Dais Miller tional Episode BY HENRY JAMES, JR., ILLUS- TRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY HARRY W. McVICKAR HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK MDCCCXCH Copyright, 1878, by HARPER & BROTHERS. Copyright, 1892, by HARPER & BROTHERS. /til rights reserved. DAISY MILLER. PAGE Frontispiece . . Heading. Part I Little Polish Boy Winterbourne . French Waiter 12 "If you eat three lumps" . . . . t . . .16 Randolph and his Alpenstock ... . . . . 21 On the Lake . . . "...' V. 25 Randolph alone . . . .". . ' ' ' 28 Alpenstock . . . . . . - . .31 Papa Miller! . . . ..- . ' . . * . -36 Hotels Daisy stopped at . . . . Geneva . . . . . . . ." . . 45 Chillon . . . . " . ... . . 48 Old Castles . . ' . ' . . . . . . 51, 53, 54 At the Boat-landing . ... . . .57 Crest of Switzerland .59 Finis. Part 1 61 Heading. Part II. Rome 63 One of Mrs. Walker's Guests 66 Violin 68 Winterbourne's Idea of Daisy Miller 71 "The best place we saw is the City of Richmond " . .74 Decoration . . . . ... . . . .76 Mr. Giovanelli . . . . . . . . .79 The Pope's Arms . . ... . . . . 81 A Corner in Rome . . . . . . . . 84 A Quill-driver's Tools . . . . . . , . 87 Tubes . . ..... ... . . . . . . 90 Mrs. Walker . 93 v PAGE Rood-screen in Old Church 97 The Flag of Italy . ...... ! 100 An Incense-burner m jQ3 Decoration (Cardinal's Hat) ... ! 106 Mrs. Costello *. ' 10 9 A Bit of a Roman Garden .111 Arch of Constantino 115 Decoration ! 119 Colosseum (the Deadly Miasma!) . . . ! 122 Eugenic ./..-. [ 125 Requiem ".''.... .' 127 Daisy's Grave .131 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. Frontispiece . . . ... ... .135 Tug- boats f '. 137 A Bit of the Battery ! 139 New York Docks .142 Percy Beaumont. . . ... . . .- ..145 Letter of Introduction . 147 Lessons in American -. . 149 Types they met Down-town . . . . .... 152 Corner of Greenwich Street . . . . . . ... . 154. Weather-vane of Church-steeple . . . . , . 155 Mr.Westgate 156 View from Westgate's Office . . .... 159 Fall River Steamboat-landing 152 Impressions ... . " .164 Bookishness of Boston . . . ^ . . ... 165 On the Newport Boat . . . . - . . . 157 Waiters at the Ocean House . . . . . 168, 169 Mrs. Westgate . . '171 A Guest of Mrs. Westgate . . . . V . .175 The Web Lambeth is Warned Against .... 178 English Hats 180 The American Flag 182 The Pretty Sister of Mrs. Westgate iS5 Money 189 Newport Rocks . 192 A Bit of Newport Farm-land 195 Mrs. Westgate's Trap 200 Thames Street 203 Two Pretty Girls 205 vi PAGE Marquis and Duke's Crown . . - . . .207 Decoration . . . . . . . . 212 Heading. Part IT. . . . . .217 Duke of Green-Erin . ... . . .220 Willie Woodley . .- /. . . . .".'. . 227 Decoration . . . . . . . . . . 229 The Duchess's Invitation . . ..... .234 Bessie Alden . . . . ^ ' . . 237 In Hyde Park . .- . . . . . . " . 239 The Duke . . 243 Parliament Buildings ... ,~ .... 247 The Gate - . . . 252 Duchess of Suffolk and Lord Chamberlain . ... 255 Decoration . . . .- . . . ..... 259 Not Such a Fool as He Looks . . . . .263 Decorations 267, 273, 279 The Duchess's Cards . .283 Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock " ' . .' . .284 Bessie is Fond of Travelling . - i . . .285 The Duchess . . ' 287 Journal . .... . . . . . . 289 The Branches . . . .', - . . ."' .291 Writing . . . . . . . . -. . .293 Decoration . . . . . . . . . 295 Finis .....'... .296 T the little town of Yevay, in Switzerland, there is a particular- ly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels ; for the entertainment of tourists the business of the place, which, as many travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake a lake that it behooves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from the "grand ho- tel" of the newest fashion, with a chalk- white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder day, with its name inscribed in German -looking lettering upon a pink or yellow wall, and an awkward summer-house in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Ye- vay, however, is famous, even classical, being distinguished from many of its up- start neighbors by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month of June, American travellers are extremely numerous ; it may be said, in- deed, that Yevay assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an Ameri- can watering-place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flit- ting hither and thither of " stylish" young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a rat- tle of dance-music in the morning hours, a sound of high-pitched voices at all times. You receive an impression of these things at the excellent inn of the Trois Cou- ronnes, and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to Congress Hall. But at the Trois Couronnes, it must be added, there are other features that are much at variance with these suggestions : neat German waiters, who look like sec- 4 retaries of legation j ^ Russian princesses sitting in the garden ; little Polish boys walking about, held by the hand, with their governors ; a view of the sunny crest of the Dent da Midi and the picturesque tow- ers of the Castle of Chil- ^ Ion. I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago, sat in the garden of the Trois Couronnes, looking about him, rath- er idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned. It was a beautiful sum- mer morning, and in whatever fashion the young American looked at things they must have seemed to him charming. He had come from Geneva the day be- fore by the little steamer to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel Geneva having been for a long time his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache his aunt had almost always a headache and now she was shut up in her room, smelling cam- phor, so that he was at liberty to wander about. He was some seven-and-twenty years of age. When his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva "studying;" when his enemies spoke of him, they said but, after all, he had no enemies ; he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked. What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons spoke of him they affirm- ed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a lady who lived there a foreign lady a person older than himself. Very few Americans in- deed, I think none had ever seen this lady, about whom there were some sin- gular stories. But Winterbourne had an old attachment for the little metropolis of Calvinism ; he had been put to school there as a boy, and he had afterwards gone to college there circumstances which had led to his forming a great many youthful friendships. Many of these he had kept, and they were a source of great satisfaction to him. After knocking at his aunt's door, and learning that she was indisposed, he had taken a walk about the town, and then lie had come in to his breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast ; but he was drinking a small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a little table in the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an attache. At last he fin- ished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Pres- ently a small boy came walking along the path an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance: a pale complexion, and sharp little feat- ures. He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindle-shanks ; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that he approached the flower- beds, the gar- den-benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes. " Will you give me a lump of sugar ?" he asked, in a sharp, hard little voice a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young. Winterbourne glanced at the small ta- ble near him, on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. "Yes, you may take one," he answered ; " but I don't think sugar is good for little boys." This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his knickerbockers, depos- iting the other as promptly in another place. He poked his alpenstock, lance- fashion, into Winterbourne's bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. " Oh, blazes ; it's har-r-d !" he exclaim- ed, pronouncing the adjective in a pecul- iar manner. Winterbourne had immediately per- ceived that he might have the honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. "Take care you don't hurt your teeth," he said, paternally. "I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's these hotels." Winterbourne was much amused. "If you eat three lumps of sugar, your moth- er will certainly slap you," he said. " She's got to give me some candy, then," rejoined his young interlocutor. " I can't get any candy here any Amer- ican candy. American candy 's the best candy." " And are American little boys the best little boys?" asked Wioterbourne. "I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child. " I see you are one of the best !" laughed Winterbourne. " Are you an American man ?" pur- sued this vivacious infant. And then, on Winterbourne's affirmative reply " American men are the best !" he de- clared. His companion thanked him for the compliment ; and the child, who had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he himself had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to Europe at about this age. "Here comes my sister!" cried the child, in a moment. "She's an Ameri- can girl." Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady advanc- ing. " American girls are the best girls !" 10 he said, cheerfully, to his young com- panion. " My sister ain't the best !" the child declared. " She's always blowing at me." " I imagine that is your fault, not hers," said Winterbourne. The young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a hun- dred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon. She was barehead- ed ; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroid- ery ; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. " How pretty they are !" thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise. The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted his alpenstock into a vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he was springing about in the gravel, and kicking it up a little. "Kandolph," said the young lady, " what are you doing ?" " I'm going up the Alps," replied Ran- dolph. "This is the way!" And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne's ears. 11 "That's the way they come down," said Winterbourne. " He's an American man !" cried Ran- dolph, in his little hard voice. The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight at her brother. "Well, I guess you had better be quiet," she simply observed. It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He got up and ^ stepped slowly towards, the |f young girl, throwing away his cigarette. " This little boy and I have made acquaintance," he said, with great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under cer- tain rarely occurring conditions ; but here at Vevay, what conditions could be bet- ter than these? a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne's ob- servation, simply glanc- ed at him ; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had gone too far ; but he de- cided that he must advance farther, rath- er than retreat. While he was thinking of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little boy again. " I should like to know where you got that pole ?" she said. " I bought it," responded Randolph. "You don't mean to say you're going to take it to Italy ?" " Yes, I am going to take it to Italy," the child declared. The young girl glanced over the front of her dress, and smoothed out a knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. " Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere," she said, after a moment. " Are you going to Italy ?" Winter- bourne inquired, in a tone of great re- spect. The young lady glanced at him again. "Yes, sir," she replied. And she said nothing more. "Are you a going over the Sim- plon ?" Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed. 13 " I don't know," she said. " I suppose it's some mountain. Randolph, what mountain are we going over ?" " Going where ?" the child demanded. " To Italy," Winterbourne explained. "I don't know," said Randolph. "I don't want to go to Italy. I want to go to America." " Oh, Italy is a beautiful place !" re- joined the young man. " Can you get candy there ?" Randolph loudly inquired. " I hope not," said his sister. " I guess you have had enough candy, and mother thinks so, too." " I haven't had any for ever so long for a hundred weeks !" cried the boy, still jumping about. The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again, and Winterbourne presently risked an obser- vation upon the beauty of the view, lie was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There had not been the slightest alteration in her charming complexion ; she was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she looked another way when he spoke to 14 her, and seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her man- ner. Yet, as he talked a little more, and pointed out some of the objects of in- terest in the view, with which she appear- ed quite unacquainted, she gradually gave him more of the benefit of her glance; and then he saw that this glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It was not, however, what would have been called an immodest glance, for the young girl's eyes were singularly honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty eyes ; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywoman's various features her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty ; he was addicted to ob- serving and analyzing it ; and as regards this young lady's face he made several ob- servations. It was not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and though it was eminently delicate, Winterbourne mentally accused it very forgivingly of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that Master Randolph's sister was a coquette ; he was sure she had a spirit of her own ; but in her bright, sweet, 15 superficial little visage there was no mock- ery, no irony. Before long it became ob- vious that she was much disposed towards conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome for the winter she and her mother and Ran- dolph. She asked him if he was a " real American ;" she shouldn't have taken him for one ; he seem- ed more like a German this was said after a little hesitation especially when he spoke. Winter- bourne, laughing, answered that he had met Ger- m a n s W T h o but that he had remember- spoke like Americans not, so far as he ed, met an Amer- > ican who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she should not be more comfort- able in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked standing up and walk- ing about; but she presently sat down. She told him she was from New York 16 State " if you know where that is." Winterbourne learned more about her by catching hold of her small, slippery brother, and making him stand a few minutes by his side. " Tell me your name, my boy," he said. " Kandolph C. Miller," said the boy, sharply. " And I'll tell you her name ;" and he levelled his alpenstock at his sister. " You had better wait till you are ask- ed !" said this young lady, calmly. " I should like very much to know your name," said Winterbourne. " Her name is Daisy Miller !" cried the child. " But that isn't her real name ; that isn't her name on her cards." "It's a pity you haven't got one of my cards !" said Miss Miller. " Her real name is Annie P. Miller," the boy went on. "Ask him his name," said his sister, indicating Winterbourne. But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent ; he continued to sup- ply information in regard to his own fam- ily. "My father's name is Ezra B. Mil- ler," he announced. " My father ain't in Europe ; my father's in a better place than Europe." 17 Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial rewards. But Randolph im- mediately added, " My father's in Sche- nectady. He's got a big business. My father's rich, you bet !" " Well !" ejaculated Miss Miller, low- ering her parasol and looking at the em- broidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child, who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. " He doesn't like Europe," said the young girl. " Pie wants to go back." " To Schenectady, you mean ?" " Yes ; he wants to go right home. He hasn't got any boys here. There is one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher ; they won't let him play." "And your brother hasn't any teacher?" Winterbourne inquired. " Mother thought of getting him one to travel round with us. There was a lady told her of a very good teacher ; an American lady perhaps you know her Mrs. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. She told her of this teacher, and we thought of getting him to travel 18 round with us. But Randolph said he didn't want a teacher travelling round with us. He said he wouldn't have lessons when he was in the cars. And we are in the cars about half the time. There was an English lady we met in the cars I think her name was Miss Featherstone ; perhaps you know her. She wanted to know why I didn't give Randolph lessons give him 'instructions,' she called it. I guess he could give me more instruction than I could give him. He's very smart." "Yes," said Winterbourne ; "he seems very smart." " Mother's going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy. Can you get good teachers in Italy ?" " Very good, I should think," said Winterbourne. " Or else she's going to find some school. He ought to learn some more. He's only nine. He's going to college." And in this way Miss Miller continued to con- verse upon the affairs of her family, and upon other topics. She sat there with her extremely pretty hands, ornamented with very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now resting upon those of Winterbourne, now wan- 19 dering over the garden, the people who passed by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winterbourne as if she had known him a long time. He found it very pleasant. It was many years since he had heard a young girl talk so much. It might have been said of this unknown young lady, who had come and sat down beside him upon a bench, that she chat- tered. She was very quiet ; she sat in a charming, tranquil attitude, but her lips and her eyes were constantly moving. She had a soft, slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was decidedly sociable. She gave Winterbourne a history of her move- ments and intentions, and those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and enu- merated, in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. " That Eng- lish lady in the cars," she said " Miss Featherstone asked me if we didn't all live in hotels in America. I told her I had never been in so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. I have never seen so many it's nothing but hotels." But Miss Miller did not make this remark with a querulous accent ; she appeared to be in the best humor with everything. She declared that the hotels were very good, when once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet. She was not dis- appointed not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had heard so much about it before. She had ever so many in- ' timate friends that had been there v ever so many times. And then she had had ever so many dresses and things from Paris. Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she were in Europe. u It was a kind of a wishing-cap," said Winterbourne. " Yes," said Miss Miller, without ex- amining this analogy ; " it always made me wish I was here. But I needn't have done that for dresses. I am sure they send all the pretty ones to America; you see the most frightful things here. The only thing I don't like," she proceed- ed, " is the society. There isn't any society ; or, if there is, I don't know where it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some society some- where, but I haven't seen anything of it. I'm very fond of society, and I have always had a great deal of it. I don't mean only in Schenectady, but in New York. I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lots of society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them were by gentle- men," added Daisy Miller. " I have more friends in New York than in Schenecta- dy more gentleman friends; and more young lady friends, too," she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an in- stant; she was looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively eyes, and in her light, slightly monotonous smile. " I have always had," she said, " a great deal of gentlemen's society." Poor Winterbourne was amused, per- plexed, and decidedly charmed. He had never yet heard a young girl express her- self in just this fashion never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential incondutie, as they said at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had lost a good deal; be had become disbabituated to the American tone. Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appre- ciate things had be encountered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this. Certainly she was very charming, but how deucedly sociable ! Was she simply a pretty girl from New York State ? were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen's society ? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely inno- cent. Some people had told him that, after all, American girls were exceedingly inno- cent ; and others had told him that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss Daisy Miller was a flirt a pretty American flirt. He had never, as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category. He had known, here in Europe, two or three women persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and pro- vided, for respectability's sake, with hus- bands who were great coquettes dan- gerous, terrible women, with whom one's relations were liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense ; she was very unsophisticated ; she was only a pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for hav- ing found the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat ; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had ever seen ; he wondered what were the regular con- ditions and limitations of one's intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn. "Have you been to that old castle?" asked the young girl, pointing with her parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon. " Yes, formerly, more than once," said Winterbourne. "You too, I suppose, have seen it ?" " No ; we haven't been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course I mean to go there. I wouldn't go away from here without having seen that old castle." " It's a very pretty excursion," said Winterbourne, " and very easy to make. You can drive or go by the little steamer." "You can go in the cars," said Miss Miller. "Yes; you can go in the cars," Winter- bourne assented. " Our courier says they take you right up to the castle," the young girl contin- ued. " We were going last week ; but my mother gave out. She suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go. Randolph wouldn't go, either ; he says he doesn't think much of old castles. But I guess we'll go this week, if we can get Randolph." " Your brother is '- not interested in an- cient monuments?" Winterbourne inquired, smil- ing. " He says he don't care much about old castles. He's only nine. He wants to stay at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him alone, and ^^^ the courier won't stay with him ; so we haven't been to many places. But it will be too bad if we don't go up there." And Miss Mil- ler pointed again at the Cha- teau de Chillon. "I should think it might be arranged," said Winter- bourne. " Couldn't you get some one to stay for the afternoon with Randolph ?" Miss Miller looked at him a moment, and then very placidly, "I wish you would stay with him !" she said. Winterbourne hesitated a moment. " I should much rather go to Chillon with you" " With me?" asked the young girl, with the same placidity. She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done; and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought it possible that she was offended. " With your mother," he an- swered, very respectfully. But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss Daisy Miller. "I guess my mother won't go, after all," she said. " She don't like to ride round in the afternoon. But did you really mean what you said just now, that you would like to go up there ?" "Most earnestly," Winterbourne de- clared. " Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph, I guess Eugenio will." " Eugenio ?" the young man inquired. "Eugenie's our courier. He doesn't like to stay with Eandolph; he's the most fastidious man I ever saw. But he's a splendid courier. I guess he'll stay at home with Randolph if mother does, and then we can go to the castle." Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible " we " could only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This programme seemed almost too agreeable for credence ; he felt as if he ought to kiss the young lady's hand. Possibly he would have done so, and quite spoiled the project ; but at this moment another per- son, presumably Eugenio, appeared. A tall, handsome man, with superb whiskers, wearing a velvet morning-coat and a brill- iant watch-chain, approached Miss Miller, looking sharply at her companion. " Oh, Eugenio !" said Miss Miller, with the friendliest accent. Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot ; he now bowed gravely to the young lady. " I have the honor to inform mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the table." Miss Miller slowly rose. " See here, Eugenio !" she said ; " I'm going to that old castle, anyway." 27 " To the Chateau de Chillon, madem- oiselle?" the courier inquired. "Madem- oiselle has made arrangements?" he add- ed, in a tone which struck Winterbourne as very impertinent. Eugenio's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own apprehension, a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation. She turned to Winter- bourne, blushing a little a very little. " You won't back out ?" she said. " I shall not be happy till we go !" he protested. "And you are staying in this hotel?" she went on. "And you are really an American ?" The courier stood looking at Winter- bourne offensively. The young man, at least, thought his manner of look- ing an offence to Miss Miller ; it conveyed an imputation that she "picked up" ac- quaintances. " I shall liave the honor of presenting to you a person who will tell you all about me," he said, smiling, and referring to his aunt. " Oh, well, we'll go some day," said Miss Miller. And she gave him a smile and turned away. She put up her parasol and walked back to the inn beside Euge- nio. Winterbourne stood looking after her ; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess. He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising to pre- sent his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller. As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache he waited upon her in her apartment; and, after the prop- er inquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she had observed in the hotel an American family a mamma, a daugh- ter, and a little boy. " And a courier ?" said Mrs. Costello. " Oh yes, I have observed them. Seen them heard them and kept out of their way." Mrs. Costello was a widow with a fortune ; a person of much distinction, who frequently intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick-headaches, she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long, pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair, which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head. She had two sons married in New York, and another who was now in Europe. This young man was amusing himself at Hombourg ; and, though he was on his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular city at the moment selected by his mother for her own appearance there. Her nephew, who had come up to Yevay expressly to see her, was therefore more attentive than those who, as she said, were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentive to one's aunt. Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years, and she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which, as she gave him to understand, she exerted in the American capital. She admitted that she was very exclusive ; but, if he were acquainted with New York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she pre- sented to him in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne's imagination, al- most oppressively striking. 30 He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's place in the social scale was low. " I am afraid you don't approve of them," he said. " They are very common," Mrs. Cos- tello declared. " They are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not not accepting." "Ah, you don't accept them?" said the young man. " I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can't." " The young girl is very pretty," said Winterbourne, in a moment. " Of course she's pretty. But she is very common." " I see what you mean, of course," said Winterbourne, after another pause. " She has that charming look that they all have," his aunt resumed. "I can't think where they pick it up; and she dresses in perfection no, you don't know how well she dresses. I can't think where they get their taste." "But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Co- manche savage." " She is a young lady," said Mrs. Cos- tello, " who has an intimacy with her mamma's courier." "An intimacy with the courier?" the young man demanded. " Oh, the mother is just as bad ! They treat the courier like a familiar friend like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder if he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like a gen- tleman. He probably corresponds to the young lady's idea of a count. He sits with them in the garden in the evening. I think he smokes." Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures ; they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was rather wild. " Well," he said, " I am not a cou- rier, and yet she was very charming to me." " You had better have said at first," said Mrs. Costello, with dignity, "that you had made her acquaintance." " We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit." "Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say ?" " I said I should take the liberty of in- troducing her to my admirable aunt." " I am much obliged to you." "It was to guarantee my respectabil- ity," said Winterbourne. " And pray who is to guarantee hers?" "Ah, you are cruel," said the young man. " She's a very nice young girl." " You don't say that as if you believed it," Mrs. Costello observed. " She is completely uncultivated," Win- terbourne went on. "But she is won- derfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove that I believe it, I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chil- lon." " You two are going off there togeth- er ? I should say it proved just the con- trary. How long had you known her, may I ask, when this interesting project was formed ? You haven't been twenty- four hours in the house." " I had known her half an hour !" said Winterbourne, smiling. "Dear me!" cried Mrs. Costello. " What a dreadful girl !" Her nephew was silent for some mo- N ments. " Yon really think, then," he be- gan, earnestly, and with a desire for trust- worthy information " you really think that But he paused again. " Think what, sir ?" said his aunt. " That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man, sooner or later, to carry her off?" "I haven't the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do. But I really think that you had better not med- dle with little American girls that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long out of the country. You will be sure to make some great mis- take. You are too innocent." " My dear aunt, I am not so innocent," said Winterbourne, smiling and curling his mustache. " You are too guilty, then !" Winterbourne continued to curl his mustache, meditatively. " You won't let the poor girl know you, then ?" he asked at last. " Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon with you ?" " I think that she fully intends it." " Then, my dear Frederick," said Mrs. Costello, " I must decline the honor of 34 her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old, thank Heaven, to be shocked !" " But don't they all do these things the young girls in America?" Winter- bourne inquired. Mrs. Costello stared a moment. " I should like to see my granddaughters do them !" she declared, grimly. This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne remember- ed to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were " tremendous flirts." If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal margin allowed to these young ladies, it was probable that anything might be expected of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see her again, and he was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he should not appreciate her justly. Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly knew what he should say to her about his aunt's refusal to become ac- quainted with her; but he discovered, promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy Miller there was no great need of walk- ing on tiptoe. He found her that even- ing in the garden, wandering about in the warm starlight like an indolent sylph, 35 w and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld. It was ten o'clock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting with her since dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the morrow. Miss Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him ; she declared it was the longest evening she had ever passed. " Have you been all alone ?" he asked. " I have been walking round with mother. But mother gets tired walking round," she answered. " Has she gone to bed ?" " No ; she doesn't like to go to bed," said the young girl. " She doesn't sleep not three hours. She says she doesn't know how she lives. She's dreadful- ly nervous. I guess she sleeps more than she thinks. She's gone some- where after Randolph ; she wants to try to get him to go to bed. He doesn't like to go to bed." " Let us hope she will persuade him," observed Winterbourne. " She will talk to him all she can ; but he doesn't like her to talk to him," said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. " She's going to try to get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn't afraid of Eugenio. Engenio's a splendid courier, but he can't make much impression on Randolph ! I don't believe he'll go to bed before elev- en." It appeared that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meet- ing her mother. "I have been look- ing round for that lady you want to introduce me to," his companion re- sumed. " She's your aunt." Then, on Winterbourne's admitting the fact, and expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it, she said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello from the chamber- maid. She was very quiet, and very comme il faut ; she wore white puffs; she spoke to no one, and she never dined at the table d'hote. Every two days she had a headache. " I think that's a lovely description, headache and all !" said Miss Daisy, chattering along in her thin, gay voice. " I want to know her ever so much. I know just what your aunt would be ; I know I should like her. She 37 would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive ; I'm dying to be ex- clusive myself. Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We don't speak to every one or they don't speak to us. I sup- pose it's about the same thing. Anyway, I shall be ever so glad to know your aunt." Winterbourne was embarrassed. " She would be most happy," he said ; " but I am afraid those headaches will interfere." The young girl looked at him through the dusk. "But I suppose she doesn't have a headache every day," she said, sympathetically. Winterbourne was silent a moment. " She tells me she does," he answered at last, not knowing what to say. Miss Daisy Miller stopped, and stood looking at him. Her prettiness was still visible in the darkness ; she was opening and closing her enormous fan. " She doesn't want to know me!" she said, suddenly. " Why don't you say so ? You needn't be afraid. I'm not afraid !" And she gave a little laugh. Winterbourne fancied there was a tre- mor in her voice ; he was touched, shock- ed, mortified by it. " My dear young lady," he protested, "she knows no one. It's her wretched health." The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. " You needn't be afraid," she repeated. " Why should she want to know me ?" Then she paused again ; she was close to the parapet of the gar- den, and in front of her was the starlit lake. There was a vague sheen upon its surface, and in the distance were dimly- seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller look- ed out upon the mysterious prospect, and then she gave another little laugh. " Gra- cious ! she is exclusive !" she said. Win- terbourne wondered whether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment al- most wished that her sense of injury might be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that she would be very approachable for con- solatory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally ; to admit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they needn't mind her. But before he had time to commit himself to this peril- ous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, resuming her walk, gave an exclamation in quite another tone. " Well, here's mother ! I guess she hasn't got Randolph to go to bed." The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very in- distinct in the darkness, and advancing with a slow and wavering movement. Suddenly it seemed to pause. "Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this thick dusk?" Winterbourne asked. "Well!" cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh ; " I guess I know my own mother. And when she has got on my shawl, too ! She is always wearing my things." The lady in question, ceasing to ad- vance, hovered vaguely about the spot at which she had checked her steps. " I am afraid your mother doesn't see you," said Winterbourne. " Or perhaps," he added, thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke permissible "perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl." "Oh, it's a fearful old thing!" the young girl replied, serenely. " I told her she could wear it. She won't come here, because she sees you." " Ah, then," said Winterbourne, " I had better leave you." " Oh no ; come on !" urged Miss Daisy Miller. " I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve of my walking with you." Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. " It isn't for me ; it's for you that is, it's for her. Well, I don't know who it's for ! But mother doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends. She's right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gen- tleman. Bat I <&> introduce them almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen friends to mother," the young girl added, in her little soft, flat monotone, " I shouldn't think it was natural." "To introduce me," said Win- terbourne, "you must know my name." And he proceeded to pronounce it to her. "Oh dear, I can't say all that!" said his companion, with a laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs. Mil- ler, who, as they drew near, walked to the parapet of the garden and leaned upon it, looking intently at the lake, and turning her back to them. " Mother !" said the young girl, in a tone of decision. Upon this the elder lady turned round. " Mr. Winterbourne," said Miss Daisy Miller, introducing the young man very frankly and prettily. " Common," she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness, she had a sin- gularly delicate grace. Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, dec- orated with a certain amount of thin, rnuch-frizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance ; she had enormous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no greeting she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl straight. 42 "What are you doing, poking round here ?" this young lady inquired, but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choice of words may imply. " I don't know," said her mother, turn- ing towards the lake again. " I shouldn't think you'd want that shawl !" Daisy exclaimed. " "Well, I do !" her mother answered, with a little laugh. " Did you get Randolph to go to bed ?" asked the young girl. " No ; I couldn't induce him," said Mrs. Miller, very gently. " He wants to talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that waiter." "I was telling Mr. Winterbourne," the young girl went on ; and to the young man's ear her tone might have indicated that she had been uttering his name all her life. "Oh yes!" said Winterbourne; "I have the pleasure of knowing your son." Randolph's mamma was silent ; she turned her attention to the lake. But at last she spoke. " Well, I don't see how he lives !'' "Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at Dover," said Daisy Miller. "And what occurred at Dover?" Win- terbourne asked. " He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all night in the public parlor. He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock ; I know that." " It was half-past twelve," declared Mrs. Miller, with mild emphasis. "Does he sleep much during the day?" Winterbourne demanded. " I guess he doesn't sleep much," Daisy rejoined. " I wish he would !" said her mother. " It seems as if he couldn't." " I think he's real tiresome," Daisy pursued. Then for some moments there was silence. " Well, Daisy Miller," said the elder lady, presently, "I shouldn't think you'd want to talk against your own brother !" " Well, he is tiresome, mother," said Daisy, quite without the asperity of a retort. " He's only nine," urged Mrs. Miller. " Well, he wouldn't go to that castle," said the young girl. " I'm going there with Mr. Winter bourne." To this announcement, very placidly mamma offered no response. Winter- bourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of the pro- jected excursion ; but he said to himself that she was a simple, easily -managed person, and that a few deferential protestations would take the edge from her displeasure. " Yes," he began ; " your daughter has kindly allowed me the honor of being her guide." Mrs. Miller's , wandering eyes attached them- selves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. " 1 presume you will go in the cars," said her mother. " Yes, or in the boat," said Winter- bourne. " Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. Miller rejoined. "I have never been to that castle." " It is a pity you shouldn't go," said Winterbourne, beginning to feel reassur- ed as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her daughter. "We've been thinking ever so much about going," she pursued ; " but it seems as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy, she wants to go round. But there's a lady here I don't know her name she says she shouldn't think we'd want to go to see castles here; she should think we'd want to wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there," continued Mrs. Miller, with an air of in- creasing confidence. " Of course we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England," she presently added. " All, yes ! in England there are beau- tiful castles," said Winterbourne. "But Cliillon, here, is very well worth seeing." " Well, if Daisy feels up to it" said Mrs. Miller, in a tone impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enter- prise. " It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake." " Oh, I think she'll enjoy it !" Winter- bourne declared. And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still stroll- ing along in front of them, softly vocaliz- ing. " You are not disposed, madam," he inquired, " to undertake it yourself ?" Daisy's mother looked at him an instant askance, and then walked forward in si- lence. Then " I guess she had better go alone," she said, simply. Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type of maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed them- selves in the fore -front of social inter- course in the dark old city at the other end of the lake. But his meditations were interrupted by hearing his name very distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Mil- ler's unprotected daughter. 47 "Mr. Winterbonrne!" murmured Daisy. " Mademoiselle !" said the young man. " Don't you want to take me out in a boat?" " At present !" he asked. " Of course !" said Daisy. " Well, Annie Miller !" exclaimed her mother. " I beg you, madam, to let her go," said Winterbourne, ardently ; for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guid- ing through the summer starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young girl. " I shouldn't think she'd want to," said her mother. " I should think she'd rath- er go in- doors." "I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy declared. " He's so aw- fully devoted !" " I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight." " I don't believe it !" said Daisy. "Well !" ejaculated the elder lady again. " You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her daughter went on. " I have been having some very pleas- ant conversation with your mother," said Winterbourne. " Well, I want you to take me out in a boat !" Daisy repeated. They had all stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne. Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was swinging her great fan about. No ; it's impossible to be prettier than that, thought Winter- bourne. " There are half a dozen boats moored at that landing-place," he said, pointing to certain steps which descended from the garden to the lake. " If you will do me the honor to accept my arm, we will go and select one of them." Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little light laugh. "I like a gentleman to be formal!" she declared. " I assure you it's a formal offer." " I was bound I would make you say something," Daisy went on. " You see, it's not very difficult," said "Winterbourne. "But I am afraid you are chaffing me." " I think not, sir," remarked Mrs. Mil- ler, very gently. " Do, then, let me give you a row," he said to the young girl. " It's quite lovely, the way you say that !" cried Daisy. "It will be still more lovely to do it." " Yes, it would be lovely !" said Daisy. But she made no movement to accom- pany him ; she only stood there laugh- ing. " I should think you had better find out what time it is," interposed her mother. " It is eleven o'clock, madam," said a voice, with a foreign accent, out of the neighboring darkness ; and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the florid personage who was in attendance upon the two la- dies. He had apparently just approached. " Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, " I am go- ing out in a boat !" 50 Eugenio bowed. " At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle ?" " I am going with Mr. Winterbourne this very minute." " Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Mil- ler to the courier. " I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle," Eugenio declared. Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl were not so familiar with her courier ; but he said nothing. " I suppose you don't think it's proper!" Daisy exclaimed. " Eugenio doesn't think anything's proper." " I am at your service," said Winter- bourne. " Does mademoiselle propose to go alone ?" asked Eugenio of Mrs. Miller. " Oh, no ; with this gentleman !" an- swered Daisy's mamma. The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne the latter thought he was smiling and then, solemnly, with a bow, " As mademoiselle pleases !" he said. " Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss !" said Daisy. " I don't care to go now. " I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go," said Winter- , bourne. That's all I <&, want- ^ >'-"/: * fuss !" And the young girl began to laugh again. " Mr. Randolph has gone to bed !" the courier announced, frigidly. " Oh, Daisy ; now we can go !" said Mrs. Miller. Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling, and fanning her- self. " Good-night," she said ; " I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, or something !" He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. "I am puzzled," he an- swered. "Well, I hope it won't keep you awake !" she said, very smartly ; and, under the escort of the privileged Eu- genio, the two ladies passed towards the house. Winterbourne stood looking after them ; he was indeed puzzled. He lingered be- side the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the mystery of the young girl's sudden familiarities and caprices. But the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy deuced- ly " going off " with her somewhere. Two days afterwards he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon. He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the servants, the for- eign tourists, were lounging about and staring. It was not the place he should have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came tripping down-stairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant trav- elling costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestors used to say, sensibility ; as he looked at her dress and on the great staircase her little rapid, confiding step, he felt as if there were something romantic going for- ward. He could have believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among all the idle people that were assembled there ; they were all look- ing at her very hard ; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him. Winterbourne's prefer- ence had been that they should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage ; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the little steam- er; she de- dared that she had a passion for steam- boats. There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbourne's companion found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their little excursion was so much of an escapade an adventure that, even allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, in this par- ticular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all excited ; she was not fluttered ; she avoided neither his eyes nor those of any- one else ; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she felt that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty com- panion's distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move about the boat a good deal. But he quite forgot liis fears ; lie sat smiling, with his eyes upon her face, while, without mov- ing from her place, she delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea that she was " common ;" but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness? Her conver- sation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective cast; but every now and then it took a subjective turn. " What on earth are you so grave about?" she suddenly demanded, fixing her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne's. " Am I grave?" he asked. " I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear." " You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that's a grin, your ears are very near together." " Should you like me to dance a horn- pipe on the deck ?" "Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our journey." " I never was better pleased in my life," murmured Winterbourne. She looked at him a moment, and then burst into a little laugh. " I like to make 65 you say those things ! You're a queer mixture !" In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted cham- bers, rustled her skirts in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a singularly well- shaped ear to everything that Winter- bourne told her about the place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities, and that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon her. They had the good-fortune to have been able to walk about without other companionship than that of the custodian ; and Winterbourne arranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried that they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian interpreted the bargain gener- ously Winterbourne, on his side, had been generous and ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Miller's observations were not remarkable for log- ical consistency; for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the r.c rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne sudden questions about him- self his family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions and for supplying information upon correspond- ing points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most def- inite, and, indeed, the most favorable ac- count. "Well, I hope you know enough !" she said to her companion, after he had told her the history of the unhappy Bonnivard. " I never saw a man that knew so much !" The history of Bonnivard had evidently, as they say, gone into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winterbourne would travel with them, and "go round " with them ; they might know something, in that case. " Don't you want to come and teach Randolph ?" she asked. Winterbourne said that nothing could possibly please him so much, but that he had unfortunately other occupations. " Other occupations? I don't be- lieve it !" said Miss Daisy. "What do you mean? You are not in business." The young man admitted that he was not in business; but he had en- gagements which, even within a day or two, would force him to go back to Gene- va. " Oh, bother !" she said ; " I don't believe it !" and she began to talk about something else. But a few moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, " You don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva ?" "It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to-morrow." "Well, Mr. Winterbourne," said Daisy, " I think you're horrid !" " Oh, don't say such dreadful things !" said Winterbourne "just at the last !" " The last !" cried the young girl ; " I call it the first. I have half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone." And for the next ten min- utes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him the honor to be so agitated by the announce- ment of his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of Chi lion or the beauties 58 of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysteri- ^. ous charmer of Gene- va, whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that lie was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva ? Winter- bourne, who denied the existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover ; and he was divided between amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the frankness of her per- siflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. "Does she never allow you more than three days at a time?" asked Daisy, ironically. " Doesn't she give you a vacation in summer ? There is no one so hard worked but they can get leave to go off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you stay another day, she'll come after you in the boat. Do wait over till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her arrive !" Winter- bourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed in the temper in which the young lady had embarked. If he had missed the personal accent, the personal accent was now making its ap- pearance. It sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she would stop "teasing" him if he would promise her solemnly to come down to Rome in the winter. "That's not a difficult promise to make," said Winterbourne. "My aunt has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter, and has already asked me to come and see her." " I don't want you to come for your aunt," said Daisy ; " I want you to come for me." And this was the only allusion that the young man was ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at any rate, he would cer- tainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Yevay in the dusk. The young girl was very quiet. In the evening Winterbourne mention- ed to Mrs. Costello that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon with Miss Daisy Miller. " The Americans of the courier ?" asked this lady. " Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, " the courier stayed at home." " She went with you all alone ?" " All alone." Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smell- ing-bottle. "And that," she exclaimed, "is the young person whom you wanted me to know !" INTERBOUKNE, who had returned to Ge- neva the day after his excursion to Chil- lon, went to Rome towards the end of January. His aunt had been established there for several weeks, and he had re- ceived a couple of letters from her. "Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Yevay have turned up here, courier arid all," she wrote. " They seem to have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the most intime. The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some third-rate Ital- ians, with whom she rackets about in a 63 way that makes much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez's Paule Mere and don't come later than the 23d." In the natural course of events, Win- terbourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller's address at the American banker's, and have gone to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy. " After what happened at Yevay, I think I may certainly call upon them," he said to Mrs. Costello. "If, after what happens at Yevay and everywhere you desire to keep up the acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know every one. Men are welcome to the privilege !" " Pray what is it that happens here, for instance?" Winterbourne demanded. " The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to what happens further, you must apply elsewhere for informa- tion. She has picked up half a dozen of the regular Roman fortune-hunters, and she takes them about to people's houses. When she comes to a party she brings with her a gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache." " And where is the mother ?" 64 "I haven't the least idea. They are very dreadful people." Winterbourne meditated a moment. a They are very ignorant very innocent only. Depend upon it they are not bad." "They are hopelessly vulgar," said Mrs. Costello. "Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being 'bad ' is a ques- tion for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate ; and for this short life that is quite enough." The news that Daisy Miller was sur- rounded by half a dozen wonderful mus- taches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her. He had, perhaps, not definitely flattered himself that he had made an ineffaceable impres- sion upon her heart, but he was annoyed at hearing of a state of affairs so little in harmony with an image that had lately flitted in and out of his own meditations; the image of a very pretty girl looking out of an old Roman window and asking herself urgently when Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined to wait a little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her consideration, he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends. One of these friends 65 was an American lady who had spent several winters at Geneva, where she had placed her children at school. She was a very accomplished woman, and she lived in the Via Gregorian a. Winter- bourne found her in a little crimson drawing-room on a third floor ; the room was filled with southern sunshine. He had not been there ten minutes when the servant came in, announcing " Madame Mila !" This announcement was present- ly followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne. An instant later his pret- ty sister crossed the threshold ; and then, after a considerable interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced. "I know you!" said Randolph. " I'm sure you know a great many things," exclaimed Winterbourne, taking him by the hand. " How is your educa- tion coming on ?" Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess ; but when she heard Winterbourne's voice she quick- ly turned her head. "Well, I de- clare !" she said. "I told you I should come, you know," Winterbourne rejoined, smil- ing. "Well, I didn't believe it," said Miss Daisy. " I am much obliged to you," laughed the young man. " You might have come to see me !" said Daisy. " I arrived only yesterday." " I don't believe that !" the young girl declared. Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother ; but this lady evaded his glance, and, seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son. "We've got a bigger place than this," said Randolph. "It's all gold on the walls." Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. " I told you if I were to bring you, you would say something!" she murmured. "I told you!" Randolph exclaimed. " I tell you, sir !" he added, jocosely, giv- ing Winterbourne a thump on the knee. " It is bigger, too !" Daisy had entered upon a lively con- versation with her hostess, and Winter- bourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. " I hope you 67 have been well since we parted at Ve- vay," he said. Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him at his chin. " Not very well, sir," she answered. " She's got the dyspepsia," said Ean- "/?. dolph. " I've got it, too. Father's got / it. I've got it most !" This announcement, instead of embar- rassing Mrs. Miller, seemed to relieve her. " I suffer from the liver," she said. "I think it's this climate; it's less bracing than Scheriectady, especially in the win- ter season. I don't know whether you know we reside at Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I certainly hadn't found any one like Dr. Davis, and I didn't believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady he stands first ; they think everything of him. He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn't do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller want- ed Daisy to see Europe for herself. But T wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr. Davis. At 68 Schenectady he stands at the very top ; and there's a great deal of sickness there, too. It affects my sleep." Winterbonrne had a good deal of path- ological gossip with Dr. Davis's patient, during which Daisy chattered unremit- tingly to her own companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. "Well, I must say I am disappointed," she answered. " We had heard so much about it ; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn't help that. We had been led to expect something different." " Ah, wait a little, and you will be- come very fond of it," said Winter- bourne. " I hate it worse and worse every day !" cried Randolph. " You are like the infant Hannibal," said Winterbonrne. "No, I ain't!" Randolph declared, at a venture. "You are not much like an infant," said his mother. " But we have seen places," she resumed, " that I should put a long way before Rome." And in reply to Winterbourne's interrogation, "There's Zurich," she concluded, " I think Zurich 69 is lovely ; and we hadn't heard half so much about it." "The best place we've seen is the City of Eichmond !" said Kandolph. "He means the ship," his mother ex- plained. "We crossed in that ship. Kandolph had a good time on the City of Richmond" "It's the best place I've seen," the child repeated. " Only it was turned the wrong way." "Well, we've got to turn the right way some time," said Mrs. Miller, witli a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at least found some gratification in Kome, and she declared that Daisy was quite carried away. " It's on account of the society the society's splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of acquaint- ances. Of course she goes round more than I do. I must say they have been very sociable ; they have taken her right in. And then she knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there's noth- ing like Rome. Of course, it's a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows plenty of gentlemen." By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winter-bourne. "I've been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were !" the young girl announced. " And what is the evidence you have offered ?" asked Winterbourne, rather annoyed at Miss Miller's want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American women the pretty ones, and this gave a large- ness to the axiom were at once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense of indebtedness. "Why, you were awfully mean at Vevay," said Daisy. "You wouldn't do anything. You wouldn't stay there when I asked you." " My dearest young lady," cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, " have I come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches ?" " Just hear him say that !" said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a. bow on this lady's dress. " Did you ever bear anything so quaint ?" " So quaint, my dear ?" murmured Mrs. Walker, in the tone of a partisan of Win- terbourne. " Well, I don't know," said Daisy, fin- gering Mrs. Walker's ribbons. "Mrs. Walker, 1 want to tell yon something." " Mother-r," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, " I tell you you've got to go. Eugenio '11 raise something !" " I'm not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy, with a toss of her head. "Look here, Mrs. Walker," she went on, " you know I'm coming to your party." " I am delighted to hear it," " I've got a lovely dress !" "I am very sure of that." "But I want to ask a favor permis- sion to bring a friend." "I shall be happy to see any of your friends," said Mrs. Walker, turning with a smile to Mrs. Miller. " Oh, they are not my friends,' 1 an- swered Daisy's mamma, smiling shyly, in her own fashion. " I never spoke to them." " It's an intimate friend of mine Mr. 72 Giovanelli," said Daisy, without a tremor in her clear little voice, or a shadow on her brilliant little face. Mrs. Walker was silent a moment; she gave a rapid glance at Winterbourne. " I shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli," she then saiii. "He's an Italian," Daisy pursued, with the prettiest serenity. " He's a great friend of mine ; he's the handsomest man in the world except Mr. Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He's tremendously clever. He's perfectly lovely !" It was settled that this brilliant per- sonage should be brought to Mrs. Walk- er's party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. " I guess we'll go back to the hotel," she said. " You may go back to the hotel, moth- er, but I'm going to take a walk," said Daisy. " She's going to walk with Mr. Giova- nelli," Randolph proclaimed. " I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, smiling. " Alone, my dear at this hour ?" Mrs. 73 Walker asked. The afternoon was draw- ing to a close it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of contemplative pedestrians. " I don't think it's safe, my dear," said Mrs. Walker. " Neither do I," subjoined Mrs. Miller. "You'll get the fever, as sure as you live. Remember what Dr. Davis told you !" " Give her some medicine before she goes," said Randolph. The company had risen to its feet ; Daisy, still showing her pretty teeth, bent over and kissed her hostess. " Mrs. Walker, you are too perfect," she said. " I'm not going alone ; I am going to meet a friend." " Your friend won't keep you from getting the fever," Mrs. Miller observed. "Is it Mr. Giovanelli?" asked the hostess. Winterbourne was watching the young girl ; at this question his attention quickened. She stood there smiling and smoothing her bonnet ribbons ; she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced and smiled, she answered, without a shade of hesitation, "Mr. Giova- nelli the beautiful Giovanelli." Mr " My dear young friend," said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand, pleadingly, " don't walk off to the Pincio at this unhealthy hour to meet a beautiful Ital- ian." " Well, he speaks English," said Mrs. Miller. " Gracious me !" Daisy exclaimed, " I don't want to do anything improper. There's an easy way to settle it." She continued to glance at Winterbourne. "The Pincio is only a hundred yards dis- tant; and if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends, he would offer to walk with me!" Winterbourne's politeness hastened to affirm itself, and the young girl gave him gracious leave to accompany her. They passed down -stairs before her mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. Miller's carriage drawn up, with the ornamental courier, whose acquaintance he had made at Yevay, seated within. " Good-bye, Engenio!" cried Daisy; "I'm going to take a walk." The distance from the Via Gregoriana to the beautiful garden at the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and the con-. 7.-. course of vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous, the young Americans found their progress much delayed. This fact was highly agreeable to Winter- bourne, in spite of his conscious- ness of his singular situation. The slow-moving, idly-gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon- the extremely pretty young L^ foreign lady who was passing |p through it upon his arm ; and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy's mind when she pro- posed to expose herself, unattend- ed, to its appreciation. His own mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consign her to the hands of Mr. Giovanelli ; but Winter- bourne, at once annoyed and grat- ified, resolved that he would do no such thing. "Why haven't you been to see me ?" asked Daisy. " You can't get out of that." " I have had the honor of tell- ing you that I have only just stepped out of the train." "You must have stayed in the train a good while after it stopped!" cried the young girl, with her little laugh. " I suppose you were asleep. You have had time to go to see Mrs. Walker." "I knew Mrs. Walker- Winter- bourne began to explain. " I know where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Yevay. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other ques- tion than this ; she began to prattle about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel ; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal nicer than I thought ; I thought it would be fearfully quiet ; I was sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now I'm enjoying myself. I know ever so many people, and they are all so charming. The society's ex- tremely select. There are all kinds 77 English and Germans and Italians. I think I like the English best. I like their style of conversation. But there are some lovely Americans. I never saw anything so hospitable. There's some- thing or other every day. There's not much dancing; but I must say I never thought dancing was everything. I was always fond" of conversation. I guess I shall have plenty at Mrs. Walker's, her rooms are so small." When they had passed the gate of the Pincian Gardens, Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Giovanelli might be. "We had better go straight to that place in front," she said, " where you look at the view." " I certainly shall not help you to find him," Winterbourne declared. " Then I shall find him without you," said Miss Daisy. "You certainly won't leave me !" cried Winterbourne. She burst into her little laugh. " Are you afraid you'll get lost or run over? But there's Giovanelli, leaning against that tree. He's staring at the women in the car- riages ; did you ever see anything so cool ?" Winterbourne perceived at some dis- tance a little man standing with folded 78 arms nursing his cane. He had a hand- some face, an artfully poised hat, a glass in one eye, and a nosegay in his button- hole. Winterbourne looked at him a moment, and then said, " Do you mean to speak to that man ?" " Do I mean to speak to him ? Why, you don't suppose I mean to communi- cate by signs ?" "Pray understand, then," said Winterbourne, " that I intend to remain with you." Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled consciousness in her face ; with nothing but the presence of her charming eyes and her happy dim- ples. "Well, she's a cool one!" thought the young man. " I don't like the way you say that," said Daisy. "It's too im- perious." " I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to give you an idea of my meaning." The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that were prettier than ever. " I have never allowed a gentleman to die- tate to me, or to interfere with anything I do." "I think you have made a mistake," said Winterbourne. " You should some- times listen to a gentleman the right one." Daisy began to laugh again. " I do nothing but listen to gentlemen !" she ex- claimed. " Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one." The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two friends, and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity. He bowed to Winterbourne as well as to the latter's companion ; he had a brilliant smile, an intelligent eye ; Winterbourne thought him not a bad -looking fellow, But he nevertheless said to Daisy, " No, he's not the right one." Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions ; she men- tioned the name of each of her compan- ions to the other. She strolled along with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke English very cleverly Winterbourne afterwards learn- ed that he had practised the idiom upon a great many American heiresses ad- dressed to her a great deal of very polite nonsense ; he was extreme- ly urbane, and the young Ameri- can, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in pro- portion as they are more acute- ly disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon some- thing more intimate ; he had not bargained for a party of three. But he kept his temper in a man- ner which suggested far-stretch- ing intentions. Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken his measure. " He is not a gentleman," said the young American ; " he is only a clever imita- tion of one. He is a music -master, or a penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. I) n his good looks!" Mr. Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face ; but Winterbourne felt a superior indigna- tion at his own lovely fellow -country- woman's not knowing the difference be- tween a spurious gentleman and a real one. Giovanelli chattered and jested, and made himself wonderfully agreeable. It was true that, if he was an imitation, 81 the imitation was brilliant. " Neverthe- less," Winterbourne said to himself, " a nice girl ought to know !" And then he came back to the question whether this was, in fact, a nice girl. Would a nice girl, even allowing for her being a little American flirt, make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner? The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight, and in the most crowded corner of Rome ; but was it not impossible to regard the choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cyn- icism? Singular though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl, in joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatient of his own com- pany, and he was vexed because of his inclination. It was impossible to regard her as a perfectly well-conducted young lady ; she was wanting in a certain indis- pensable delicacy. It would therefore simplify matters greatly to be able to treat her as the object of one of those sentiments which are called by romancers " lawless passions." That she should seem to wish to get rid of him would help him to think more lightly of her, and to be able to think more lightly of her would 82 make her much less perplexing. But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to pre- sent herself as an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence. She had been walking some quarter of an hour, attended by her two cavaliers, and responding in a tone of very childish gayety, as it seemed to Winterbourne, to the pretty speeches of Mr. Giovanelli, when a carriage that had detached itself from the revolving train drew up beside the path. At the same moment Winter- bourne perceived that his friend Mrs. Walker the lady whose house he had lately left was seated in the vehicle, and was beckoning to him. Leaving Miss Miller's side, he hastened to obey her summons. Mrs. Walker was flushed ; she wore an excited air. " It is really too dreadful," she said. "That girl must not do this sort of thing. She must not walk here with you two men. Fifty people have noticed her." Winterbourne raised his eyebrows. "I think it's a pity to make too much fuss about it." "It's a pity to let the girl ruin herself!" "She is very innocent," said Winter- bourne. " She's very crazy !" cried Mrs. Walker. "Did you ever see anything so imbecile as her mother? After you had all left me just now I could not sit still for thinking of it. It seemed too pitiful not even to attempt to save her. I order- ed the carriage and put on my bonnet, and came here as quickly as possible. Thank Heaven I have found you !" " What do you propose to do with us?" asked Winterbourne, smilingo " To ask her to get in, to drive her about here for half an hour, so that the world may see that she is not running ab- solutely wild, and then to take her safely home." jyp ^ "I don't think it's a jjp> very happy thought," said ^r\* Winterbourne; u but you can try." Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pursuit of Miss Miller, who had simply nodded and smiled at his inter- locutor in the carriage, and had gone her way with her companion. Daisy, on learning that Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, retraced her steps with a perfect good grace and with Mr. Giova- nelli at her side. She declared that she was delighted to have a chance to present this gentleman to Mrs. Walker. She im- mediately achieved the introduction, and declared that she had never in her life seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Walker's carriage-rug. "I am glad you admire it," said this lady, smiling sweetly. " Will you get in and let me put it over you ?" " Oh no, thank you," said Daisy. " I shall admire it much more as I see you driving round with it." "Do get in and drive with me!" said Mrs. Walker. " That would be charming, but it's so enchanting just as I am !" and Daisy gave a brilliant glance at the gentlemen on either side of her. "It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the custom here," urged Mrs. 85 Walker, leaning forward in her victoria, with her hands devoutly clasped. "Well, it ought to be, then!" said Daisy. " If I didn't walk I should ex- pire." " You should walk with your mother, dear," cried the lady from Geneva, losing patience. " With my mother, dear !" exclaimed the young girl. Winterbourne saw that she scented interference. "My mother never walked ten steps in her life. And then, you know," she added, with a laugh, " I am more than five years old." " You are old enough to be more rea- sonable. You are old enough, dear Miss Miller, to be talked about." Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling intensely. "Talked about? What do you mean?" " Come into my carriage, and I will tell you." Daisy turned her quickened glance again from one of the gentlemen beside her to the other. Mr. Giovanelli was bow- ing to and fro, rubbing down his gloves and laughing very agreeably ; Winter- bourne thought it a most unpleasant scene. "I don't think I want to know what you mean," said Daisy, presently. " I don't think I should like it." Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walk- er would tuck in -her carriage -rug and drive away ; but this lady did not enjoy being defied, as she afterwards told him. "Should you prefer being thought a very reckless girl?" she demanded. " Gracious !" exclaimed Daisy. She looked again at Mr. Giovanelli, then she turned to Winterbourne. There was a little pink flush in her cheek ; she was tremendously pretty. " Does Mr. Win- terbourne think," she asked slowly, smil- ing, throwing back her head and glancing at him from head to foot, " that, to save my reputation, I ought to get into the carriage ?" Winterbourne colored ; for an instant he hesitated greatly. It seemed so strange to hear her speak that way of her " repu- tation." But he himself, in fact, must speak in accordance with gallantry. The finest gallantry here was simply to tell her the truth, and the truth for Winter- bourne as the few indications I have been able to give have made him known to the reader was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. Walker's advice. He 87 looked at her exquisite prettiness, and then said, very gently, " I think you should get into the carriage." Daisy gave a violent laugh. " I never heard anything so stiff! If this is im- proper, Mrs. Walker," she pursued, "then I arn all improper, and you must give me up. Good-bye ; I hope you'll have a lovely ride!" and, with Mr. Giovanelli, who made a triumphantly obsequious sa- lute, she turned away. Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and there were tears in Mrs. Walker's eyes. " Get in here, sir," she said to Winter- bourne, indicating the place beside her. The young man answered that he felt bound to accompany Miss Miller ; where- upon Mrs. Walker declared that if he re- fused her this favor she would never speak to him again. She was evidently in earnest. Winterbourne overtook Daisy and her companion, and, offering the young girl his hand, told her that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim upon his society. He expected that in answer she would say something rather free, some- thing to commit herself still further to that "recklessness" from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavored to dissuade her. But she only shook his hand, hardly looking at him ; while Mr. Giovanelli bade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of the hat. Winterbourne was not in the best pos- sible humor as he took his seat in Mrs. Walker's victoria. " That was not clever of you," he said, candidly, while the vehi- cle mingled again with the throng of car- riages. "In such a case," his companion an- swered, " I don't wish to be clever ; I wish to be earnest /" " Well, your earnestness lias only of- fended her and put her off." " It has happened very well," said Mrs. Walker. "If she is so perfectly deter- mined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better; one can act ac- cordingly." " I suspect she meant no harm," Win- terbourne rejoined. " So I thought a month ago. But she has been going too far." "What has she been doing?" "Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick up ; sitting in corners with mysterious Italians; dancing all the evening with the same partners ; receiving visits at eleven o'clock at night. Her mother goes away when visitors come." " But her brother," said Winterbonrne, laughing, " sits up till midnight." " He must be edified by what he sees. I'm told that at their hotel every one is talking about her, and that a smile goes round among all the servants when a gen- tleman comes and asks for Miss Miller." " The servants be hanged !" said Win- terbourne, angrily. " The poor girl's only fault," he presently added, " is that she is very uncultivated." " She is naturally indelicate," Mrs. "Walker declared. "Take that example this morning. How long had you known her at Yevay ?" "A couple of days." " Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should have left the place !" Winterbonrne was silent for some moments; then he said, "I suspect, Mrs. Walker, that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!" And he added a request that she should inform him with what particular design she had made him enter her carriage. u I wished to beg you to cease your re- lations with Miss Miller not to flirt with her to give her no further opportunity to expose herself to let her alone, in short." " I'm afraid I can't do that," said Win- terbourne. " I like her extremely." " All the more reason that you shouldn't help her to make a scandal." " There shall be nothing scandalous in my attentions to her." "There certainly will be in the way she takes them. But I have said what I had on my conscience," Mrs. Walker pur- sued. " If you wish to rejoin the young lady I will put you down. Here, by-the- way, you have a chance." The carriage was traversing that part of the Pincian Garden that overhangs the wall of Rome and overlooks the beautiful Villa Borghese. It is bordered by a large parapet, near which there are sev- eral seats. One of the seats at a distance was occupied by a gentleman and a lady, towards whom Mrs. Walker gave a toss of her head. At the same moment these persons rose and walked towards the par- apet. Winterbourne had asked the coach- man to stop ; he now descended from n the carriage. His companion looked at him a moment in silence ; then, while he raised his hat, she drove majestically away. Winterbourne stood there ; he had turned his eyes towards Daisy and her cavalier. They evidently saw no one; they were too deeply occupied with each other. When they reached the low gar- den-wall they stood a moment looking off at the great flat-topped pine-clusters of the Villa Borghese ; then Giovanelli seated himself familiarly upon the broad ledge of the wall. The western sun in the op- posite sky sent out a brilliant shaft through a couple of cloud-bars, whereupon Daisy's companion took her parasol out of her hands and opened it. She came a little nearer, and he held the parasol over her ; then, still holding it, he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that both of their heads were hidden from Winterbourne. This young man lingered a moment, then he began to walk. But he walked not towards the couple with the parasol towards the residence of his aunt, Mrs. Costello. He flattered himself on the following day that there was no smiling among the servants when he, at least, asked for Mrs. Miller at her hotel. This lady and her daughter, however, were not at home ; and on the next day after, repeating his visit, Winterbourne again had the mis- fortune not to find them. Mrs. Walker's party took place on the evening of the third day, and, in spite of the frigidity of his last interview with the hostess, Winterbourne was among the guests. Mrs. Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad, make a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society ; and she had on this occasion collected several specimens of her diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, as it were, as text-books. When Winter- borne arrived, Daisy Miller was not there, but in a few moments he saw her mother come in alone, very shyly and ruefully. Mrs. Miller's hair above her exposed- looking temples was more frizzled than ever. As she approached Mrs. Walker, Winterbourne also drew near. " You see I've come all alone," said poor Mrs. Miller. " I'm so frightened I don't know what to do. It's the first time I've ever been to a party alone, es- pecially in this country. I wanted to bring Randolph, or Eugenio, or some one, but Daisy just pushed me off by myself. I ain't used to going round alone." "And does not your daughter intend to favor us with her society ?" demanded Mrs. Walker, impressively. "Well, Daisy's all dressed," said Mrs. Miller, with that accent of the dispassion- ate, if not of the philosophic, historian with which she always recorded the cur- rent incidents of her daughter's career. " She got dressed on purpose before din- ner. But she's got a friend of hers there; that gentleman the Italian that she wanted to bring. They've got going at the piano; it seems as if they couldn't leave off. Mr. Giovanelli sings splendid- ly. But I guess they'll come before very long," concluded Mrs. Miller, hopefully. "I'm sorry she should come in that way," said Mrs. Walker. " Well, I told her that there was no use in her getting dressed before dinner if she was going to wait three hours," re- sponded Daisy's mamma. " I didn't see the use of her putting on such a dress as that to sit round with Mr. Giovanelli." " This is most horrible !" said Mrs. Walker, turning away and addressing her- self to Winterbourne. "Elles'affiche. It's her revenge for my having ventured to remonstrate with her. When she comes I shall not speak to her." Daisy came after eleven o'clock ; but she was not, on such an occasion, a young lady to wait to be spoken to. She rustled forward in radiant loveli- ness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bouquet, and attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Every one stopped talk- ing, and turned and looked at her. She came straight to Mrs. Walker. " I'm afraid you thought I never was coming, so I sent mother off to tell you. I wanted to make Mr. Giova- nelli practise some things before he came ; you know he sings beautifully, and I want you to ask him to sing. This is Mr. Giovanelli ; you know I introduced him to you ; he's got the most lovely voice, and he knows the most charming set of songs. I made him go over them this evening on pur- pose ; we had the greatest time at the hotel." Of all this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, brightest O audibleness, looking now at her host- 97 ess and now round the room, while she gave a series of little pats round her shoulders to the edges of her dress. " Is there any one I know ?" she asked. " I think every one knows you !" said Mrs. Walker, pregnantly, and she gave a very cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli. This gentleman bore himself gallantly. He smiled and bowed, and showed his white teeth ; he curled his mustaches and rolled his eyes, and performed all the proper functions of a handsome Italian at an evening party. He sang very pret- tily half a dozen songs, though Mrs. Walker afterwards declared that she had been quite unable to find out who asked him. It was apparently not Daisy who had given him his orders. Daisy sat at a distance from the piano ; and though she had publicly, as it were, professed a high admiration for his singing, talked, not in- audibly, while it was going on. " It's a pity these rooms are so small ; we can't dance," she said to Winter- bourne, as if she had seen him five min- utes before. " I am not sorry we can't dance," Win- terbourne answered ; " I don't dance." " Of course you don't dance ; you're too stiff," said Miss Daisy. " I hope you enjoyed your drive with Mrs. AValker !" "No, I didn't enjoy it; I preferred walking with you." " We paired off; that was much better," said Daisy. " But did you ever hear any- thing so cool as Mrs. Walker's wanting me to get into her carriage and drop poor Mr. Giovanelli, and under the pretext that it was proper ? People have differ- ent ideas ! It would have been most un- kind; he had been talking about that walk for ten days." "He should not have talked about it at all," said Winterbourne ; " he would never have proposed to a young lady of this country to walk about the streets with him." " About the streets ?" cried Daisy, with her pretty stare. " Where, then, would he have proposed to her to walk? The Pincio is not the streets, either; and I, thank goodness, am not a young lady of this country. The young ladies of this country have a dreadfully poky time of it, so far as I can learn ; I don't see why I should change my habits for them" " 1 am afraid your habits are those of a flirt," said Winterbourne, gravely. M " Of course they are," she cried, giving him her little smiling stare again. " I'm a fearful, frightful flirt ! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not ? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice girl." " You're a very nice girl ; but I wish you would flirt with me, and me only," said Winterbourne. " Ah ! thank you thank you very much ; you are the last man I should think of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you, you are too stiff." 100 " You say that too often," said Winter- bounie. Daisy gave a delighted laugh. " If I could have the sweet hope of making you angry, I should say it again." " Don't do that ; when I am angry I'm stiffer than ever. But if you won't flirt with me, do cease, at least, to flirt with your friend at the piano ; they don't understand that sort of thing here." u I thought they understood nothing else !" exclaimed Daisy. " Not in young unmarried women." " It seems to me much more proper in young unmarried women than in old mar- ried ones," Daisy declared. "Well," said Winterbourne, "when you deal with natives you must go by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom ; it doesn't exist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr. Giovanelli, and without your mother " Gracious ! poor mother !" interposed Daisy. " Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is not ; he means something else." " He isn't preaching, at any rate," said 101 Daisy, with vivacity. " And if yon want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting ; we are too good friends for that : we are very intimate friends." " All !" rejoined Winterbourne, u if yon are in love with each other, it is another affair." She had allowed him up to this point to talk so frankly that he had no expec- tation of shocking her by this ejacula- tion ; but she immediately got up, blush- ing visibly, and leaving him to exclaim mentally that little American flirts were the queerest creatures in the world. " Mr. Giovanelli, at least," she said, giving her interlocutor a single glance, " never says such very disagreeable things to me." Winterbourne was bewildered ; he stood staring. Mr. Giovanelli had finished sing- ing. He left the piano and came over to Daisy. " Won't you come into the other room and have some tea?" he asked, bending before her with his ornamental smile. Daisy turned to Winterbourne, begin- ning to smile again. He was still more perplexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness 102 and softness that reverted instinctively to the pardon of offences. "It has never occurred to Mr. Winterbourne to offer me any tea," she said, with her little tor- menting manner. " I have offered you advice," Winter- bourne rejoined. " I prefer weak tea !" cried Daisy, and she went off with the brilliant Giovanelli. She sat with him in the adjoining room, in the embrasure of the window, for the rest of the evening. There was an in- teresting performance at the piano, but neither of these young people gave heed to it. When Daisy came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, this lady conscientiously repaired the weakness of which she had been guilty at the moment of the young girl's arrival. She turned her back straight upon Miss Miller, and left her to depart with what grace she might. Winter- bourne was standing near the door; he saw it all. Daisy turned very pale, and looked at her mother; but Mrs. Miller was humbly unconscious of any violation of the usual social forms. She appeared, indeed, to have felt an incongruous im- pulse to draw attention to her own striking observance of them. " Good-night, Mrs. Walker," she said; "we've had a beauti- ful evening. You see, if I let Daisy come to parties without me, I don't want her to go away without me." Daisy turned away, looking with a pale, grave face at the circle near the door; Winterbourne saw that, for the first moment, she was too much shocked and puzzled even for indignation. He on his side was greatly touched. " That was very cruel," he said to Mrs. Walker. "She never enters my drawing-room again !" replied his hostess. Since Winterbourne was not to meet her in Mrs. Walker's drawing-room, he went as often as possible to Mrs. Miller's hotel. The ladies were rarely at home ; but when he found them the devoted Giovanelli was always present. Yery often the brilliant little Eoman was in the drawing-room with Daisy alone, Mrs. Miller being apparently constantly of the opinion that discretion is the better part of surveillance. Winterbourne rioted, at first with surprise, that Daisy on these occasions was never embarrassed or an- noyed by his own entrance ; but he very presently began to feel that she had no 104 more surprises for him ; the unexpected in her behavior was the only thing to ex- pect. She showed no displeasure at her tete-a-tete with Giovanelli being inter- rupted ; she could chatter as freshly and freely with two gentlemen as with one; there was always, in her conversation, the panie odd mixture of audacity and pue- rility. Winterbourne remarked to him- self that if she was seriously interested in Giovanelli, it was very singular that she should not take more trouble to preserve the sanctity of their interviews ; and he liked her the more for her innocent-look- ing indifference and her apparently inex- haustible good-humor. He could hardly have said why, but she seemed to him a girl who would never be jealous. At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive smile on the reader's part, I may affirm that with regard to the women who had hitherto interested him, it very often seemed to Winterbourne among the possi- bilities that, given certain contingencies, he should be afraid literally afraid of these ladies ; he had a pleasant sense that he should never be afraid of Daisy Miller. It must be added that this sentiment was not altogether flattering to Daisy ; it was 105 part of his conviction, or rather of his apprehension, that she would prove a very light young person. But she was evidently very much interested in Giovanelli. She looked at him whenever he spoke ; she was perpetually tell- ing him to do this and to do that ; she was constantly " chaffing " and abusing him. She appeared com- pletely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. One Sunday after- noon, having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne per- ceived Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable Giova- nelli. Presently he point- ed out the young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Costel- lo. This lady looked at them a moment through her eye-glass, and then she said, " That's what makes yon so pensive in these days, eh ?" 106 kt I had not the least idea I was pen- sive," said the young man. " You are very much preoccupied ; you are thinking of something." " And what is it," he asked, " that you accuse me of thinking of T " Of that young lady's Miss Baker's, Miss Chandler's what's her name ? Miss Miller's intrigue with that little bar- ber's block." '' Do you call it an intrigue," Winter- bourne asked "an affair that goes on with such peculiar publicity?" " That's their folly," said Mrs. Costello; " it's not their merit." " No," rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded. "I don't believe that there is anything to be called an intrigue." " I have heard a dozen people speak of it ; they say she is quite carried away by him." " They are certainly very intimate," said Winterbourne. Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple again with her optical instrument. " He is very handsome. One easily sees how it is. She thinks him the most ele- 107 gant man in the world the finest gentle- man. She has never seen anything like him ; he is better, even, than the courier. It was the courier, probably, who intro- duced him ; and if he succeeds in marrying the young lady, the courier will come in for a magnificent commission." " I don't believe she thinks of marrying him," said Winterbourne, " and I don't believe he hopes to marry her." " You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. She goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, as they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine nothing more vulgar. And at the same time," added Mrs. Costello, " depend upon it that she may tell you any moment that she is ' engaged.' ' : " I think that is more than Giovanelli expects," said Winterbourne. " Who is Giovanelli ?" " The little Italian. I have asked ques- tions about him, and learned something. He is apparently a perfectly respect- able little man. I believe he is, in a small way, a cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn't move in what are called the first circles. I think it is really not absolutely impossible that the courier introduced 108 him. He is evidently immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest gen- tleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found himself in per- sonal contact with such splendor, such opulence, such expensiveness, as this young lady's. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pret- ty and interesting. I rather doubt that he dreams of marrying her. That must appear to him too im- possible a piece of luck. He has nothing but his handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial Mr. Miller in that mysterious land of dollars. Giovanelli knows that he hasn't a title to offer. If he were only a count or a marchese ! He must wonder at his luck, at the way they have taken him up." " He accounts for it by his handsome face, and thinks Miss Miller a young lady qui se passe ses fantaisies /" said Mrs. Costello. " It is very true," Winterbourne pur- sued, " that Daisy and her mamma have not yet risen to that stage of what shall I call it ? of culture, at which the idea of catching a count or a marchese begins. I believe that they are intellectually in- capable of that conception." "Ah! but the avvocato can't believe it," said Mrs. Costello. Of the observation excited by Daisy's "intrigue," Winterbourne gathered that day at St. Peter's sufficient evidence. A dozen of the American colonists in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Costello, who sat on a little portable stool at the base of one of the great pilasters. The vesper service was going forward in splendid chants and organ -tones in the adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Cos- tello and her friends, there was a great deal said about poor little Miss Miller's going really " too far." Winterbourne was not pleased with what he heard ; but 112 when, coming out upon the great steps of the church, he saw Daisy, who had emerged before him, get into an open cab with her accomplice and roll away through the cynical streets of Rome, he could not deny to himself that she was going very far indeed. He felt very sorry for her not exactly that he be- lieved that she had completely lost her head, but because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder. He made an attempt after this to give a hint to Mrs. Miller. He met one day in the Corso a friend, a tourist like himself, who had just come out of the Doria Palace, where he had been walking through the beautiful gallery. His friend talked for a moment about the superb portrait of Innocent X., by Velasquez, which hangs in one of the cabinets of the palace, and then said, " And in the same cabinet, by- the-way, I had the pleasure of contem- plating a picture of a different kind that pretty American girl whom you pointed out to me last week." In answer to Winterbourne's inquiries, his friend nar- rated that the pretty American girl 113 prettier than ever was seated with a companion in the secluded nook in which the great papal portrait was enshrined. " Who was her companion ?" asked Winterbourne. "A little Italian with a bouquet in his button-hole. The girl is delightfully pret- ty ; but I thought I understood from you the other day that she was a young lady du meitteur monde" "So she is!" answered Winterbourne; and having assured himself that his in- formant had seen Daisy and her compan- ion but five minutes before, he jumped into a cab and went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at home ; but she apologized to him for receiving him in Daisy's absence. "She's gone out somewhere with Mr. Giovanelli," said Mrs. Miller. " She's al- ways going round with Mr. Giovanelli." " I have noticed that they are very in- timate," Winterbourne observed. " Oh, it seems as if they couldn't live without each other!" said Mrs. Miller. " Well, he's a real gentleman, anyhow. I keep telling Daisy she's engaged !" " And what does Daisy say?" " Oh, she says she isn't engaged. But she might as well be!" this impartial 1U arent resumed ; " she goes on as if she | was. But I've made Mr. Giovanelli promise to tell me, if she doesn't. I should want to write to Mr. Miller about it shouldn't you?" Winterbourne replied that he cer- tainly should ; and the state of mind of Daisy's mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parent- al vigilance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place her upon her guard. After this Daisy was never at home, and Winterbourne ceased to meet her at the houses of their common acquaint- ances, because, as he perceived, these shrewd people had quite made up their minds that she was going too far. They ceased to invite her; and they intimat- ed that they desired to express to ob- servant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behavior was not representative was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. Winter- bourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have re- flected upon her ostracism, or even to have perceived it. Then at other mo- ments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little or- ganism a defiant, passionate, perfectly ob- servant consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether Daisy's defiance carne from the conscious- ness of innocence, or from her being, es- sentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding one's self to a belief in Daisy's "inno- cence" came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gal- lantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding him- self reduced to chopping logic about this young lady ; he was vexed at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her eccentricities were generic, na- tional, and how far they were personal. From either view of them he had some- how missed her, and now it was too late. She was "carried away" by Mr. Giova- nelli. 116 A few clays after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode of flowering desola- tion known as the Palace of the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface of the Palatine was muffled with tender verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top of one of those great mounds of ruin that are embanked with mossy mar- ble and paved with monumental inscrip- tions. It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as just then. He stood looking off at the enchanting har- mony of line and color that remotely en- circles the city, inhaling the softly humid odors, and feeling the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the place reaf- firm themselves in mysterious interfusion. It seemed to him, also, that Daisy had never looked so pretty ; but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, and Gio- vanelli, too, wore an aspect of even un- wonted brilliancy. " Well," said Daisy, " I should think you would be lonesome !" " Lonesome ?" asked Winterbourne. " You are always going round by your- 117 self. Can't you get any one to walk with you?" " I am not so fortunate," said Winter- bourne, " as your companion." Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with distinguished polite- ness. He listened with a deferential air to his remarks ; he laughed punctiliously at his pleasantries ; he seemed disposed to testify to his belief that Winterbourne was a superior young man. He carried himself in no degree like a jealous wooer ; he had obviously a great deal of tact ; he had no objection to your expecting a lit- tle humility of him. It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain mental relief in be- ing able to have a private understanding with him to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, he knew how extraor- dinary was this young lady, and didn't flatter himself with delusive or, at least, too delusive hopes of matrimony and dollars. On this occasion he strolled away from his companion to pluck a sprig of almond-blossom, which he carefully ar- ranged in his button-hole. " I know why you say that," said Daisy, watching Giovanelli. " Because you think 118 I go round too much with him" And she nodded at her attendant. " Every one thinks so if you care to know," said Winterbourne. "Of course I care to know!" Daisy exclaimed, seriously. " But I don't believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked. They don't really care a straw what I do. Besides, I don't go round so much." " I think you will find they do care. They will show it disagreeably." Daisy looked at him a moment. "How disagreeably?" "Haven't you noticed anything?" Winterbourne asked. "I have noticed you. But I no- ticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you." "You will find I am not so stiff as several others," said Winterbourne, smiling. "How shall I find it?" " By going to see the others." " What will they do to me ?" " They will give you the cold shoul- der. Do you know what that means ?" Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to color. " Do you mean as Mrs. Walker did the other night ?" " Exactly !" said Winterbourne. She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorating himself with his almond- blossom. Then, looking back at Winter- bourne, " I shouldn't think you would let people be so unkind !" she said. " How can I help it ?" he asked. " I should think you would say some- thing." " I did say something ;" and he paused a moment. "I say that your mother tells me that she believes you are engaged." "Well, she does," said Daisy, very simply. Winterbonrne began to laugh. "And does Randolph believe it?" he asked. " I guess Randolph doesn't believe any- thing," said Daisy. Randolph's scepti- cism excited Winterbonrne to further hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, ob- serving it too, addressed herself again to her countryman. " Since you have men- tioned it," she said, " I am engaged." . . . Winterbourne looked at her; he had stopped laughing. "You don't believe it !" she added. 120 He was silent a moment ; and then, " Yes, I believe it," he said. " Oh no, you don't !" she answered. " Well, then I am not !" The young girl and her cicerone were on their way to the gate of the enclosure, so that Winterbourne, who had but lately entered, presently took leave of them. A week afterwards he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he prom- ised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely-lighted monuments of the Forurn. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brill- iant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud- curtain which seemed to diffuse and equal- ize it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o'clock), Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Col- osseum, it occurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage one of the little Roman street-cabs was sta- 121 tioned. Then he passed in, among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade, the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron's famous lines, out of "Manfred ;" but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal medita- tions in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly ; but the historic atmos- phere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villanous miasma. Winter- bourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in the centre was covered with shadow ; it was only as he drew near it that he made it out distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were stationed upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman, seated ; her compan- ion was standing in front of her. Presently the sound of the woman's voice came to him distinctly in the warm night air. "Well, he looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers may have looked at the Christian martyrs!" These were the words he heard, in the familiar accent of Miss Daisy Miller. "Let us hope he is not very hungry," 123 responded the ingenious Giovanelli. " He will have to take me first ; you will serve for dessert !" Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror, and, it must be added, with a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumina- tion had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy's behavior, and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect. He stood there looking at her looking at her compan- ion, and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller. Then, as he was go- ing to advance again, he checked himself ; not from the fear that he was doing her injustice, but from the sense of the dan- ger of appearing unbecomingly exhila- rated by this sudden revulsion from cau- tious criticism. He turned away towards the entrance of the place, but, as he did so, he heard Daisy speak again. " Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne ! He saw me, and he cuts me !" What a clever little reprobate she was, 124 and how smartly she played at injured innocence ! But he wouldn't cut her. AVinterbourne came forward again, and went towards the great cross. Daisy had got up ; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Win- terbourne had now begun to think simply of the craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she were a clever little rep- robate? that was no reason for her dying of the perniciosa. " How long have you been here ?" he asked, almost brutally. Daisy, lovely in the flattering moon- light, looked at him a moment. Then "All the evening," she answered, gently. ..." I never saw anything so pretty." "I am afraid," said Win- terbourne, " that you will not think Roman fever very pret- ty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder," he added, turning to Giovanelli, "that you, a native Roman, should countenance such a terrible indiscretion." " Ah," said the handsome native, " for myself I am not afraid." " Neither am I for you! I am speak- ing for this young lady." Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eye- brows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterbourne's rebuke with do- cility. "I told the signorina it was a grave indiscretion ; but when was the sign- orina ever prudent?" "I never was sick, and I don't mean to be !" the signorina declared. " I don't look like much, but I'm healthy ! I was bound to see the Colosseum by moonlight ; I shouldn't have wanted to go home with- out that ; and we have had the most beau- tiful time, haven't we, Mr. Giovanelli ? If there has been any danger, Eugenio can give me some pills. He has got some splendid pills." " I should advise you," said Winter- bourne, "to drive home as fast as possi- ble and take one !" "What you say is very wise," Giova- nelli rejoined. "I will go and make sure the carriage is at hand." And he went forward rapidly. 126 Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her ; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Win- terbourne said nothing ; Daisy chat- tered about the beauty of the place. " Well, I have seen the Colosseum by moonlight !" she exclaimed. "That's one good thing." Then, noticing Winterbonrne's silence, she asked him why he didn't speak. He made no answer ; he only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark archways; Giovanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped a moment, looking at the young American. "Did you believe I was engaged the other day?" she asked. " It doesn't matter what I be- lieved the other day," said Winterbourne,still laughing. _ ^' " Well, what do you be- lieve now?" " I believe that it makes very lit- tle difference whether you are en- gaged or not!" He felt the young girl's pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick gloom of the archway; she was apparently go- ing to answer. But Giovanelli hurried her forward. " Quick ! quick !" he said ; "if we get in by midnight we are quite safe." Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the fortunate Italian placed himself be- side her. " Don't forget Eugenie's pills !" said Winterbourne, as he lifted his hat. " I don't care," said Daisy, in a little strange tone, " whether I have Roman fever or not !" Upon this the cab-driver cracked his whip, and they rolled away over the desultory patches of the antique pavement. Winterbourne, to do him justice, as it were, mentioned to no one that he had encountered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a gentleman ; but, nevertheless, a couple of days later, the fact of her having been there under these circumstances was known to every mem- ber of the little American circle, and com- mented accordingly. Winterbourne re- flected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that, after Daisy's return, there had been an exchange of remarks 128 between the porter and the cab-driver. But the young man was conscious, at the same moment, that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be "talked about" by low-minded menials. These people, a day or two later, had serious in- formation to give : the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the rumor came to him, immedi- ately went to the hotel for more news. He found that two or three charitable friends had preceded him, and that they were being entertained in Mrs. Miller's salon by Randolph. " It's going round at night," said Ran- dolph " that's what made her sick. She's always going round at night. I shouldn't think she'd want to, it's so plaguy dark. You can't see anything here at night, ex- cept when there's a moon ! In America there's always a moon !" Mrs. Miller was invisible ; she was now, at least, giving her daughter the advantage of her society. It was evident that Daisy was dangerous- ly ill. Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was, rather 129 to his surprise, perfectly composed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judi- cious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. Davis, but Winterbourne paid her the compliment of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such a monstrous goose. " Daisy spoke of you the other day," she said to him. "Half the time she doesn't know what she's saying, but that time I think she did. She gave me a message. She told me to tell you she told me to tell you that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am very glad. Mr. Giovanelli hasn't been near us since she was taken ill. I thought he was so much of a gentleman ; but I don't call that very polite ! A lady told me that he was afraid I was angry with him for taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am ; but I suppose he knows I'm a lady. I would scorn to scold him. Anyway, she says she's not engaged. I don't know why she wanted you to know ; but she said to me three times, 'Mind you tell Mr. Winterbourne.' And then she told me to ask if you remembered the time you went to that castle in Switz- erland. But I said I wouldn't give any such messages as that. Only, if she is 130 not engaged, I'm sure I'm glad to know it." But, as AVinterbourne had said, it mat- tered very little. A week after this the poor girl died ; it had been a terrible case of the fever. Daisy's grave was in the little Protestant cemetery, in an angle of the wall of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses and the thick spring -flowers. Wiiiterbourne stood there beside it, with a number of other mourners a number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady's career would have led you to expect. Near him stood Giovanelli, who came nearer still before Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli was very pale : on this occasion he had no flower in his button-hole ; he seemed to wish to say something. At last he said, "She was the most beautiful young lady I ever saw, and the most amiable ;" and then he added in a moment, "and she was the most innocent." Winterbourne looked at him, and pres- ently repeated his w r ords, " And the most innocent ?" " The most innocent !" Winterbourne felt sore and angry. "Why the devil," he asked, "did you take her to that fatal place ?" Mr. Giovanelli's urbanity was appar- ently imperturbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and then he said, " For myself I had no fear ; and she wanted to go." " That was no reason !" Winterbourne declared. The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. "If she had lived, I should have 132 got nothing. She would never have mar- ried me, I am sure." " She would never have married you ?" " For a moment I hoped so. But no. I am sure." Winterbourne listened to him : he stood staring at the raw protuberance among the April daisies. When ho turned away again, Mr. Giovanelli with his light, slow step, had retired. Winterbourne almost immediately left Rome ; but the following summer he again met his aunt, Mrs. Costello, at Ve- vay. Mrs. Costello was fond of Yevay. In the interval Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystify- ing manners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt said it was on his conscience that he had done her injustice. "I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. Costello. " How did your injustice affect her?" "She sent me a message before her death which I didn't understand at the time ; but I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one's esteem." "Is that a modest way," asked Mrs. Costello, " of saying that she would have reciprocated one's affection ?" Winterbourne offered no answer to this question ; but he presently said, " You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts." Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, whence there continue to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn : a report that he is "studying" hard an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady. Jlart ,OUR years ago in 1S74 two young Englishmen Lad oc- casion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, ar- riving 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 passen- gers 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 favorable one ; still, it is not without its pictu- resque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well resemble less a typical Eng- lish street than the intermi- nable avenue, rich in incon- gruities, through which our two travellers advanced looking out on each side of them at the comfortable animation of the sidewalks, the high-colored, heterogeneous archi- tecture, the huge, white marble fa9ades glittering in the strong, crude light, and bedizened with gilded lettering, the mul- tifarious awnings, banners, and streamers, the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horse-cars, and other democratic vehicles, the venders of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw-hats of the police- men, the tripping gait of the 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 cross- ing Union Square, in front of the monu- ment to Washington in the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the pater patrioe 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 dare say," remarked the other. 138 " I wonder," said the second speaker, presently, "if they can give one a bath ?" " I dare say not," rejoined the other. " Oh, I say !" cried his com- rade. This animated discussion was checked by their arrival at the hotel, which had been recommended to them by an Amer- ican 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, how- ever, had been defeated by their friend's finding that his "partner" was await- ing him on the wharf, and that his commercial associate desired him in- stantly to come and give his attention to certain telegrams received from St. Louis. But the two English- men, with nothing but their na- tional prestige and personal graces to recommend them, were very well re- ceived at the hotel, which had an air of capacious hospitality. They found that a bath was not unattainable, and were in- deed struck with the facilities for pro- longed and reiterated immersion with which their apartment was supplied. Af- ter bathing a good deal more, indeed, than they had ever done before on a sin- gle occasion they made their way into the dining-room of the hotel, 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 some- thing particularly agreeable in the circum- stances in which our young Englishmen found themselves. They were extremely good-natured young men ; they were more ol)servant than they appeared ; 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 140 affair from the great clattering seesaw 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 mar- ble-paved walks. And above the vivid verdure rose other fagades of white mar- ble and of pale chocolate-colored 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 proportion of whom were young women in Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, the place was cool and vaguely lighted, with the plash of water, the odor of flowers, and the flitting of French wait- ers, as I have said, upon soundless car- pets. " It's rather like Paris, you know," said the younger of our two travellers. "It's like Paris only more so," his companion rejoined. "I suppose it's the French waiters," 141 said the first speaker. " Why don't they have French waiters in London ?" "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 Eng- lish waiter at me. I suppose they think I can't speak French." " Well, you can't." And the elder of the young Englishmen unfolded his napkin. His companion took no notice what- ever of this declaration. "I say," he resumed, in a moment, " I suppose we must learn to speak American. I suppose we must take les- sons.' 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 English- men 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 neighboring 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 curb-stone emitted strange exotic odors. The young men wandered through the ad- joining square that queer place without palings, and with marble walks arranged in black and white lozenges. There were a great many benches, crowded with shab- by-looking people, and the travellers re- marked, 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, 143 brightly lighted windows. At the base of this populous structure 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 pass- ers-by promiscuously. The young Eng- lishmen went in with every one else, from curiosity, and saw a couple of hun- dred 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 brill- iantly illuminated counter of vast extent. These latter persons, who carried port- manteaus in their hand, had a dejected, exhausted look ; their garments were not very fresh, and they seemed to be ren- dering some mysterious tribute to a mag- nificent young man with a waxed mus- tache, and a shirt-front adorned with diamond buttons, who every now and then dropped an absent glance over their mul- titudinous patience. They were American citizens doing homage to a hotel clerk. 144 " I'm glad lie didn't tell us to go there/ 5 said one of our Englishmen, alluding to their friend on the steamer, who had told them so many things. They walked up 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 door-steps, in the streets which radiate from the more ornamental thor- oughfare. They went a little way down one of these side streets, and they saw young ladies in white dresses charm- ing-looking persons seated in graceful attitudes on the chocolate-colored steps. In one or two places these young ladies were conversing across the street with other young ladies seated in similar post- ures and costumes in front of the opposite houses, and in the warm night air their colloquial tones sounded strange in the ears of the young Englishmen. One of our friends, never- theless the younger one intimated that he felt a disposition to interrupt a few of these soft familiar- ities; but his companion observed, per- tinently enough, that he had better be careful. "We must not begin with mak- ing mistakes," said his companion. " 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!" an- swered his comrade, who, if he had greater talents, was also apparently more of a moralist. By bedtime in their impatience to taste of a terrestrial couch again, our sea- farers went to bed early it was still in- sufferably hot, and the buzz of the mosqui- toes 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 Eng- land ; 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 146 Americans went when they wished to cool off. They had not the least idea, and they determined to apply for infor- mation 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. Be- neath the address, in the left-hand corner of the envelope, were the words, " Intro- ducing Lord Lambeth and Percy Beau- mont, 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 Englishman 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 trib- ulation Lord Lambeth and Mr. Percy Beaumont should have bethought them- selves of a gentleman whose attractions had been thus vividly depicted all the more so that he lived in Fifth Avenue, and that Fifth Avenue, as they had ascer- tained 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 Lambeth, " 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 -colored expanse, relieved 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. "Kather better than a London house," said Lord Lambeth, looking down from this altitude, after they had rung the bell. 148 k> It depends upon what London house you mean," replied his companion. "You have a tremendous chance to get wet be- tween 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. West- gate. " He ain't at home, sah ; he's down town at his o'fice." "Oh, at his office?" said the visitor. " And when will he be at home ?" " Well, sah, when he goes out dis way in de mo'ning, he ain't liable to come home all day." This w r as discouraging; but the ad-' dress of Mr. Westgate'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 comfort- ably down - town. They measured the whole length of Broadway again, and found it a path of fire ; and then, deflect- ing to the left, they were deposited by their conductor before a fresh, light, or- namental 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-colored garments and a hat with a blue ribbon, who had evi- dently perceived them to be aliens and helpless to a very snug hydraulic eleva- tor, in which they took their place with many other persons, and which, shooting upward in its vertical socket, presently projected them into the seventh horizon- tal 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 corn- posed of several different rooms, and they waited very silently in one of them after they had sent in their letter and their cards. The letter was not one which it would take Mr. "Westgate very long to 150 read, but he came out to speak to them more instantly than they could have ex- pected ; 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 same time sociable and business-like, a quick, in- telligent eye, and a large brown mustache, which concealed his mouth and made his chin beneath it look small. Lord Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever. "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 an- other room, where there were law-books and papers, and windows wide open be- neath striped awning. 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?" 151 "I can't say we like it," said Lord Lambeth ; " but Beaumont likes it bet- ter than I." " Well, it won't last," Mr. Westgate very cheerfully declared ; " nothing un- pleasant 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 will remember him as if I didn't remember making six sherry-cob- blers for him one day in about twenty minutes. I hope you left him well, two years having elasped 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 sayingvto me only a day or two ago, ' It's time for the watermelons and the Englishmen.'" "The Englishmen and the water- melons just now are about the same thing," Percy Beaumont said, wiping his dripping forehead. "Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the mel- ons. You must go down to Newport." " We'll go anywhere," said Lord Lam- beth. " Yes, you want to go to Newport ; that's what you want to do," Mr. West- gate affirmed. " But let's see when did you get here ?" "Only yesterday," said Percy Beau- mont. " Ah, yes, by the Ifaissia. 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 Lam- beth. 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 sha'n't insist upon your liking the gnats ; though cer- tainly you'll admit that, as gnats, they are fine, eh ? But you oughtn't to re- main in the city." " So we think," said Lord Lambeth. " If you would kindly suggest some- thing" 153 " Suggest something, my dear sir ?" and Mr. Westgate looked at him, narrow- ing his eyelids. " Open your mouth and shut your eyes ! Leave it to me, and I'll put you through. It's a matter of na- tional 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 proper- ty ; and if any one should try to appropri- ate you, please to say, 'Hands off ; too late for the market.' But let's see," continued , the American, in his slow, humor- ous voice, with a distinctness of ut- terance which appeared to his visit- ors to be a part of a humor- ous 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 Lam- beth?" " 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." "Is it your first visit to the United States?" " "Oh dear yes." " I was obliged to come on some busi- ness," said Percy Beaumont, " and I brought Lambeth along." " And you have been here before, sir ?" " Never never." 4 .'I thought, from your referring to business " said Mr. Westgate. " Oh, you see I'm by way of being a barris- ter," 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 accordingly." 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 in- stant. " Well, I'm sorry you want 155 to attack one of our institutions," lie said, smiling. " But I guess you had better en- joy yourself first!" "I'm certainly rather afraid I can't work in this weather," the young barris- ter confessed. " Leave that to the natives," said Mr. Westgate. "Leave the Tennessee Cen- tral 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 Eng- lishmen 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 19th of September," 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. West- gate, " you had better amuse your- self 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 bet- ter 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. West- gate. "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?" 157 "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 inter- posed. "Boston in this weather would be very trying; it's not the temperature for intellectual 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 natural complex- ion glancing aside after a moment to see that his companion was not looking too credulous, for he had heard a great deal of American humor. " I dare say it is very jolly," said the younger gentle- man. " I dare say 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 of 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 158 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 tind it tolerable. For the rest, you must make yourself at home at my place. You mustn't be shy, you know ; 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 ex- pect you'll find some pretty girls on the premises. I shall write to my wife by this afternoon's mail, and to-morrow morning she and Miss Alden will look out for you. Just walk right in and make yourself comfortable. 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 j few days hence, at the end of the week, I will come down to Newport, and see how yon are getting on." The two young Englishmen inaugu- rated the policy of not resisting Mrs. Westgate by submitting, with great do- cility and thankfulness, to her husband. He was evidently a very good fellow, and he made an impression upon his vis- itors; his hospitality seemed to recom- mend itself consciously with a friendly wink, as it were as if it hinted, judi- ciously, that you could not possibly make a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his cousin left their entertainer to his labors and returned to their hotel, where they spent three or four hours in their respec- tive shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had suggested that they ought to see some- thing of the town ; but " Oh, d n the town !" his noble kinsman had rejoined. They returned to Mr. West-gate'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 dis- pensing with his attendance, and starting on a hasty scramble to the wharf. But when at last he appeared, and the car- riage plunged into the purlieus of Broad- way, 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 pas- sengers still active. It was indeed, as Mr. AVestgate 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 ap- peared to have the entree, was very grate- ful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. He showed them their state-room a spa- cious apartment, embellished with gas- lamps, mirrors en pied, and sculptured furniture and then, long after they had been intimately convinced that the steam- er was in motion and launched upon the unknown stream that they were about to navigate, he bade them a sociable fare- well. "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." 161 FALL STEAMBO/ NEWPOI LEAVES IR The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with wan- dering about the immense labyrin- thine steamer, which struck them as an extraordinary mixture of a ship and a hotel. It was dense- ly crowded with passengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and very young chil- dren ; and in the big saloons, orna- mented in white and gold, which followed each other in surprising succession, beneath the swinging gaslight, and among the small side passages where the negro domes- tics of both sexes assembled with an air of philosophic leisure, ev- ery one was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and familiar ob- servations. Eventually, at the in- stance of a discriminating black, our young men went and had some "supper" in a wonderful place ar- ranged like a theatre, where, in a gilded gallery, upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orches- tra 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 tiling, 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 ci- gars those of Mr. Westgate and talked together as they usually talked, with many odd silences, lapses of logic, and incon- gruities 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 refer- ence to a fund of associations in the light of which everything was all right. " We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beaumont observed. "Upon my word, we are going back to England. He has shipped us off again. I call that 'real mean." 1 " I suppose it's all right,'' said Lord 163 Lambeth. "I want to see those pretty girls at New- port You know he told us the place was an island ; and aren't all islands in the sea ?" "Well," resumed the elder trav- eller after a while, " if his house is as good as his cigars, we shall do very well indeed." " He seems a very good fel- low," said Lord Lambeth, as x if this idea just occurred to him. " I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined his companion, present- ly. "I don't think I like the way he spoke of his house, I don't like stop- ping in the house with such a tremen- dous lot of women." "Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lam- beth. And then they smoked a while in silence. " Fancy his thinking we do no work in England !" the young man re- sumed. " I dare say he didn't really think so 3 " 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 dev- ilish civil," observed the young noble- man. "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." " My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said Percy Beaumont. " I don't care. I dare say I sha'n't begin." " With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all very well," Beaumont expounded. " But our friend mentioned 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 companion. " 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 Beau- mont, "you have got your natural pro- tectors. You have got your mother and sisters." " My mother and sisters " began the young nobleman, 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 Beau- mont. " 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 so- licitude. 166 " All," 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 di- minutive bedrooms in a far-away angle of an immense hotel. They had gone ashore in the early summer 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 in- 167 quisitive. They looked out of their win- dows across a row of small green fields, bordered with low stone -walls of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky, and fleck- ed now and then with scintillating patch- es of foam. A strong, fresh breeze came in through the curtainless casements, and prompted our young men to observe gen- erally that it didn't seem half a bad cli- mate. 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 re- past. 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 re- flecting that its bewildering catego- 168 ries had relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy prevision of an encyclopaedic dinner list. They found a great deal of entertainment at the hotel, an enormous wooden structure, for the erection of which it seemed to them that the virgin forests of the West must have been terri- bly deflowered. It was perforated from end to end with immense bare corridors, through which a strong draught was blowing bearing along wonderful fig- ures of ladies in white morning -dresses and clouds of Valenciennes lace, who seemed to float down the long vistas with expanded furbelows like angels spread- ing their wings. In front was a gigan- tic veranda, upon which an army might have encamped a vast wooden terrace, with a roof as lofty as the nave of a ca- thedral. Here our young Englishmen enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of American society, which was distributed over the measureless expanse in a varie- ty of sedentary attitudes, and appeared to consist largely of pretty young girls, dressed as if for a fete champetre, swaying to and fro in rocking-chairs, fanning themselves with large straw fans, and enjoying an enviable ex- / eruption from social cares. Lord Lam- beth had a theory, which it might be in- teresting 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 (as he had done a couple of days before) found occasion to check the young no- bleman'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 Amer- icans 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 perceive that the observation of American society de- manded a readjustment of one's stand- ard. " Hang it, then, let's find out !" cried Lord Lambeth, with some impatience. "You know I don't want to miss any- thing." "We will find out," said Percy Beau- mont, very reasonably. "We will go 170 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, descend- ed from the veranda of the big hotel and took their way, according to direction, along a large, straight road, past a series of fresh - looking villas embosomed in shrubs and flowers, and enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden palings. The morning was brilliant and cool, the villas were smart and snug, and the walk of the young travellers was very en- tertaining. 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 spar- kle in the radiant air, and the gravel in the short carriage sweeps to flash and twinkle. Along the road came a hun- dred little basket-phaetons, in which, al- most always, a couple of ladies were sit- ting ladies in white dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and look- ing at the two Englishmen whose na- tionality was not elusive through thick 173 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 interro- gated 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 pictu- resque structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was perched upon a green embankment just above it. The house had a veranda of extraordinary width all around it, and a great many doors and windows standing open to the veranda. These various apertures had, in common, 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 them- selves at one of the windows. The room within was dark, but in a moment a grace- ful 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 174 frank, charming smile, with which she held out her hand to Percy Beaumont. " Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth arid Mr. Beaumont," 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. Iler visitors were a little shy, but they had very good manners ; they responded with smiles and exclamations, and they apologized 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 dis- tinctions, 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 Beaumont. " 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 yon," 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 pro- portions, and with its awnings, its fanci- ful 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 lawn-like smooth- ness, it formed a charming complement to the drawing-room. As such it was in course of use at the present moment ; it was occupied by a social circle. There were several ladies and two or three gen- tlemen, to whom Mrs. Westgate proceeded to introduce the distinguished strangers. She mentioned a great many names very freely and distinctly ; the young English- men, shuffling about and bowing, were rather bewildered. But at last they were 176 provided with chairs low, wicker chairs, gilded, and tied with a great many rib- bons 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 exceedingly 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 interrupted 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 177 17 freely; "he wouldn't be able to get the young ladies to attend to him now." There was something very friendly, Beaumont perceived, in the attitude of the company ; they looked at the young Englishmen with an air of animated sym- pathy 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 her- self 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 extreme- , ly light and graceful elegant, exquisite. Mrs. Westgate was extremely spontane- 1 ous. She was very frank and demonstra- tive, and appeared always while she looked at you delightedly with her beau- tiful young eyes to be making sudden confessions and concessions after momen- tary hesitations. "We shall expect to see a great deal of you," she said to Lord Lambeth, with a kind of joyous earnestness. "We are IP \"> 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 diffi- culty about that. Englishmen are very well received here ; there are almost al- ways 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 England 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 ; 179 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 Americans; 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 can't wear an English hat at least, I never could unless you dress your hair a VAnglcbisej 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 supposed that in other things everything was dif- ferent. I mean according to the people according to the classes, and all that. I am afraid you will think that I don't 180 take a very favorable view; but you know you can't take a very favorable 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 some- times 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 181 I am in Europe I am always on the Conti- nent. 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 noth- ing on that scale. " I don't apologize, Lord Lambeth ; some Americans are always apologizing ; you 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 tilings over. The American flag has quite gone out of fash- ion ; it's very carefully folded up like an old table-cloth. Why should we apol- ogize? The English never apologize do they? No ; I must say I never apol- ogize. 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 pleas- ant manners. u 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 at 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 charm- ing 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, otherwise what did one come abroad for? Look for your pleas- ure 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 dread- 183 fully confined to New York. I suppose you think that is very strange for a gentleman. But you see we haven't any leisure class." Mrs. Westgate's discourse, delivered in a soft, sweet voice, flowed on like a min- iature torrent, and was interrupted by a hundred little smiles, glances, and gest- ures, which might have figured the ir- regularities and obstructions of such a stream. Lord Lambeth listened to her with, it must be confessed, a rather in- effectual attention, although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and ejac- ulations of assent and deprecation. He had no great faculty for apprehending generalizations. 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 mo- ment ; 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 special 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 184 was rather more successful than his com- panion; for besides being, as we know, cleverer, his attention was not vaguely distracted by close vicinity to a remark- ably 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 re- mark 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 dare say he is very busy," Lord Lambeth observed. " The gentlemen in America work too much," the young girl went on. " Oh, do they ? I dare say they like it," said her interlocutor. " I don't like it. One never sees them." " Don't you, really ?" asked Lord Lam- beth. " 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 be- gan again. "But Mr. Westgate will come down here, will he not ?" "I certainly hope he will. He must help to entertain you and Mr. Beaumont." Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his handsome 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 186 a moment, and then, " I dare say 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 hus- band. But all Americans are that," she continued, smiling. " Really !" Lord Lambeth exclaimed again, and wondered whether all Amer- ican ladies had such a passion for gener- alizing as these two. 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 Avas a shifting of seats and changing of places ; the gentlemen all entered into intimate conversation with the two Eng- lishmen, made them urgent offers of hos- pitality, and hoped they might frequently be of service to them. They were afraid Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont were not very comfortable at their hotel ; that it was not, as one of them said, " so pri- 187 vate 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 cer- tainly growing a great deal more pri- vate ; it was growing very much like England. Everything at Newport, for instance, was thoroughly private ; Lord Lambeth would probably be struck with that. It was also represented 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 peo- ple, 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 kno\v She was ex- tremely brill- iant, and a splendid talk- er. Some peo- ple preferred her sister ; but Miss Aid en was very different ; she was in a dif- ferent 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 ed- ucated. Boston girls, it was propounded, 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 compliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they should walk down to the rocks and look at the sea, the 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 obliga- tion 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 sis- ter's fraternizing quality. She was, per- haps, 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 Bos- ton style was very charming. He thought she looked very clever ; he could imagine that she was highly educated ; but at the same time she seemed gentle and grace- ful. 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 fram 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 Beau- mont. " Very jolly place, isn't it ?" said Lord Lambeth. " It's a very jolly place to sit." " Very charming," said the young girl. 190 " I often sit here ; there are all kinds of cosey 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. " I dare say 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 per- ception 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." 191 They were wandering about a little on the rocks, and they stopped and looked down into a narrow chasm where the ris- ing tide made a curious bellowing sound. It was loud enough to prevent their hear- ing 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 hand- some 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 say- ing that he looked stupid. He was ev- idently 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 dniness in his eye, he looked thoroughly reasonable and competent, and his appear- ance proclaimed that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent fellow was a sufficiently brilliant combination of qual- ities. The young girl beside him, it may be attested without further delay, thought him the handsomest young man she had ever seen ; and Bessie Alden's imagina- tion, unlike that of her companion, was irritable. He, however, was also making up his mind that she was uncommonly pretty. "I dare say it's very gay here that you have lots of balls and parties," he said ; for, if he was not tremendously clever, he rather prided himself on hav- ing, with women, a sufficiency of con- versation. "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 al- ways 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 gay- eties," said the young girl, looking at him with a little mixture of interrogation 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." 194 " All well, you know," said her com- panion, " 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 mind- ing them ?" "Ah, well, Thackeray and George Eliot," said the young nobleman ; " I haven't read much of them." " Don't you suppose they know about society ?" asked Bessie Alden. " Oh, I dare say they know ; they were so clever. But these fashionable novels," said Lord Lambeth, " they are awful rot, you know." His companion looked at him a mo- ment with her dark blue eyes, and then she looked down in 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, ei- ther," was the young man's rejoinder, laughing a little and blushing. "I am afraid you'll think I am not very intel- lectual." " Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of in- 195 tellect. But I like reading everything, about English life even poor books. Ij 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 Lambeth, made 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?" 196 "It's the dream of my life!" said Bessie Alden, smiling. " But your sister seems to know a tre- mendous lot about London," Lord Lam- beth went on. 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 Eng- lishman 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 impressi veil ess. At- tempts 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 197' 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 Eng- land 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 impatient." They had gone farther, and Mrs. Westgate and her companion were near them. "Kit- ty," said Miss Alden, " I have given out that we are going to London next May. So please to conduct yourself accord- ingly." Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat ani- mated even a slightly irritated air. He was by no means so handsome a man as his cousin, although in his cousin's ab- sence he might have passed for a striking specimen of the tall, muscular, fair-beard- ed, clear- eyed Englishman. Just now Beaumont's clear eyes, which were small and of a pale gray color, had a rather trou- bled light, and, after glancing at Bessie Alden while she spoke, he rested them upon his kinsman. Mrs. Westgate mean- while, with her superfluously 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 perfectly delight- ful." " Oh, I say, Percy !" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. " I disagree," said Beaumout, stroking down his back 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 Lam- beth." 199 At tins 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 expos- itory air, "must buy something every day of her life. If she can- not do it herself, she must send out some member of her family for the pur- pose. So Bessie goes forth to ful- fil my mis- sion." 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 very 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 re- peated. " But she is a dear, good girl ; she is a charming species of a 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 very simple, very serious. She has lived a great deal in Boston, with another sister of mine the eldest of us who married a Bos- tonian. She is very cultivated not at all like me ; I am not in the least cul- tivated. She has studied immensely and 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 pri- vately reflected. 201 " I really believe," Mrs. Westgate con- tinued, " that the most charming girl in the world is a Boston superstructure upon a New Yorkfondsj 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 in- formation. 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 New- port. The ancient town was a curious affair a collection of fresh-looking little wooden houses, painted white, scattered over a hill-side and clustered about a long, straight street, paved with enormous cob- ble-stones. There were plenty of shops, a large proportion of which appeared to be those of fruit venders, with piles of huge watermelons and pumpkins stacked in front of them ; arid, drawn up before the shops, or bumping about on the cob- ble-stones, were innumerable other bas- ket-phaetons freighted with ladies of high fashion, who greeted each other from 202 vehicle to vehicle, and conversed 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 foot- man, he sat in the phaeton to hold the ponies, where, although he was not a particularly acute observer, he saw much to entertain him especially the ladies just mentioned, who wandered tip 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 des- ultory conversation with Bessie Alden. The young Englishmen spent the whole of that day and the whole of many sue- cessive days in what the French call the intimite of their new friends. They .MB gr ; . B agreed that it was extremely jolly, that they had never known anything 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 rec- ord of impressions none the less delec- table that they were not exhaustively an- alyzed. 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 talk- ing and laughing and flirting and lunch- ing and dining; of universal friendliness and frankness; of occasions on which they knew every one and everything, and had an extraordinary sense of ease ; of drives and rides in the late afternoon over gleaming beaches, on long sea-roads beneath a sky lighted up by marvellous sunsets ; of suppers, on the return, infor- mal, irregular, agreeable ; of evenings at open windows or on the perpetual ve- randas, in the summer starlight, above the warm Atlantic. The young English- men were introduced to everybody, enter- tained by everybody, intimate with every- 204 body. At the end of three days they had removed their luggage from the hotel, and gone to stay with Mrs. Westgate a step to which Percy Beau- mont at first offered some conscientious opposition. I call his opposition conscien- tious, because it was founded upon some 205 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 Eng- land his position ?" "His position?" Percy Beaumont re- peated. " His rank, or whatever you call it. Unfortunately, we haven't got a 'peer- age,' 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 peer, then ?" " Oh yes, he is a peer." " And has he any other title than Lord Lambeth ?" " His title is the Marquis of Lambeth," 206 said Beaumont ; and then lie was silent. Bessie Alden appeared to be looking at him with interest. " He is the son of the Duke of Bayswater," he added, pres- ently. " 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 Bays water f " Of course," said Percy Beaumont. " But his father is in excellent health." "And his mother?" Beaumont smiled a little. "The duch- ess is uncommonly 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." "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 Beau- mont, "all about your people and your possessions." " 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." "D n my eyes!" exclaimed Lord Lam- beth. " 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 remem- bered his promise to the duchess. It 208 was obviously the memory of this prom- ise that made him say to his companion a couple of days, later that he rather won- dered he should be so fond of that girl. " In the first place, how do you know how fond I am of her ?" asked Lord Lam- beth. "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 < line ?' 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 mean- ing 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 Beau- mont, "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 re- joined, " I find it uncommonly lively." 209 After this Percy Beaumont held his tongue ; but on August 10th he wrote to the Duchess of Bays water. 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 veran- da 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 in- formation concerning his lordship. She addressed herself directly to the young nobleman. 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 a 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. 210 " I don't like the sound of that, either." " Don't you 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." " 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. "Do you want to buy up their leases?" he asked. " Well, have you got any livings ?" she demanded. 211 " 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 de- scribing 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 telegram in her jewelled fingers, declaring it was very tiresome 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." And she went on to explain, while she continued that slow- paced promenade which enabled her well- adjusted skirts to display themselves so advantageously, that unfortunately in America there was no leisure class. It was Lord Lambeth's theory, freely pro- pounded when the young men were to- gether, 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 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. Ameri- can ladies certainly don't mind contra- dicting 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, how- ever, 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 213 over the Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate ; but he was absent only forty- eight hours, during which, with Mr. West- gate's assistance, he completely settled this piece of business. " They certainly do things quickly in New York," he ob- served 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 en- joy much longer the entertainment with which an indulgent husband had desired to keep her provided. On August 21st Lord Lambeth received a telegram from his mother, requesting him to return im- mediately to England ; his father had been taken ill, and it was his filial duty to come to him. The young Englishman was visibly an- noyed. " 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 nar- 214 rated, to write to the duchess, but he had not expected that this distinguished wom- an 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." 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 Lon- don," 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-At- lantic, 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." 215 Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he indulged for some moments in the simple language of indignation. But I have said that he was a reasonable young man, and 1 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 interested 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 mod- esty 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 not!" Lord Lambeth repeated. " My dear fellow," said his companion, " you are very far gone." N point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would have said, Mrs. Westgate disembarked on May 18th 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 so- ciety Mrs. Westgate was, however, habitu- ated ; she had made half a dozen journeys to Europe without him, and she now ac- counted for his absence, to interrogative friends on this side of the Atlantic, by al- lusion to the regrettable but conspicuous 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 oc- casions the most agreeable impression at this establishment, received an obsequi- 217 ous 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 retrospect, of mementos and reverberations of greatness ; so that on corning 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, flut- tering sensations; they began with the sight of the beautiful English landscape, whose dark richness was quickened and brightened by the season ; with the car- peted fields and flowering hedge-rows, 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 mariners, the thousand differ- ences. Mrs. Westgate's impressions had, of course, much less novelty and keen- ness, and she gave but a wandering atten- 218 tion to her sister's ejaculations and rhap- sodies. " You know my enjoyment of England is not so intellectual 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 phys- ical. 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 hav- ing 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. Cap- tain Littledale, for instance. And Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont," added Bes- sie Alden. "Do you expect them to give us a very grand reception ?" 219 Bessie reflected a moment; she was ad- dicted, 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 under- stand 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 companion sat gazing at the shining sea. " Did you ever hear of the Duke of Green-Erin?" " I think not," said Bessie. " Well, it's no matter," her sister went on. " It's a proof of my simplicity." " My story is meant to illustrate that of some other people," said Mrs. West- gate. " The Duke of Green-Erin is what they call in England a great swell, and some five years ago he came 220 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 Butter- worths. Bien. They did everything in the world for him they turned them- selves inside out. They gave him a doz- en 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 trav- elling 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, ungrate- ful man, and forget all about him. One 221 fine day they go to the Ascot races, and there they meet him face to face. He stares a moment, and then comes tip to Mr. Butterworth, taking something from his pocket-book something which proves to be a bank-note. ' I'm glad to see you, Mr. Butterworth,' he says, ' so that I can pay you that 10 I lost to you in ~New York. I saw the other day you remem- bered our bet; here are the 10, Mr. Butterworth. Good-bye, Mr. Butter- worth.' And off he goes, and that's the last they see of the Duke of Green-Erin." " 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, be- cause I shall not give them the oppor- tunity. With the best will in the world, in that case they can't be very offensive." Bessie Alden was silent a moment. "I don't see what makes you talk that way," she said. " The English are a great peo- ple." "Exactly; and that is just the way they have grown great by dropping you when you have ceased to be useful. Peo- ple 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 re- joined ; " it would be more correct to say that. And, of course, one likes that." Bessie Alden resumed for some mo- ments 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 10." 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 defer- 223 ential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in driving from the station, took an immense fancy to the British metropolis, and at the risk of exhibiting 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 in a han- som cab. To her attentive eyes they were full of a strange, picturesque life, and it is at least beneath the dignity of our his- toric muse to enumerate the trivial ob- jects and incidents which this simple young lady from Boston found so enter- taining. It may be freely mentioned, 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 request that they should be driven home by way of Westminster Abbey. She had begun by asking whether it would not be possible to take in 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 afterwards vaguely as a dreadful disappointment ; so that she ex- 224 pressed 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 dis- position to go alone ; but upon this pro- posal 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, laugh- ing, "because you happen to prevent me." And she devoted much private meditation to this question of effecting a visit to the Tower of London. 225 Suddenly it seemed as if the problem might be solved ; the two ladies at Jones's Hotel received a visit from Willie Wood- ley. 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 exhibition of promptitude on the part of a young American who had just alighted at the Charing Cross Hotel. He was a slim, pale youth, of the most amiable dispo- sition, famous for the skill with which he led the " German " in 'New York. Indeed, by the young ladies who habitu- ally figured in this Terpsichorean revel 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 gen- tlest, 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 226 had been at Newport during the previ- ous 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 Bes- sie." She immediately arranged with him, in the presence of her sister, that lie should conduct her to the scene of Anne Boleyn's execution. " You may do as you please," said Mrs. Westgate. " Only if you desire the in- formation 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. "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?" 227 " That's very good very good," mur- mured 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 Eng- lishman." " 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, dress- ing 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 Lit- tledale," Mrs. Westgate replied. "But Mr. Woodley said that Captain Littledale had gone to India." 228 " He said he thought he had heard so ; he knew nothing about it." For a moment Bessie Alden said noth- ing 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 candor. " I don't care two straws for Mr. Beaumont." " You were certainly very nice to him." " 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 humor- ous even to make her blush. " Not that I know of," she answered. 229 " 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 w r ith him, then ?" Bessie stared again ; but this time she blushed a little. " Ah ! if you won't be serious," she answered, " we will not men- tion 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 1 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, 230 "that I am curious to see how he will behave." " He behaved very well at Newport." " Newport is not London. At New- port 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 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 the 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 win- dow. "I will write to him this after- noon," 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 Lam- beth. I like him very much." " He is not clever," Mrs. Westgate de- clared. "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. I wish you would tell me in plain English what you mean." "I mean that you may be much an- noyed." " 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." 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. Westgate thought for a mo- ment 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 Al- den. " 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 Lam- beth has come," said Mrs. Westgate, with a little laugh. 233 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 mis- sion 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 coining into the room where Bessie Alden, drawing on her long gray gloves, was entertaining their visitor. Bessie said nothing, but Willie Wood- ley exclaimed that his lordship was in town ; he had seen his name in the Morn- ing Post. "Do you read the Morning Post?" asked Mrs. Westgate. "Oh yes ; it's great fun," Willie Wood- ley affirmed. "I want so to see it," said Bes- 234 sie ; " there is so much about it in Thack- eray." " I will send it to you every morning," said Willie Woodley. He found them what Bessie Alden thought excellent places, under the great trees, beside the famous avenue whose humors had been made familiar to the young girl's childhood by the pictures in Punch. 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 it- self loose into the great changing assem- blage of striking and suggestive figures. They stirred up a host of old impressions and preconceptions, and she found her- self 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. " Qudle 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 some- thing about ramrods; he called them wamwods. He's an awful swell." "Did you ever see anything like the way they are pinned back ?" Mrs. West- gate resumed. " They never know where to stop." "They do nothing but stop," said Willie Woodley. "It prevents them from walking. Here comes a great ce- lebrity, Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She's awfully fast ; see what little steps she takes." " Well, my dear," Mrs. Westgate pur- sued, " I hope you are getting some ideas for your couturiere ?" " I am getting plenty of ideas," said Bessie, " but I don't know that my cou- turiere would appreciate them." Willie Woodley presently perceived a friend on horseback, who drove up beside the barrier of the Row and beckoned to him. He went forward, and the crowd 236 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 look- ed very hand- some, and he had a kind of splen- dor that he had not had in America. Bes- sie Alden's imagination, as we know, was just then in exercise; so that the tall young Englishman, as he stood there look- ing down at her, had the benefit of it. 237 " 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. " I say, 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. " Upon my honor, I hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley, now ; had I, Woodley?" " Well, T think you are rather a hum- bug," said Willie Woodley. " You don't believe that do you, Miss Alderi ?" 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 Lam- beth," 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 side- wise, close to the two ladies. "If I hadn't met Woodley I should never have 238 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 even- ing. It was awfully kind of you to write." "So I said to Bessie," observed Mrs. Westgate. " Did she say so, Miss Alden ?" Lord Lambeth inquired. "I dare say 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 hid- ing away ; I haven't seen you any- where." " Where should you have seen us where should we have gone ?" asked Mrs. Westgate. "You should have gone to Ilurling- ham," said Woodley. " No ; let Lord Lambeth tell us," Mrs. Westgate insisted. " There are plenty of places to go to," said Lord 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 de- clared. " 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 im- age 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. Westgate. " All the women were decolletees, and many of the figures looked as if they could speak if they tried." 240 "Upon my word," Lord Lambeth re- joined, " you see people at London parties that look as if they couldn't speak if they tried." " Do yon think Mr. Woodley could find us Mr. Beaumont ?" asked Mrs. Westgate. Lord Lambeth stared and looked round him. " I dare say 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 div- ing," 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 stay- ing?" u You will find the address in my let- ter 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. " I always feel so sorry for the people that come up to town and go to live in 241 those places," continued the young man. " They eat nothing but filth." " Oh, I say !" cried Willie Woodley. " Well, how do you like London, Miss Alden ?" Lord Lambeth asked, unper- turbed by this ejaculation. " I think it's grand," said Bessie Alden. "My sister likes it, in spite of the 1 filth!'" 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 tire- some 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 conversation in full. He addressed a great many remarks to Bessie Alden, and finally turned tow- ards her altogether, while Willie Wood- ley 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, 242 she intersted herself in Lord Lambeth again, as she had done at Newport ; only it seemed to her that here he might be- come more interesting. He would be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the im- pressiveness, the picturesqneness, of Eng- land ; and poor Bessie Alden, like many a Yankee maiden, was terribly at the mercy of picturesqueness. " I have often wished I were at New- port 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." " Oh dear, yes. When I got to Eng- land 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 persua- sively. " No Englishman can ask that seriously of a person of another country." Her companion looked at her for a 243 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 every- thing," 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 Dul- wich Gallery." Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. " I wonder you don't go to the Rosher- ville Gardens." " Are they interesting ?" asked Bessie. " Oh, wonderful !" 244 " Are they very old ? That's all I care for," said Bessie. u They are tremendously old ; they are falling to ruins." " I think there is nothing so charming as an old ruinous garden," said the young girl. " We must certainly go there." Lord Lambeth broke out into merri- ment. " I say, Woodley," lie 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 Lon- don life. But in a moment he turned it off. " Very well," he said, " I'll 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 la- dies," said Lord Lambeth, smiling. Bessie Alden looked at him a while, smiling, too, in the shadow of her para- 245 sol. " You are very strange," she mur- mured. "I don't think I approve of yon." "Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Al- den," said Lord Larnbeth, 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. " You certainly speak very well to young ladies. But why 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 House of Lords some day that suits you. There are a lot of things I want to do for you. I want to make you 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. " Pie's inviting Miss Bessie to one of his castles," he murmured to his companion. Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she mentally called " complications," imme- diately got up ; and the two ladies, tak- ing leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, under Mr. Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel. 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 occa- sion to do any more police duty. Her Grace must look after you herself." 248 " I will give her a chance,' 1 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 sufficiently a man of the world to offer them a smiling countenance. He fell into animated con- versation conversation, at least, that was animated on her side with Mrs. West- gate, while his companion made himself agreeable to the young lady. Mrs. West- gate began confessing and protesting, de- claring and expounding. "1 must say London is a great deal brighter and prettier just now than when I was here last in the month of Novem- ber. 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 think I am satirical, but I must confess that that's the feeling I have in London." 249 " 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 beau- tifully 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 patronized. But I must say I don't like to be patronized. I may be very eccentric and undisciplined and outra- geous, but I confess I never was fond of patronage. I like to associate with peo- ple 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," ob- served Percy Beaumont. " You are deliciously naive, I must say that for you !" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "It must be a great advantage to you 250 here in London. I suppose 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, arid be told that this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and that is the Lord Chamberlain, and that I must be thankful for the privilege of be- holding them. I dare say 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 supe- rior second-rate society provided here for strangers. Merci ! I don't want any su- perior 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. " Ob, I am accustomed to yon," said Mrs. Westgate. " Do you know that you English sometimes make the most won- derful speeches? The first time I came to London I went out to dine as I told you, I have received a great deal of at- tention. 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 251 discussing, ' Oh, you know, the aristoc- racy do so-and-so ; but in one's own class of life it is very different.' 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 Beaumont ex- claimed. "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 ardor, 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 gaunt- let of defiance. " For me there are only two social positions worth speaking of that of an American lady, and that of the Emperor of Russia." " And what do you do with the Ameri- can gentlemen ?" asked Lord Lambeth. " She leaves them in America !" said Percy Beaumont. On the departure of their visitors, Bessie Alden told her sister that Lord Lambeth would come the next day, to go 253 with them to the Tower, and that lie had kindly offered to bring his "trap," and drive them thither. Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this communication, and for some time afterwards she said nothing. But at last : " If you had not requested me the oth- er 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. Yery 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. " ISTo ; 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." 254 "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 lordship's young affec- tions." Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still overshadowed by her dark brows, con- tinued to interrogate. " Why should that frighten them?" Mrs. "VYestgate 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 Lam- beth." Bessie Alden was decidedly 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. 255 " 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 disagreeable 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 exhila- rated by her scheme, was smiling at her again. " If I could only believe it was safe !" she exclaimed. " When you be- gin 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 256 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. 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 dusker por- tions of the metropolis, to the great tur- reted donjon which overlooks the London shipping. They all descended from their vehicle and entered the famous enclosure ; and they secured the services of a vener- able beef -eater, who, though there were many other claimants for legendary in- formation, made a fine exclusive party of them, and marched them through courts and corridors, through armories and pris- ons. He delivered his usual peripatetic 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 -humor; he was con- 257 stantly laughing; lie enjoyed what he would have called the lark. Willie Wood- ley kept looking at the ceilings and tap- ping 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. "There was Lady Jane Grey we have just been hearing about, who went in for Latin and Greek, and all the learning 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 thumb-screws?" " All these historical things. You be- long to a 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 honor, you are too historical !" He went with the ladies a couple of days later to Hampton Court, Willie Woodley 259 being also of the party. The afternoon was charming, the famous horse -chest- nuts 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 not provided with an official bell-wether, but are left to browse at dis- cretion 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 Lambeth. 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 un- happy," he added, in a moment. "You are very disappointing, Lord Lambeth," she said. " Ah, now, don't say that !" he cried. 260 " That's the worst thing you could possi- bly 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 Lam- beth. "You are always talking about my place !" The young girl looked at him ; he thought she colored a little ; and for a moment she made no rejoinder. " Does it strike you that I am always talking about your place?" she asked. " I am sure you do it a great honor," 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 a hereditary legislator. A hereditary legislator ought to know a great many things." " Not if he doesn't legislate." "But you do legislate ; it's absurd your saying you don't. You are very much looked up to here I am assured of that." 261 "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 mo- ment. " Shall I tell you something ?" he asked. "A young man in my position, as you call it " 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 been a great mind a great character." " Ah, that's very theoretic," Lord Lam- beth declared. " Depend upon it, that's a Yankee prejudice." " Happy the country," said Bessie Al- 262 den, " where even people's prejudices are so elevated !" " Well, after all," observed Lord Lam- beth, " 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 renewed ac- quaintance with most of them. Their hospitality 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 lis- tened (at concerts Bessie always listened), she went to exhibitions and wondered. Her enjoyment was keen and her curi- osity insatiable, and, grateful in general for all her opportunities, she especially 263 prized the privilege of meeting certain celebrated persons authors and artists, philosophers and statesmen of whose renown she had been a humble and dis- tant beholder, and who now, as a part of the habitual furniture of London draw- ing-rooms, struck her as stars fallen from the firmament and become palpable re- vealing also sometimes, on contact, quali- ties not to have been predicted of side- real bodies. Bessie, who knew so many of her con- temporaries by reputation, had a good many personal disappointments; but, on the other hand, she had innumerable satis- factions and enthusiasms, and she com- municated 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, in- deed, she attempted 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 264 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 diplomatic 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 arrange- ments 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 a gorgeous uniform, and Bessie Alden was particularly struck with his appearance, especially when on her ask- ing him rather foolishly, as she felt if he were a loyal subject, he replied that he was a loyal subject to her. This dec- 265 laration was emphasized by his dancing with her at a royal ball to which the two ladies afterwards went, and was not im- paired by the fact that she thought he danced very ill. He seemed to her won- derfully 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 won- dered why. She liked him for his dispo- sition ; to this question as well that seemed the natural answer. When once the im- pressions 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 re- member it ; it corresponded too little with any sensible reality ; and it was dis- agreeable to Bessie to remember disagree- able things. So she was not haunted with the sense of a vulgar imputation. She was not in love with Lord Lambeth she assured herself of that. It will immediately be observed that when such assurances become necessary 2(!6 the state of a young lady's affections is already ambigu- ous ; and, indeed, Bessie Al- den made no attempt to dissim- ulate to herself, of course a cer- tain tenderness that she felt for the young nobleman. She said to her- self that she liked the type to which he belonged the simple, candid, manly, healthy English tempera- ment. 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 test- ed), to his honesty and gentlemanli- ness, and was not silent upon the subject of his good looks. She was perfectly conscious, moreover, that she liked to think of his more ad- ventitious merits ; that her imagi- nation was excited and gratified by the sight of a handsome young man endowed with such large oppor- tunities opportunities she hardly knew for what, but, as she supposed, for doing great things for setting an exam- ple, for exerting an influence, for confer- ring happiness, for encouraging the arts. She had a kind of ideal of conduct for a young man who should find himself in this magnificent position, and she tried to adapt it to Lord Lambeth'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 responsibilities and amiable qualities. But when he sat there within sight, laughing and talking with his customary good- humor 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 imagi- nation wandered away from him very far away; for it was an incontestable fact that at such moments he seemed distinct- ly dull. I am afraid that while Bessie's imagination was thus invidiously roam- ing, she cannot have been herself a very lively companion ; but it may well have been that these occasional fits of indiffer- ence 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 irresponsi- bly 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 agree- able to Lord Lambeth. He fancied he had compassed that gratification so desir- able to young men of title and fortune being liked for himself. It is true that a cynical counsellor might have whispered to him, " Liked for yourself ? 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 nevertheless true that Bessie Alden, when he struck her as dull, de- voted some time, on grounds of con- science, 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 some- times not so successful as it might have been, for the result of it was occasionally a vague irritation, which expressed itself in hostile criticism of several British in- stitutions. 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 po- tentially present ; and it was chiefly on these latter occasions that she encoun- tered those literary and artistic celebri- ties of whom mention has been made. After a while she reduced the matter to a principle. If Lord Lambeth should ap- pear anywhere, it was a symbol that there would be no poets and philosophers ; and in consequence for it was almost a strict consequence she used to enumerate to the young man these objects of her admi- ration. "You seem to be awfully fond of those sort of people," said Lord Lambeth one day, as if the idea had just occurred to him. 270 "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, gal- lantly. "I have not read so much. It is be- cause we think so much of them at home." " Oh, I see," observed the young noble- man. " In Boston." "Not only in Boston ; every where," said Bessie. " We hold them in great honor ; they go to the best dinner-parties." " I dare say 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." " I dare say it would," said Lord Lam- beth, 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 fawning manner." "Why should they fawn?" Bessie Al- den demanded. 271 "I'm sure I don't know. Why, in- deed ?" "Perhaps you only thought so," said Bessie. "Well, of course," rejoined her com- panion, " 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 Eng- land," she said " your keeping the dis- tinguished people apart." " How do you mean apart ?" " Why, letting them corne only to cer- tain places. You never see tlfem." 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. Bessie Alden looked at him, and she 272 gave a light laugh. "Not many," she said. On another occasion just after a din- ner-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 prece- dence" " It isn't my precedence !" Lord Lam- beth 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 273 discussing tilings ! 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 think- ing that they have a right to do it a right that I recognize" " I never saw such a young lady as you are for not ' recognizing.' 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 !' ' : 274 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. 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. 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 Beau- mont; "there's a limit to what people can suffer !" And, though sending no apologies to Jones's Hotel, he undertook, 275 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 Beau- mont. Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye, and for a moment said nothing. " It's not so obvious as you might sup- pose," 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 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 cau- 276 tiously, and, somewhere or other, they get their information. They know a great deal about yon. 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 i sights of the me- tropolis.' 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 re- sponded 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." 277 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 Beau- mont, " if she gets much more frightened I believe she will." Lord Lambeth 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 companion 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 278 " 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 gob- ble me down ; don't be afraid." " She won't leave you on your knees," said Percy Beaumont. " What is the in- ducement ?" "You talk about proposing : wait till I have proposed," 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, intrin- sically. But there are other charming girls nearer home." " I like her spirit," observed Lord Lam- beth, almost as if he were trying to tor- ment 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." 279 "How do you know that, if you haven't asked her ?" " I don't know how ; but 1 know it." "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. "Bat she asked for information, don't you know." "Information? Aye, I'll warrant she wanted it. Depend 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 disagree- able, then, both to you and to her, in Heaven's name leave it alone," said Percy Beaumont. Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the non-ap- pearance of the Duchess of Bays water. She professed, 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 280 "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 entertain- ment offered Lord Lambeth to his Ameri- can 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 w r ere to Mrs. Westgate's sense a sense possibly morbidly acute con- spicuous 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. " If I believed I were a cause of annoyance however unwitting to Lord Lambeth's family, I should insist "Insist upon my leaving England," said Mrs. Westgate. 281 "No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again ; I want to see Stratford - on - Avon and Canterbury Ca- thedral. 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 Bes- sie Alden. "Have I ceased to be mod- est ?" " You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at pres- ent, 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 understand." "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 I have made up a very pleasant party," the young nobleman said. " Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaint- ance." Bessie Alden lost no time in call- ing 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 obligation was all the greater for her to call upon us." Bessie had not to wait long, and it ap- peared that Lord Lambeth's mother now accepted Mrs. Westgate's view of her duties. On the morrow, early in the afternoon, 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 Pirnlico. 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 mo- ments later they were introduced, and there was a solemn exchange of amen- ities. The duchess was a large lady, with a fine fresh color ; 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 dare say my son has told you that I have been wanting to come and see you," she observed. " You are very kind," said Mrs. West- gate, vaguely her conscience not allow- ing her to assent to this proposition and, indeed, not permitting her to enun- ciate her own with any appreciable em- phasis. " He says you were so kind to him in America," said the duchess. " We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate re- plied, " to have been able to make him a little more a little less a little more comfortable." " I think that he stayed at your house," remarked the Duchess of Bays water, looking at Bessie Alden. " A very short time," said Mrs. West- gate. "Oh!" said the duchess; and she con- tinued to look at Bessie, who was en- gaged in conversation with her daughter. "Do you like London?" Lady Pim- lico 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 comforta- ble," said Bessie. " Do you like stopping at hotels?" inquired Lady Pimlico, after a pause. "I am very fond of travelling," Bessie an- swered, "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 Count- ess of Pimlico, and transferred her atten- tion to Mrs. Westgate. " My son tells me you are going to Branches," the duchess said, presently. " Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate, who per- ceived 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 in- spected 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. " He had offered us the p the pros- pect of meeting 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 looking very fixedly at Bessie. In a moment she slowly rose, 286 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 im- pressive intention. It diffused a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate. u 1 dare say 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 rejoined. 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 im- pression 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 sus- ceptible, 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 recognize that description. We have depended on him greatly my sister and I and he has never disappointed us." " 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 noth- ing unreasonable." 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. 288 " He has been to see us very often ; he has been very kind," said Bessie Alden. "I dare say 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 under- stand each other," said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of whose interview with Lady Pimlico allowed her to give atten- tion 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 declared. " When the young men are a great parti ." " Bessie, you must make a note of that," said Mrs. Westgate. " My sister," she added, " is a model traveller. 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. "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 re- joined. " Delightful !" murmured Mrs. West- gate. " I shall expect to see a great deal of you," the duchess continued. " When I go- to Branches I monopolize 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 England, at least ; and you know we have none in America." "Ah, you are fond of castles?" in- quired 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 291 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 man- ners and their grandeur, and to make you lacker prise" "Lacker prise f What strange things you say !" murmured Bessie Alden. " 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." 292 "They were not even good!" Mrs. AVestgate declared. Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she observed that she had a very good theory. "They came to look at me," she said, as if this had been a very ingenious hypothe- sis. Mrs. AVestgate did it justice ; she greet- ed it with a smile, and pronounced it most brilliant, while, in reality, she felt that the young girFs scepticism, or her charity, 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 Lam- beth at the door of the hotel, coming away. She thought he looked slightly 293 embarrassed ; lie was certainly very grave. " 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 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. u 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." 294 " I couldn't," said Bessie, 'gently. " He is an excellent 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 par- alyzed 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. West- gate, 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 riot tell Percy Beaumont that the contingency he .p. was not prepared at all to like had oc- curred ; but Percy Beaumont, on hear- ing 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. I (