many letters as possible, 
 and made as many acquaintances. In short, I held my 
 nose to the grindstone. The upshot of it all is that I 
 have got rid of a superstition. We have so many, that 
 one the less perhaps the biggest of all makes a real 
 difference in one's comfort. The superstition in question 
 of course you have it is that there is no salvation but 
 through Europe. Our salvation is here, if we have eyes 
 to see it, and the salvation of Europe into the bargain ; 
 that is, if Europe is to be saved, which I rather doubt. 
 Of course you'll call me a bird of freedom, a braggart, 
 a waver of the stars and stripes ; but I'm in the delightful 
 position of not minding in the least what any one calls 
 me I haven't a mission ; I don't want to preach ; I 
 have simply arrived at a state of mind ; I have got 
 Europe off my back. You have no idea how it simplifies 
 things, and how jolly it makes me feel. Now I can live ; 
 now I can talk. If we wretched Americans could only 
 say once for all, " Oh, Europe be hanged ! " we should 
 attend much better to our proper business. We have 
 simply to live our life, and the rest will look after itself. 
 You will probably inquire what it is that I like better over 
 here, and I will answer that it's simply life. Disagree- 
 ables for disagreeables, I prefer our own. The way I have 
 been bored and bullied in foreign parts, and the way I have 
 had to say I found it pleasant ! For a good while this 
 appeared to be a sort of congenital obligation, but one 
 fine day it occurred to me that there was no obligation 
 at all, and that it would ease me immensely to admit to 
 myself that (for me, at least) all those things had no 
 importance. I mean the things they rub into you in 
 
vii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 207 
 
 Europe ; the tiresome international topics, the petty 
 politics, the stupid social customs, the baby-house scenery. 
 The vastness and freshness of this American world, the 
 great scale and great pace of our development, the good 
 sense and good nature of the people, console me for there 
 being no cathedrals and no Titians. I hear nothing 
 about Prince Bismarck and Gambetta, about the Emperor 
 William and the Czar of Russia, about Lord Beaconsfield 
 and the Prince of Wales. I used to get so tired of their 
 Mumbo-Jumbo of a Bismarck, of his secrets and surprises, 
 his mysterious intentions and oracular words. They revile 
 us for our party politics ; but what are all the European 
 jealousies and rivalries, their armaments and their wars, 
 their rapacities and their mutual lies, but the intensity of 
 the spirit of party? what question, what interest, what 
 idea, what need of mankind, is involved in any of these 
 things ? Their big, pompous armies, drawn up in great 
 silly rows, their gold lace, their salaams, their hierarchies, 
 seem a pastime for children ; there's a sense of humour 
 and of reality over here that laughs at all that. Yes, we 
 are nearer the reality we are nearer what they will all 
 have to come to. The questions of the future are social 
 questions, which the Bismarcks and Beaconsfields are very 
 much afraid to see settled ; and the sight of a row of 
 supercilious potentates holding their peoples like their 
 personal property, and bristling all over, to make a 
 mutual impression, with feathers and sabres, strikes us as 
 a mixture of the grotesque and the abominable. What 
 do we care for the mutual impressions of potentates who 
 amuse themselves with sitting on people ? Those things 
 are their own affair, and they ought to be shut up in a 
 dark room to have it out together. Once one feels, over 
 here, that the great questions of the future are social 
 questions, that a mighty tide is sweeping the world to 
 democracy, and that this country is the biggest stage on 
 which the drama can be enacted, the fashionable European 
 topics seem petty and parochial. They talk about things 
 
208 THE POINT OF VIEW. vn. 
 
 that we have settled ages ago, and the solemnity with 
 which they propound to you their little domestic em- 
 barrassments makes a heavy draft on one's good nature. 
 In England they were talking about the Hares and 
 Rabbits Bill, about the extension of the County Fran- 
 chise, about the Dissenters' Burials, about the Deceased 
 Wife's Sister, about the abolition of the House of Lords, 
 about heaven knows what ridiculous little measure for the 
 propping-up of their ridiculous little country. And they 
 call us provincial ! It is hard to sit and look respectable 
 while people discuss the utility of the House of Lords, 
 and the beauty of a State Church, and it's only in a 
 dowdy musty civilisation that you'll find them doing such 
 things. The lightness and clearness of the social air, 
 that's the great relief in these parts. The gentility of 
 bishops, the propriety of parsons, even the impressiveness 
 'of a restored cathedral, give less of a charm to life than 
 that. I used to be furious with the bishops and parsons, 
 with the humbuggery of the whole affair, which every one 
 was conscious of, but which people agreed not to ex- 
 pose, because they would be compromised all round. 
 The convenience of life over here, the quick and simple 
 arrangements, the absence of the spirit of routine, are a 
 blessed change from the stupid stiffness with which I 
 struggled for two long years. There were people with 
 swords and cockades, who used to order me about ; for 
 the simplest operation of life I had to kootoo to some 
 bloated official. When it was a question of my doing a 
 little differently from others, the bloated official gasped 
 as if I had given him a blow on the stomach ; he needed 
 to take a week to think of it. On the other hand, it's 
 impossible to take an American by surprise ; he is 
 ashamed to confess that he has not the wit to do a thing 
 that another man has had the wit to think of. Besides 
 being as good as his neighbour, he must therefore be as 
 clever which is an affliction only to people who are 
 afraid he may be cleverer. If this general efficiency and 
 
vii. THE POINT OF VIEW. 209 
 
 spontaneity of the people the union of the sense of 
 freedom with the love of knowledge isn't the very essence 
 of a high civilisation, I don't know what a high civilisa- 
 tion is. I felt this greater ease on my first railroad 
 journey felt the blessing of sitting in a train where I 
 could move about, where I could stretch my legs, and 
 come and go, where I had a seat and a window to my- 
 self, where there were chairs, and tables, and food, and 
 drink. The villainous little boxes on the European trains, 
 in which you are stuck down in a corner, with doubled- 
 up knees, opposite to a row of people often most offen- 
 sive types, who stare at you for ten hours on end these 
 were part of my two years' ordeal. The large free way 
 of doing things here is everywhere a pleasure. In 
 London, at my hotel, they used to come to me on 
 Saturday to make me order my Sunday's dinner, and when 
 I asked for a sheet of paper, they put it into the bilL 
 The meagreness, the stinginess, the perpetual expectation 
 of a sixpence, used to exasperate me. Of course, I saw 
 a great many people who were pleasant ; but as I am 
 writing to you, and not to one of them, I may say that 
 they were dreadfully apt to be dull. The imagination 
 among the people I see here is more flexible ; and then 
 they have the advantage of a larger horizon. It's not 
 bounded on the north by the British aristocracy, and 
 on the south by the scrutin de liste* (I mix up the 
 countries a little, but they are not worth the keeping 
 apart.) The absence of little conventional measurements, 
 of little cut-and-dried judgments, is an immense refresh- 
 ment. We are more analytic, more discriminating, 
 more familiar with realities. As for manners, there are 
 bad manners everywhere, but an aristocracy is bad 
 manners organised. (I don't mean that they may not be 
 polite among themselves, but they are rude to every one 
 else.) The sight of all these growing millions simply 
 minding their business, is impressive to me, more so 
 than all the gilt buttons and padded chests of the Old 
 
210 THE POINT OF VIEW. vn. 
 
 World ; and there is a certain powerful type of " practical " 
 American (you'll find him chiefly in the West) who doesn't 
 brag as I do (I'm not practical), but who quietly feels 
 that he has the Future in his vitals a type that strikes 
 me more than any I met in your favourite countries. Of 
 course you'll come back to the cathedrals and Titians, 
 but there's a thought that helps one to do without them 
 the thought that though there's an immense deal of 
 plainness, there's little misery, little squalor, little degra- 
 dation. There is no regular wife-beating class, and there 
 are none of the stultified peasants of whom it takes so 
 many to make a European noble. The people here are 
 more conscious of things ; they invent, they act, they 
 answer for themselves ; they are not (I speak of social 
 matters) tied up by authority and precedent. We shall 
 have all the Titians by and by, and we shall move over 
 a few cathedrals. You had better stay here if you want 
 to have the best. Of course, I am a roaring Yankee ; 
 but you'll call me that if I say the least, so I may as well 
 take my ease, and say the most. Washington's a most 
 entertaining place ; and here at least, at the seat of 
 government, one isn't overgoverned. In fact, there's no 
 government at all to speak of; it seems too good to be 
 true. The first day I was here I went to the Capitol, 
 and it took me ever so long to figure to myself that I had 
 as good a right there as any one else that the whole 
 magnificent pile (it is magnificent, by the way) was in fact 
 my own. In Europe one doesn't rise to such conceptions, 
 and my spirit had been broken in Europe. The doors 
 were gaping wide I walked all about ; there were no 
 door-keepers, no officers, nor flunkeys not even a 
 policeman to be seen. It seemed strange not to see a 
 uniform, if only as a patch of colour. But this isn't 
 government by livery. The absence of these things is 
 odd at first ; you seem to miss something, to fancy the 
 machine has stopped. It hasn't, though ; it only works 
 without fire and smoke. At the end of three days this 
 
vin. THE POINT OF VIEW. 211 
 
 simple negative impression the fact is, that there are 
 no soldiers nor spies, nothing but plain black coats 
 begins to affect the imagination, becomes vivid, majestic, 
 symbolic. It ends by being more impressive than the 
 biggest review I saw in Germany. Of course, I'm a 
 roaring Yankee ; but one has to take a big brush to copy 
 a big model. The future is here, of course ; but it isn't 
 only that the present is here as well. You will com- 
 plain that I don't give you any personal news ; but I am 
 more modest for myself than for my country. I spent a 
 month in New York, and while I was there I saw 
 a good deal of a rather interesting girl who came over 
 with me in the steamer, and whom for a day or two I 
 thought I should like to marry. But I shouldn't. She 
 has been spoiled by Europe ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO 
 MISS WHITESIDE, IN PARIS. 
 
 January 9. 
 
 I TOLD you (after we landed) about my agreement with 
 mamma that I was to have my liberty for three months, 
 and if at the end of this time I shouldn't have made a 
 good use of it, I was to give it back to her. Well, the 
 time is up to-day, and I am very much afraid I haven't 
 made a good use of it. In fact, I haven't made any use 
 of it at all I haven't got married, for that is what 
 mamrna meant by our little bargain. She has been try- 
 ing to marry me in Europe, for years, without a dot, and 
 as she has never (to the best of my knowledge) even come 
 near it, she thought at last that, if she were to leave it 
 to me, I might do better. I couldn't certainly do worse. 
 Well, my dear, I have done very badly that is, I haven't 
 
212 THE POINT OF VIEW. vm. 
 
 done at all. I haven't even tried. I had an idea that 
 this affair came of itself over here ; but it hasn't come to 
 me. I won't say -I am disappointed, for I haven't, on 
 the whole, seen any one I should like to marry. When 
 you marry people over here, they expect you to love 
 them, and I haven't seen any one I should like to love. 
 I don't know what the reason is, but they are none of 
 them what I have thought of. It may be that I have 
 thought of the impossible ; and yet I have seen people 
 in Europe whom I should have liked to many. It is 
 true, they were almost always married to some one else. 
 What I am disappointed in is simply having to give back 
 my liberty. I don't wish particularly to be married ; 
 and I do wish to do as I like as I have been doing for 
 the last month. All the same, I am sorry for poor 
 mamma, as nothing has happened that she wished to 
 happen. To begin with, we are not appreciated, not 
 even by the Rucks, who have disappeared, in the strange 
 way in which people over here seem to vanish from the 
 world. We have made no sensation ; my new dresses 
 count for nothing (they all have better ones) ; our philo- 
 logical and historical studies don't show. We have been 
 told we might do better in Boston ; but, on the other 
 hand, mamma hears that in Boston the people only 
 marry their cousins. Then mamma is out of sorts be- 
 cause the country is exceedingly dear and we have spent 
 all our money. Moreover, I have neither eloped, nor 
 been insulted, nor been talked about, nor so far as I 
 know deteriorated in manners or character ; so that 
 mamma is wrong in all her previsions. I think she 
 would have rather liked me to be insulted. But I have 
 been insulted as little as I have been adored. They 
 don't adore you over here ; they only make you think 
 they are going to. Do you remember the two gentlemen 
 who were on the ship, and who, after we arrived here, 
 came to see me A tour de rdle ? At first I never dreamed 
 they were making love to me, though mamma was sure 
 
vin. THE POINT OF VIEW. 213 
 
 it must be that; then, as it went on a good while, I 
 thought perhaps it was that ; and I ended by seeing that 
 it wasn't anything ! It was simply conversation ; they 
 are very fond of conversation over here. Mr. Leverett 
 and Mr. Cockerel disappeared one fine day, without the 
 smallest pretension to having broken my heart, I am sure, 
 though it only depended on me to think they had ! All 
 the gentlemen are like that ; you can't tell what they 
 mean ; everything is very confused ; society appears to 
 consist of a sort of innocent jilting. I think, on the 
 whole, I am a little disappointed I don't mean about 
 one's not marrying ; I mean about the life generally. It 
 seems so different at first, that you expect it will be very 
 exciting ; and then you find that, after all, when you 
 have walked out for a week or two by yourself, and driven 
 out with a gentleman in a buggy, that's about all there 
 is of it, as they say here. Mamma is very angry at not 
 finding more to dislike ; she admitted yesterday that, once 
 one has got a little settled, the country has not even the 
 merit of being hateful. This has evidently something to 
 do with her suddenly proposing three days ago that we 
 should go to the West. Imagine my surprise at such an 
 idea coming from mamma ! The people in the pension 
 who, as usual, wish immensely to get rid of her have 
 talked to her about the West, and she has taken it up 
 with a kind of desperation. You see, we must do some- 
 thing; we can't simply remain here. We are rapidly 
 being ruined, and we are not so to speak getting 
 married. Perhaps it will be easier in the West ; at any 
 rate, it will be cheaper, and the country will have the 
 advantage of being more hateful. It is a question be- 
 tween that and returning to Europe, and for the moment 
 mamma is balancing. I say nothing : I am really indif- 
 ferent ; perhaps I shall marry a pioneer. I am just 
 thinking how I shall give back my liberty. It really 
 won't be possible ; I haven't got it any more ; I have 
 given it away to others. Mamma may recover it, if she 
 
214 THE POINT OF VIEW. vin. 
 
 can, from them! She comes in at this moment to say 
 that we must push farther she has decided for the West. 
 Wonderful mamma ! It appears that my real chance is 
 for a pioneer they have sometimes millions. But, fancy 
 us in the West ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 \ 
 
 'Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 
 
WORKS BY 
 
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