DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE

FOUR MEETINGS.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE,

FOUR MEETINGS.

BY HENRY JAMES, JR

NEW EDITION.

JJcrnfocrn: MACMILLAN AND CO.

1879.

\_Right of Translation is reserved.]

35 n n g a g :

CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

NOTE.

THE two first tales contained in this volume originally appeared in the " Cornhill Magazine." The other is republished from " Scribner's Monthly."

CONTENTS.

PAGE

DAISY MILLER : A STUDY . . . . . . . . I

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE .. .. .. 139

FOUR MEETINGS , .... 315

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

I.

AT the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels ; for the entertainment of tourists is 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 behoves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establish- ments of this order, of every category, from the " grand hotel " of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred bal- conies, 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

2 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

wall, and an awkward summer-house in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbours 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, indeed, that Vevey assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an American watering- place. There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and thither of " stylish " young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a rattle 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 Couronnes," 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 3

waiters, who look like secretaries of legation ; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys walking about, held by the hand, with their governors ; a view of the snowy crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Castle of Chillon.

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, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned. It was a beautiful summer 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 before, 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 camphor, so

B 2

4 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 affirmed 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 him- self. Very few Americans — indeed I think none — had ever seen this lady, about whom there were some singular 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 — circum- stances 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.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 5

After knocking at his aunt's door and learning that she was indisposed, he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come in to his breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast , out 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 attach^ At last he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently 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 counte- nance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in knicker- bockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks ; 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 garden-benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes.

6 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

"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 table near him, on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar re- mained. " Yes, you may take one," he answered ; " but I don't think sugar is good for little boys."

This little boy stepped forward and care- fully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winter- bourne's bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.

" Oh, blazes ; it's har-r-d ! " he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a peculiar manner.

Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honour of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. "Take care

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 7

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 mother 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 American candy. American candy's the best candy."

"And are American little boys the best little boys ? " asked Winterbourne.

" I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child.

" I see you are one of the best ! " laughed Winterbourne.

8 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" Are you an American man ? " pursued this vivacious infant. And then, on Winter- bourne's affirmative reply — "American men are the best," he declared.

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 American girl/'

Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady advancing. " American girls are the best girls," he said, cheerfully, to his young companion.

" My sister ain't the best ! " the child declared. " She's a^ays blowing at me."

u I imagine that is your fault, not hers," said Winterbourne. The young lady mean- while had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 9

flounces, and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery ; 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 not a little.

" Randolph," said the young lady, " what are you doing ? "

"I'm going up the Alps," replied Randolph. "This is the way!" And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne' s ears.

"That's the way they come down," said Winterbourne.

" He's an American man ! " cried Randolph, in his little hard voice.

io DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 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 certain rarely-occurring conditions ; but here at Vevey, what condi- tions could be better 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 observation, simply glanced at him ; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the opposite moun- tains. He wondered whether he had gone too far; but he decided that he must ad- vance farther, rather than retreat. While

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 11

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?" Winterbourne inquired, in a tone of great respect.

The young lady glanced at him again. "Yes, sir," she replied. And she said nothing more.

" Are you — a — going over the Simplon ? " Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed

" I don't know," she said. " I suppose it's

12 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 ! " rejoined 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 observ- ation upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There had not been

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 13

the slightest alteration in her charming complexion ; she was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she looked another way when he spoke to her, and seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a little more, and pointed out some of the objects of interest in the view, with which she appeared 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 com- plexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty ; he was addicted to observing and analysing it ; and as regards this young lady's face he made several observations. It was not at all

14 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 Ran- dolph's sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own ; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome for the winter — she and her mother and Randolph. She asked him if he was a " real American ; " she wouldn't have taken him for one ; he seemed more like a German — this was said after a little hesitation, especially when he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered that he had met Germans who spoke like Americans ; but that he had not, so far as he remembered, met an American who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she would not be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 15

She answered that she liked standing up and walking about ; but she presently sat down. She told him she was from New York State — " if you know where that is." Winter- bourne 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.

"Randolph 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 asked ! " 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.

16 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

But on this point Randolph seemed per- fectly indifferent ; he continued to supply information with regard to his own family. " My father's name is Ezra B. Miller," he announced. "My father ain't in Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe."*

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 immediately added, " My father's in Schenectady. He's got a big business. My father's rich, you bet."

" Well ! " ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and looking at the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child, who departed, dragging his alpen- stock along the path. "He doesn't like Europe," said the young girl. "He wants to go back."

" To Schenectady, you mean ? "

" Yes ; he wants to go right home. He hasn't got any boys here. There is on^ boy

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 17

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 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 'instruction,' 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."

18 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" 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 converse 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 Winter- bourne, now wandering 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 chattered. She was very quiet, she sat in a charming

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 19

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 movements and intentions, and those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and enumerated, in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. " That English 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 humour with everything. She de- clared that the hotels were very good, when once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet. She was not disappointed — not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had heard so much about it before. She had ever so many intimate friends that had been there ever so many

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20 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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.

"It was a kind of a wishing-cap," said Winterbourne.

" Yes," said Miss Miller, without examin- ing 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 fright- ful things here. The only thing I don't like," she proceeded, " 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 somewhere, 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 gentlemen," added Daisy Miller. "I

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 21

have more friends in New York than in Schenectady — more gentlemen friends ; and more young lady friends too," she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant ; 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 herself 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 inconduite, as they said at Geneva ? He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had lost a good deal ; he had become dishabituated to the American tone. Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things, had he en- countered a young American girl of so

22 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 innocent. Some people had told him that, after all, American girls were exceedingly innocent ; 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 provided, for respectability's sake, with hus- bands— who were great coquettes — danger- ous, terrible women, with whom one's relations were liable to take a serious turn.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 23

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 having 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 conditions 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

24 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

Winterbourne, "and very easy to make. You can drive, you know, or you can 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 continued. " 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, smiling.

" 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 25

will be too bad if we don't go up there." And Miss Miller pointed again at the Chateau de Chillon.

"I should think it might be arranged," said Winterbourne. " 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 would 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 Win- terbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought it possible she was offended. "With your mother," he answered 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

26 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 ? "

a Most earnestly," Winterbourne declared.

" 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 Randolph; he's the most fas- tidious 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 pro- gramme 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 person — pre- sumably Eugenio — appeared. A tall, hand- some man, with superb whiskers, wearing a

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 27

velvet morning-coat and a brilliant 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 honour 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, any way."

"To the Chateau de Chillon, made- moiselle ? " the courier inquired. " Made- moiselle has made arrangements?" he added, in a tone which struck Winterbourne as very impertinent.

Eugenie's tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller's own apprehension, a slightly ironical light upon the young girl's situation. She turned to Winterbourne, blushing a little — a very little. "You won't back out?" she said.

28 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" 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 looking an offence to Miss Miller ; it conveyed • an imputation that she "picked up" acquaint- ances. " I shall have the honour of present- ing 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 Eugenio. 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.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 29

II.

HE had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising to present 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 proper inquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she had observed, in the hotel, an American family — a mamma, a daughter, 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

30 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 Homburg, 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 Vevey 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, mani- festing 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 31

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 presented to him in many different lights, was, to Winter- bourne's imagination, almost oppressively striking.

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. Costello 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."

32 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

"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 Comanche savage."

" She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, "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 gentleman. 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."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 33

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 courier, 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 introducing her to my admirable aunt."

"I am much obliged to you."

" It was to guarantee my respectability/' said Winterbourne.

16 And pray who is to guarantee hers ? "

" Ah, you are cruel ! " said the young man. " She's a very nice girl."

" You don't say that as if you believed it," Mrs. Costello observed.

" She is completely uncultivated," Winter-

34 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

bourne went on. "But she is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove that I believe it, I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chillon."

" You two are going off there together ? I should say it proved just the contrary. How long had you known hei, 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 moments. " You really think, then," he began, earnestly, and with a desire for trustworthy 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?"

" 1 haven't the least idea what such young

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 35

ladies expect a man to do. But I really think that you had better not meddle 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 mistake. You are too innocent."

" My dear aunt, I am not so innocent," said Winterbourne, smiling and curling his moustache.

" You are too guilty, then ! "

Winterbourne continued to curl his mous- tache, 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 honour of 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

D2

36 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

young girls in America ? " Winterbourne 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 remembered to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were "tremendous flirts." If, there- fore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal license 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 walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening in the garden, wandering about in the warm

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 37

starlight, like an indolent sylph, and swing- ing 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 dreadfully nervous. 1 guess she sleeps more than she thinks. She's gone somewhere 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

38 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY.

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. Eugenie's a splendid courier, but he can't make much impression on Randolph ! I don't believe he'll go to bed before eleven." It appeared that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumph- antly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother. " I have been looking round for that lady you want to introduce me to," his companion resumed. "She's your aunt." Then, on Winter- bourne'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 chambermaid. 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'/iote. 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,

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 39

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 would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive ; I'm dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We don't speak to every one — or they don't speak to us. I suppose it's about the same thing. Any way, 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 inter- fere."

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

40 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 tremor in her voice; he was touched, shocked, 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 garden, 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 looked out upon the mysterious prospect, and then she gave another little laugh. " Gracious ! she is exclusive ! " she said. Winterbourne won- dered whether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almost wished that her

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 41

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 consola- tory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversa- tionally ; 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 perilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, re- suming 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 indistinct in the darkness, and advancing with a slow and waver- ing 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

42 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

mother. And when she has got on my shawl, too ! She is always wearing my things."

The lady in question, ceasing to advance, 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 !

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 43

But mother doesn't like any of my gentle- men friends. She's right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentle- man. But I do 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 I was natural."

"To introduce me," said Winterbourne, " you must know my name." And he proceeded to pronounce it.

" Oh, dear ; I can't say all that ! " said his companion, with a laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, 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 upon 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

44 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness, she had a singularly delicate grace.

Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain amount of thin, much-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. " 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, turning 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.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 45

" 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 ? " Winter- bourne asked.

" He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all night — in the public parlour. He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock : I know that."

46 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" 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. Winterbourne."

To this announcement, very placidly made, Daisy's mamma offered no response.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 47

Winterbourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of the projected excur- sion ; 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 honour of being her guide."

Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. " I 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 reassured as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of

48 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 increasing confidence. "Of course, we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England," she presently added.

" Ah, yes ! in England there are beautiful castles," said Winterbourne. " But Chillon, 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 enterprise. "It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn't undertake."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 49

"Oh, 1 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-ttte with the young lady, who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalising. " 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 silence. 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 themselves in the forefront of social intercourse 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. Miller's unprotected daughter.

" Mr. Winterbourne ! " murmured Daisy.

" Mademoiselle ! " said the young man.

" Don't you want to take me out in a boat ? "

50 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" 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 guiding 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 rather go indoors."

" I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy declared. "He's so awfully devoted!"

"I will row you over to Chillon, in the starlight."

" I don't believe it ! " said Daisy.

"Well ! " ejaculated the elder lady again,

u You haven't spoken to me for half-an- hour," her daughter went on.

"I have been having some very pleasant conversation with your mother," said Winterbourne.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 51

" 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 Winterbourne.

" 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 honour 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."

E 2

52 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" I think not, sir," remarked Mrs. Miller, 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 accompany him ; she only stood there laughing.

"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 neighbouring darkness ; and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the florid personage who was in attendance upon the two ladies. He had apparently just approached.

" Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, " I am going out in a boat ! "

Eugenio bowed. "At eleven o'clock, mademoiselle ? "

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 53

"I am going with Mr. Winterbourne. This very minute."

" Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Miller 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."

54 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

t( I myself shall make a fuss if you don't go," said Winterbourne.

"That's all I want— a little fuss!" And the young girl began to laugh again.

" Mr. Randolph has gone to bed ! " the courier announced, frigidly.

u 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 some- thing ! "

He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. " I am puzzled," he answered.

"Well; I hope it won't keep you awake!" she said, very smartly; and, under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladies passed towards the house.

Winterbourne stood looking after them ; he was indeed puzzled. He lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, turning over the mystery of the young girl's sudden familiarities and caprices. But the

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY, 55

only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy deucedly " 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 foreign tourists were lounging about and staring. It was not the place he would have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant travelling-costume. Winter- bourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestors used to say, of sensibility ; as he looked at her dress and, on the great stair- case, her little rapid, confiding step, he felt as if there were something romantic going forward. 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 looking at her very hard ; she had begun to chatter as

56 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY.

soon as she joined him. Wmterbourne s preference had been that they should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage ; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the little steamer ; she declared that she had a passion for steamboats. 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 free- dom, he had some expectation of seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, in this particular, 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 saw that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her a

DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 57

great deal, and Winter bourne took much satisfaction in his pretty companion's dis- tinguished 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 his fears ; he sat smiling, with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place, she delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the most charm- ing garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea that she was " com- mon ; " but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness ? Her conversation was chiefly of what meta- physicians 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

58 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

funeral. If that's a grin, your ears are very near together."

" Should you like me to dance a hornpipe 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. u I like to make 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 chambers, rustled her skirts in the corkscrew stair- cases, 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 Winterbourne 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 59

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 inter- preted the bargain generously — Winter- bourne, on his side, had been generous — and ended by leaving them quite to them- selves. Miss Miller's observations were not remarkable for logical consistency ; for any- thing she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne sudden questions about himself — his family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions — and for sup- plying information upon corresponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits and intentions Miss Miller was pre- pared to give the most definite, and indeed the most favourable, account.

" Well ; I hope you know enough ! " she said to her companion, after he had told her

60 .DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

the history of the unhappy Bonivard. " I never saw a man that knew so much ! " The history of Bonivard 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 believe it ! " said Miss Daisy. " What do you mean ? You are not in business.'1 The young man admitted that he was not in business ; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two would force him to go back to Geneva. "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 fire- place, she broke out irrelevantly, " You

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 61

don't mean to say you are going back to Geneva ? "

66 It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva 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 minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered ; no young lady had as yet done him the honour to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake ; she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in Geneva, whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva?

62 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

Winterbourne, 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 amuse- ment at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an extra- ordinary 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's 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 ! " Winterbourne 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

DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 63

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 certainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winter- bourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk; the young girl was very quiet.

In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spent the after- noon at Chillon, with Miss Daisy Miller.

" The Americans — of the courier : " asked this lady.

" Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, " the courier stayed at home."

64 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" She went with you all alone ? "

"All alone."

Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle. " And that," she exclaimed, " is the young person you wanted me to know ! "

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 65

III.

WINTERBOURNE, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome towards the end of January. His aunt had been established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of letters from her. "Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Vevey have turned up here, courier and 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 Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that makes much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez's — ( Paule Mere ' — and don't come later than the 23rd."

In the natural course of events, Winter- bourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently

66 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 Vevey I certainly think I may call upon them," he said to Mrs. Costello.

" If, after what happens — at Vevey 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 farther, you must apply elsewhere for information. 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 jnoustache."

"And where is the mother ? "

" I haven't the least idea. They are very dreadful people."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 67

Winterbourne meditated a moment. "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 question 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 mous- taches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her. He had perhaps not definitely flattered himself that he had made an ineffaceable impression 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, how- ever, he determined to wait a little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her

F2

68 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

consideration, he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends. One of these friends 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 Gregoriana. Winterbourne found her in a little crimson drawing-room, on a third floor ; the room was filled with south- ern sunshine. He had not been there ten minutes when the servant came in, announc- ing " Madame Mila ! " This announcement was presently 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 pretty 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 education coming on?"

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 69

Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess ; but when she heard Winterbourne's voice she quickly turned her head. " Well, I declare ! " she said.

" I told you I should come, you know," Winterbourne rejoined, smiling.

"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.

70 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY.

"I told youT Randolph exclaimed. "I tell you, sir ! " he added jocosely, giving Winterbourrie a thump on the knee. " It is bigger, too ! "

Daisy had entered upon a lively conversa- tion with her hostess ; Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. " I hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey," he said.

Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him — at his chin. "Not very well, sir," she answered.

" She's got the dyspepsia," said Randolph. " I've got it too. Father's got it. I've got

it worst !

This announcement, instead of embarrass- ing Mrs. Miller, seemed to relieve her. " I suffer from the liver," she said. "I think it's this climate ; it's less bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter 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,

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 71

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 wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr. Davis. At Schenectady he stands at the very top ; and there's a great deal of sickness there, too. It affects my sleep."

Winterbourne had a good deal of patho- logical gossip with Dr. Davis's patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly 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."

72 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

"Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it," said Winterbourne.

" I hate it worse and worse every day ! " cried Randolph.

"You are like the infant Hannibal," said Winterbourne.

"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 Winter- bourne's interrogation, "There's Zurich," she observed ; " I think Zurich is lovely ; and we hadn't heard half so much about it."

" The best place we've seen is the City of Richmond ! " said Randolph.

"He means the ship," his mother ex- plained. "We crossed in that ship. Ran- dolph 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."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 73

" Well, we've got to turn the right way some time," said Mrs. Miller, with a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at least found some gratifi- cation in Rome, 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 acquaintances. 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 nothing 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 atten- tion again to Winterbourne. " 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 apprecia- tion of the zeal of an admirer who on his

74 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He re- membered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American women — the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness 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 Vevey," said Daisy. " You wouldn't do anything. You wouldn't stay there when I asked you."

u My dearest young lady," cried Winter- bourne, with eloquence, "have I come all the way to Rome to encounter your re- proaches r "

" Just hear him say that ! " said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a bow on this lady's dress. " Did you ever hear anything so quaint ? "

" So quaint, my dear ? " murmured Mrs. Walker, in the tone of a partisan of Winterbourne.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 75

" Well, I don't know," said Daisy, finger- ing Mrs. Walker's ribbons. " Mrs. Walker, I want to tell you something."

" Motherr," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, "I tell you you've got to go. Eugenio '11 raise some- thing!"

" 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 favour — permission 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," answered Daisy's mamma, smiling shyly, in her own fashion. " I never spoke to them ! "

" It's an intimate friend of mine — Mr. Giovanelli," said Daisy, without a tremor in

76 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 said.

"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 personage should be brought to Mrs. Walker's party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. " I guess we'll go back to the hotel," she said.

(t You may go back to the hotel, mother, but I'm going to take a walk," said Daisy.

"She's going to walk with Mr. Giova- nelli," Randolph procla'med.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 77

" I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, smiling.

" Alone, my dear — at this hour ? " Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was drawing 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

78 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

girl ; at this question his attention quick- ened. She stood there smiling and smooth- ing her bonnet-ribbons; she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced and smiled, she answered without a shade of hesitation, " Mr. Giovanelli — the beautiful Giovanelli."

" My dear young friend," said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand, pleadingly, " don't walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet a beautiful Italian."

"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 con- tinued to glance at Winterbourne. "The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant, 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 79

passed down-stairs before her mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. Miller's carriage drawn up, with the orna- mental courier whose acquaintance he had made at Vevey seated within. " Good-bye, Eugenio ! " cried Daisy, " I'm going to take a walk." The distance from the Via Gre- goriana to the beautiful garden at the other end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly traversed. As the day was splendid, how- ever, and the concourse of vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous, the young Ameri- cans found their progress much delayed. This fact was highly agreeable to Winter- bourne, in spite of his consciousness of his singular situation. The slow-moving, idly-gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon the extremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon his arm ; and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy's mind when she proposed to expose herself, unattended, to its appreciation. His own mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consign her to the

8o DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

hands of Mr. Giovanelli ; but Winter- bourne, at once annoyed and gratified, 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 honour of telling 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 — " Winterbourne began to explain.

" I knew where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other question 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 81

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 extremely select. There are all kinds — English, and Germans, and Italians. I think I like the English best. I like their style of conversation. But there are some lovely Americans. 1 never saw anything so hospitable. There's something or other every day. There's not much dancing ; but I must say I never thought dancing was everything. I was always fond of conversa- tion. 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

82 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 carriages: did you ever see anything so cool?"

Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with folded arms, nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully poised hat, a glass in one eye and a nosegay in his button-hole. Winter- bourne looked at him a moment and then said, " Do you mean to speak to that

man ?

"Do I mean to sj^eak to him? Why,

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 83

you don't suppose I mean to communicate by signs r "

"Pray understand, then," said Winter- bourne, "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 dimples. "Well, she's a cool one!" thought the young man.

" I don't like the way you say that," said Daisy. " It's too imperious."

" 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 dictate 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 ? "

G 2

84 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

Daisy began to laugh again. " I do nothing but listen to gentlemen ! " she exclaimed. " 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 Winter- bourne 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 mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other. She strolled along with one of them on each side of her ; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke English very cleverly — Winterbourne afterwards learned that he had practised the idiom upon a great many American heir- esses— addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense ; he was extremely urbane, and the young American, who said nothing,

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 85

reflected upon that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something more intimate ; he had not bargained for a party of three. But he kept his temper in a manner which suggested far-stretching in- tentions. Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken his measure. " He is not a gentleman," said the young American ; " he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music- master, or a penny-a-liner, or a third-rate artist. Damn his good lo'oks ! " Mr. Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face ; but Winterbourne felt a superior indignation at his own lovely fellow-country- woman's not knowing the difference between 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 the imitation was very skilful. " Nevertheless," Winterbourne said to himself, "a nice girl ought to

86 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 cynicism ? Singular though it may seem, Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl, in joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatient of his own company, 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 indispensable 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 roman- cers "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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 87

able to think more lightly of her would make her much less perplexing. But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present 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 gaiety, 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 Winterbourne 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 dread- ful," 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

88 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 Winterbourne.

"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 ordered 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, smiling.

" To ask her to get in, to drive her about here for half-an-hour, so that the world may see she is not running absolutely wild, and then to take her safely home."

" I don't think it's a very happy thought," said Winterbourne; "but you can try."

Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pursuit of Miss Miller, who had simply nodded and smiled at his interlocutrix

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 89

in the carriage and had gone her way with her own companion. Daisy, on learning that Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, re- traced her steps with a perfect good grace and with Mr. Giovanelli at her side. She declared that she was delighted to have a chance to present this gentle- man to Mrs. Walker. She immediately achieved the introduction, and declared that she had never in her life seen any- thing 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.

90 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the custom here," urged Mrs. 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 expire."

"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 reason- able. 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

DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 91

from one of the gentlemen beside her to the other. Mr. Giovanelli was bowing to and fro, rubbing down his gloves and laughing very agreeably ; Winterbourne 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. Walker 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 me ! " exclaimed Daisy. She looked again at Mr. Giovanelli, then she turned to Winterbourne. There was a little pink flush in her cheek ; she was tremen- dously pretty. " Does Mr. Winterbourne think," she asked slowly, smiling, 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 coloured ; for an instant he

92 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

hesitated greatly. It seemed so strange to hear her speak that way of her " reputation." But he himself, in fact, must speak in accordance with gallantry. The finest gal- lantry, here, was simply to tell her the truth; and the truth, for Winterbourne, 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 looked at her ex- quisite prettiness; and then he 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 improper, Mrs. Walker," she pursued, " then I am 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 salute, 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 Winterbourne,

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 93

indicating the place beside her. The young man answered that he felt bound to accom- pany Miss Miller ; whereupon Mrs. Walker declared that if he refused her this favour 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, something to commit herself still farther to that " recklessness " from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavoured 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 humour as he took his seat in Mrs. Walker's victoria. "That was not clever of you," he said candidly, while the vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages.

" In such a case/' his companion answered,

94 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" I don't wish to be clever, I wish to be earnest ! "

"Well, your earnestness has only offended her and put her off."

" It has happened very well," said Mrs. Walker. " If she is so perfectly determined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better ; one can act accordingly."

" I suspect she meant no harm," Winter- bourne 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 Winterbourne? laughing, " sits up till midnight."

. " He must be edified by what he sees. I'm told that at their hotel every one is

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 95

talking about her, and that a smile goes round among the servants when a gentle- man comes and asks for Miss Miller."

" The servants be hanged ! " said Winter- bourne 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 morn- ing. How long had you known her at Vevey ? "

"A couple of days."

"Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should have left the place ! "

Winterbourne 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.

" I wished to beg you to cease your relations with Miss Miller — not to flirt with her — to give her no farther opportunity to expose herself — to let her alone, in short."

96 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" I'm afraid I can't do that," said Winter- bourne. " 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 pursued. " 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 which overhangs the wall of Rome and overlooks the beautiful Villa Borghese. It is bordered by a large parapet, near which there are several 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 parapet. Winterbourne had asked the coachman to stop ; he now descended from the carriage. His companion

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 97

looked at him a moment in silence ; then, while he raised his hat, she drove majestically away. Winterbourne stood tkere ; 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 garden-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 opposite 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 Winter- bourne. 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.

98 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

IV.

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, Winter- bourne again had the misfortune 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 Winterbourne

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 99

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 — especially 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 favour us with her society ? " demanded Mrs. Walker, impressively.

"Well, Daisy's all dressed," said Mrs. Miller, with that accent of the dispassionate, if not of the philosophic, historian with which she always recorded the current inci- dents of her daughter's career. "She got dressed on purpose before dinner. But

H2

ioo DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

she's got a friend of hers there ; that gentle- man — 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 splendidly. 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," responded 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. " Rile sqfficke. 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 for-

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 101

ward in radiant loveliness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bouquet and attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Every one stopped talking, 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. Giovanelli 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 purpose ; we had the greatest time at the hotel." Of all this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, brightest audibleness, looking now at her hostess 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

102 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli. This gentleman bore himself gallantly. He smiled and bowed and showed his white teeth, he curled his moustaches and rolled his eyes, and performed all the proper func- tions of a handsome Italian at an evening party. He sang, very prettily, 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 inaudibly, while it was going on.

" It's a pity these rooms are so small ; we can't dance," she said to Winterbourne, as if she had seen him five minutes before.

u I am not sorry we can't dance," Winter- bourne 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. Walker."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 103

"No, I didn't enjoy it; I preferred walk- ing 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 different ideas! It would have been most unkind ; 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 good- ness, 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''

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" I am afraid your habits are those of a flirt," said Winterbourne gravely.

"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."

"You say that too often," said Winter- bourne.

Daisy gave a delighted laugh. " If I could have the sweet hope of making you angry, I would 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."

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 105

" I thought they understood nothing else ! " exclaimed Daisy.

"Not in young unmarried women."

"It seems to me much more proper in young unmarried women tha'n in old married 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 Daisy with vivacity. " And if you want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting ; we are too good friends for that ; we are very intimate friends."

"Ah!" rejoined Winterbourne, "if you are in love with each other it is another affair."

io5 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

She had allowed him up to this point to talk so frankly that he had no expectation of shocking her by this ejaculation ; but she immediately got up, blushing 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 decorative smile.

Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile again. He was still more per- plexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness that reverted instinctively to the pardon of offences. "It has never occurred to Mr.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 107

Winterbourne to offer me any tea/' she said, with her little tormenting 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 interesting perform- ance 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 weak- ness 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. Winterbourne was standing neai 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 incongru- ous impulse to draw attention to her own

loS DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

striking observance of them. " Good night, Mrs. Walker," she said; "we've had a beautiful 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 in- dignation. 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. Very often the polished little Roman was in the drawing-room with Daisy alone, Mrs. Miller being apparently constantly of the opinion that discretion is

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 109

the better part of surveillance. Winter- bourne noted, at first with surprise, that Daisy on these occasions was never embar- rassed or annoyed by his own entrance ; but he very presently began to feel that she had no more surprises for him ; the unexpected in her behaviour was the only thing to expect. She showed no displeasure at her tete-a-tete with Giovanelli being interrupted ; she could chatter as freshly and freely with two gentlemen as with one ; there was always in her conversation, the same odd mixture of audacity and puerility. Winter- bourne remarked to himself 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-looking indifference and her apparently inexhaustible good humour. 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

no DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

with regard to the women who had hitherto interested him it very often seemed to Winterbourne among the possibilities 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 flatter- ing to Daisy ; it was part of his conviction, or rather of his apprehension, that she would prove a very light young person.

But she was evidently very much inter- ested in Giovanelli. She looked at him whenever he spoke ; she was perpetually telling him to do this and to do that ; she was constantly "chaffing" and abusing him. She appeared completely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. One Sunday afternoon, having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne per- ceived Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable Giovanelli. Presently he pointed out the

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. in

young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Costello. This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass, and then she said :

"That's what makes you so pensive in these days, eh ? "

" I had not the least idea I was pensive," said the young man.

"You are very much pre-occupied, you are thinking of something."

"And what is it," he asked, "that you accuse me of thinking of ? "

"Of that young lady's — Miss Baker's, Miss Chandler's — what's her name ? — Miss Miller's intrigue with that little barber's block."

" Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne 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 some- thing of that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded. " I don't believe that there is anything to be called an intrigue."

U2 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

"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 elegant man in the world, the finest gentleman. She has never seen anything like him ; he is better even than the courier. It was the courier pro- bably who introduced him, and if he suc- ceeds 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.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 113

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 respectable 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 him. He is evidently immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest gentleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found him- self in personal contact with such splendour, such opulence, such expensiveness, as this young lady's. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty and interesting. I rather doubt whether he dreams of marrying her. That must appear to him too impos- sible a piece of luck. He has nothing but his handsome face to offer, and there is a

ii4 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 pursued, " 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 incapable of that conception."

"Ah! but the cavalier e 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 115

pilasters. The vesper-service was going for- ward in splendid chants and organ-tones in the adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Costello 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 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 believed that she had com- pletely 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

I 2

n6 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 contemplating 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 narrated that the pretty American girl — prettier than ever — was seated with a com- panion in the secluded nook in which the great papal portrait is enshrined.

" Who was her companion r " asked Winterbourne.

" A little Italian with a bouquet in his button-hole. The girl is delightfully pretty, but I thought I understood from you the other day that she was a young lady du meilleur monde"

" So she is ! " answered Winterbourne ; and having assured himself that his informant had- seen Daisy and her companion but five minutes before, he jumped into a cab and

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 117

went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at home ; but she apologised 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 inti- mate," 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 parent 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 certainly should ; and the state of mind of Daisy's mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parental vigilance that he gave

ii8 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 acquaintance, 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 intimated that they desired to express to observant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behaviour was not representative — was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne 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 reflected upon her ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 119

organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether Daisy's defiance came from the conscious- ness of innocence or from her being, essen- tially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding oneself to a belief in Daisy's " innocence " came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding himself 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, national, and how far they were personal. From either view of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late. She was " carried away " by Mr. Giovanelli.

A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode of flowering desolation known as the Palace of the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with

120 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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 marble and paved with monumental inscriptions. It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as just then. He stood looking off at the enchanting harmony of line and colour that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odours and feeling the fresh- ness of the year and the antiquity of the place reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion. It seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty; but this had been an observ- ation of his whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, too, wore an aspect of even unwonted brilliancy.

"Well," said Daisy, "I should think you would be lonesome ! "

" Lonesome ? " asked Winterbourne.

" You are always going round by your-

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 121

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 politeness ; 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 obvi- ously a great deal of tact ; he had no objection to your expecting a little humility of him. It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain mental relief in being able to have a private understanding with him — to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, he knew how extraordinary 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

122 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

almond blossom, which he carefully arranged in his button-hole.

" I know why you say that," said Daisy, watching Giovanelli. " Because you think 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 ex- claimed 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?" Win- terbourne asked.

" I have noticed you. But I noticed 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.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 123

"How shall I find it ? "

" By going to see the others."

" What will they do to me ? "

"They will give you the cold shoulder. Do you know what that means ? "

Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to colour. "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 Winterbourne — "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 do 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.

Winterbourne began to laugh. " And does Randolph believe it ? " he asked.

I24 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

"I guess Randolph doesn't believe any- thing," said Daisy. Randolph's scepticism excited Winterbourne to farther hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, addressed herself again to her countryman. " Since you have mentioned it," she said, " I am engaged." . . . Winterbourne looked at her ; he had stopped laughing. " You don't believe it !." she added.

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 beauti- ful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely-

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 125

lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud-curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalise it. When, on his return from the villa (it was 'eleven o'clock), Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum, 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 stationed. 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

I26 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets, they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly ; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villanous miasma. Winterbourne 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 companion 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,"

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 127

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 illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy's behaviour 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 companion, and not reflect- ing 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 going to advance again, he checked himself; not from the fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger of appearing un- becomingly exhilarated by this sudden re- vulsion from cautious criticism. He turned away towards the entrance of the place;

128 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

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, and how smartly she played an injured innocence! But he wouldn't cut her. Winterbourne came forward again, and went towards the great cross. Daisy had got up ; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Winter- bourne 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 reprobate ? 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 moonlight, looked at him a moment. Then — "All the evening," she answered gently. , . . " I never saw anything so pretty."

" I am afraid," said Winterbourne, " that you will not think Roman fever very pretty.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 129

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 speaking for this young lady."

Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterbourne's rebuke with docility. " I told the Signorina it was a grave indis- cretion ; but when was the Signorina 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 without that ; and we have had the most beautiful time, haven't we, Mr. Giovanelli ? If there has been any danger, Eugenic can give me some pills. He has got some splendid pills."

130 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

" I should advise you," said Winterbourne, " to drive home as fast as possible and take one ! "

" What you say is very wise," Giovanelli rejoined. " I will go and make sure the carriage is at hand." And he went forward rapidly.

Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her ; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing ; Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place. "Well, I have seen the Colosseum by moonlight ! " she exclaimed. "That's one good thing." Then, noticing Winterbourne'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 believed the other day," said Winterbourne, still laughing.

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 131

" Well, what do you believe now ? "

" I believe that it makes very little differ- ence whether you are engaged or not ! "

He felt the young girl's pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick gloom of the archway; she was apparently going 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 beside her. " Don't forget Eugenio'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 en~ countered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a gentleman ; but neverthe- less, a couple of days later, the fact of her

having been there under these circumstances

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132 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY.

was known to every member of the little American circle, and commented accord- ingly. Winterbourne reflected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that, after Daisy's return, there had been an exchange of jokes 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 information to give: the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the rumour came to him, immediately 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 Randolph — " that's what made her sick. She's always going round at night. I shouldn't think she'd want to — it's so plaguey dark. You

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 133

can't see anything here at night, except 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 dangerously ill.

Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was — rather to his surprise — perfectly composed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judicious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. Davis, but Winterbourne paid her the com- pliment 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

134 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY.

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. Any way, 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 Switzerland. But I said I wouldn't give any such messages as that. Only, if she is not engaged, I'm sure I'm glad to know it."

But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered 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. Winterbourne stood there beside it, with a number of other mourners; a number larger than the scandal

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 135

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 pre- sently repeated his words, "And the most innocent ? "

" The most innocent ! "

Winterbourne felt sore and angry. " Why the devil," he asked, " did you take take her to that fatal place?"

Mr. Giovanelli's urbanity was apparently imperturbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and then he said, "For my- self, I had no fear ; and she wanted to

go"

" That was no reason ! " Winterbourne declared.

136 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY.

The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. " If she had lived, I should have got nothing. She would never have married 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 he 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 Vevey. Mrs. Costello was fond of Vevey. In the interval Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying 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

DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 137

which I didn't understand at the time. But I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one's esteem."

t( 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.

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

I.

FOUR years age — in 1874 — two young Englishmen had occasion to go to the United States. They crossed the ocean at midsummer, and, arriving in New York on the first day of August, were much struck with the fervid temperature of that city. Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed into one of those huge high-hung coaches which convey passengers to the hotels, and with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, took their course through Broadway. The midsummer aspect of New York is not perhaps the most favourable one ; still, it is not without its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well resemble less a typical English street than the interminable

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avenue, rich in incongruities, through which our two travellers advanced — looking out on each side of them at the comfortable animation of the sidewalks, the high-coloured, heterogeneous architecture, the huge white marble facades, glittering in the strong, crude light and bedizened with gilded letter- ing, the multifarious awnings, banners and streamers, the extraordinary number of omnibuses, horse-cars and other democratic vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the white trousers and big straw-hats of the policemen, the tripping gait of the modish young persons on the pavement, the general brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people and things. The young men had exchanged few observations ; but . in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Wash- ington— in the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the pater patrice — 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.

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"Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the first speaker, after a pause.

" You know we are in a low latitude," said his friend.

" I daresay," remarked the other.

" I wonder," said the second speaker, presently, u if they can give one a bath."

"I daresay not," rejoined the other.

" Oh, I say ! " cried his comrade.

This animated discussion was checked by their arrival at the hotel, which had been recommended to them by an American gentleman whose acquaintance they made — with whom, indeed, they became very intimate — on the steamer, and who had proposed to accompany them to the inn and introduce them, in a friendly way, to the proprietor. This plan, however, had been defeated by their friend's finding that his "partner" was awaiting him on the wharf, and that his commercial associate desired him instantly to come and give his attention to certain telegrams received from St. Louis. But the two Englishmen, with nothing but

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their national prestige and personal graces to recommend them, were very well received at the hotel, which had an air of capacious hospitality. They found that a bath was not unattainable, and were indeed struck with the facilities for prolonged and reiterated immersion with which their apart- ment was supplied. After bathing a good deal — more indeed than they had ever done before on a single occasion — they made their way into the dining-room of the hotel, 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 circum- stances a delightful occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable in the circumstances in which our young English- men found themselves. They were ex- •tremely good-natured young men ; they were more observant than they appeared ; in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally dis- simulative fashion, they were highly appre

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dative. This was perhaps especially the case with the elder, who was also, as I have said, the man of talent. They sat down at a little table which was a very different affair from the great clattering see-saw in the saloon of the steamer. The wide doors and windows of the restaurant stood open, beneath large awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other plants in tubs, and rows of spreading trees, and beyond which there was a large shady square, without any palings and with marble-paved walks. And above the vivid verdure rose other fa9ades of white marble and of pale chocolate-coloured stone, squaring themselves against the deep blue sky. Here, outside, in the light and the shade and the heat, there was a great tinkling of the bells of innumerable street-cars, and a constant strolling and shuffling and rustling of many pedestrians, a large pro- portion of whom were young women in Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, the place was cool and vaguely-lighted; with the plash of water, the odour

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of flowers and the flitting of French waiters, as I have said, upon soundless carpets.

"It's rather like Paris, you know," said the younger of our two travellers.

" It's like Paris — only more so," his companion rejoined.

" I suppose it's the French waiters," 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 English waiter at me. I suppose they think I can't speak French."

" No, more you can." And the elder of the young Englishmen unfolded his napkin.

His companion took no notice whatever of this declaration. " I say," he resumed, in a

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moment, " I suppose we must learn to speak American. I suppose we must take lessons."

" I can't understand them," said the clever man.

" What the deuce is he saying ? " asked his comrade, appealing from the French waiter.

" He is recommending some soft-shell crabs," said the clever man.

And so, in desultory observation of the idiosyncrasies of the new society in which they found themselves, the young 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 neighbouring streets. The early dusk of waning summer was coming on, but the heat was still very great. The pavements were hot even to the stout boot-soles of the British travellers, and the trees along the kerb-stone emitted

strange exotic odours. The young men

L 2

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wandered through the adjoining square — that queer place without palings, and with marble walks arranged in black and white lozenges. There were a great many benches, crowded with shabby-looking people, and the travellers remarked, very justly, that it was not much like Belgrave Square. On one side was an enormous hotel, lifting up into the hot darkness an immense array of open, brightly-lighted windows. At the base of this populous structure was an eternal jangle of horse-cars, and all round it, in the upper dusk, was a sinister hum of mosqui- toes. The ground-floor of the hotel seemed to be a huge transparent cage, flinging a wide glare of gaslight into the street, of which it formed a sort of public adjunct, absorbing and emitting the passers-by pro- miscuously. The young Englishmen went in with every one else, from curiosity, and saw a couple of hundred men sitting on divans along a great marble-paved corridor, with their legs stretched out, together with several dozen more standing in a queue, as at

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the ticket-office of a railway station, before a brilliantly-illuminated counter, of vast extent. These latter persons, who carried portman- teaux in their hands, had a dejected, ex- hausted look ; their garments were not very fresh, and they seemed to be rendering some mysterious tribute to a magnificent young man with a waxed moustache and a shirt front adorned with diamond buttons, who every now and then dropped an absent glance over their multitudinous patience. They were American citizens doing homage to an hotel-clerk.

" I'm glad he didn't tell us to go there,"' said one of our Englishmen, .alluding to their friend on the steamer, who had told them so many things. They walked up the Fifth Avenue, where, for instance, he had told them that all the first families lived. But the first families were out of town, and our young travellers had only the satisfaction of seeing some of the second — or perhaps even the third — taking the evening air upon balconies and high flights of doorsteps, in

ISO AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

the streets which radiate from the more ornamental thoroughfare. They went a little way down one of these side-streets, and they saw young ladies in white dresses — charming-looking persons — seated in grace- ful attitudes on the chocolate-coloured steps In one or two places these young ladies were conversing across the street with other young ladies seated in similar postures and costumes in front of the opposite houses, and in the warm night air their colloquial tones sounded strange in the ears of the young Englishmen. One of our friends, neverthe- less— the younger one — intimated that he felt a disposition to intercept a few of these soft familiarities; but his companion observed, pertinently enough, that he had better be careful. " We must not begin with making mistakes/' said his 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 !" answered his comrade, who, if he had greater

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talents, was also apparently more of a moralist.

By bed-time — in their impatience to taste of a terrestrial couch again our seafarers went to bed early — it was still insufferably hot, and the buzz of the mosquitoes at the open windows might have passed for an audible crepitation of the temperature. " We can't stand this, you know," the young English- men said to each other ; and they tossed about all night more boisterously than they had tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On the morrow, their first thought was that they would re-embark that day for England ; and then it occurred to them that they might find an asylum nearer at hand. The cave of ^Eolus became their ideal of comfort, and they wondered where the Americans went when they wished to cool off. They had not the least idea, and they determined to apply for information to Mr. J. L. West- gate. This was the name inscribed in a bold hand on the back of a letter carefully pre- served in the pocket-book of our junior

152 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

traveller. Beneath the address, in the left- hand corner of the envelope, were the words, "Introducing Lord Lambeth and Percy Beaumont, Esq." The letter had been given to the two Englishmen by a good friend of theirs in London, who had been in America two years previously and had singled out Mr. J. L. Westgate from the many friends he had left there as the consignee, as it were, of his compatriots. " He is a capital fellow," the Englishman in London had said, " and he has got an awfully pretty wife. He's tre- mendously hospitable — he will do everything in the world for you ; and as he knows every one over there, it is quite needless I should give you any other introduction. He will make you see every one ; trust to him for putting you into circulation. He has got a tremendously pretty wife." It was natural that in the hour of tribulation Lord Lambeth and Mr. Percy Beaumont should have be- thought themselves of a gentleman whose attractions had been thus vividly depicted ; all the more so that he lived in the Fifth

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Avenue and that the Fifth Avenue, as they had ascertained the night before, was con- tiguous 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-coloured 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.

" Rather better than a London house," said Lord Lambeth, looking down from this altitude, after they had rung the bell.

154 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

" It depends upon what London house you mean/' replied his companion. "You have a tremendous chance to get wet between the house-door and your carnage."

"Well," said Lord Lambeth, glancing at the burning heavens, " I e guess ' it doesn't rain so much here ! "

The door was opened by a long negro in a white jacket, who grinned familiarly when Lord Lambeth asked for Mr. Westgate.

" He ain't at home, sir ; he's down town at his o'fice."

"Oh, at his office?" said the visitors. " And when will he be at home ? "

66 Well, sir, when he goes out dis way in de mo'ning, he ain't liable to come home all day."

This was discouraging; but the address of Mr. 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

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comfortably down town. They measured the whole length of Broadway again, and found it a path of fire ; and then, deflecting to the left, they were deposited by their conductor before a fresh, light, ornamental structure, ten stories high, in a street crowded with keen-faced, light-limbed young men, who were running about very quickly and stopping each other eagerly at corners and in doorways. Passing into this brilliant building, they were introduced by one of the keen-faced young men — he was a charming fellow, in wonderful cream-col- oured garments and a hat with a blue ribbon, who had evidently perceived them to be aliens and helpless — to a very snug hydraulic elevator, in which they took their place with many other persons, and which, shooting upward in its vertical socket, pre- sently projected them into the seventh horizontal compartment of the edifice. Here, after brief delay, they found them- selves face to face with the friend of their friend in London. His office was composed

156 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.1

of several different rooms, and they waited very silently in one of these after they had sent in their letter and their cards. The letter was not one which it would take Mr. Westgate very long to read, but he came out to speak to them more instantly than they could have expected ; he had evidently jumped up from his work. He was a tall, lean personage, and was dressed all in fresh white linen ; he had a thin, sharp, familiar face, with an expression that was at one and the same time sociable and business-like, a quick, intelligent eye, and a large brown moustache, which concealed his mouth and made his chin, beneath it, look small. Lord Lambeth thought he looked tremendously clever.

"How do you do, Lord Lambeth — how do you do, sir ? " he said, holding the open letter in his hand. " I'm very glad to see you — I hope you're very well. You had better come in here — I think it's cooler;" and he led the way into another room,- where there were law-books and papers, and

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windows wide open beneath striped awnings. Just opposite one of the windows, on a line with his eyes, Lord Lambeth observed the weather-vane of a church steeple. The uproar of the street sounded in- finitely far below, and Lord Lambeth felt very high in the air. " I say it's cooler," pursued their host, " but everything is re- lative. How do you stand the heat ? "

" I can't say we like it," said Lord Lam- beth; "but Beaumont likes it better than I."

" Well, it won't last/' Mr. Westgate very cheerfully declared ; " nothing " unpleasant lasts over here. It was very hot when Captain Littledale was here ; he did nothing but drink sherry-cobblers. He expresses some doubt in his letter whether I shall remember him — -as if I didn't remember making six sherry-cobblers for him one day, in about twenty minutes. I hope you left him well ; two years having elapsed since then."

"Oh, yes, he's all right," said Lord Lambeth.

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" I am always very glad to see your countrymen," Mr. Westgate pursued. " I thought it would be time some of you should be coming along. A friend of mine was saying to me only a day or two ago, ' It's time for the water-melons and the Englishmen.' "

"The Englishmen and the water-melons just now are about the same thing," Percy Beaumont observed, wiping his dripping forehead.

" Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we do the melons. You must go down to Newport."

" We'll go anywhere ! " said Lord Lam- beth.

" Yes, you want to go to Newport — that's what you want to do," Mr. Westgate affirmed. " But let's see — when did you get here?"

" Only yesterday," said Percy Beaumont.

" Ah, yes, by the ' Russia.' Where are you staying ? "

" At the ' Hanover,' I think they call it."

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"Pretty comfortable?" inquired Mr. Westgate.

"It seems a capital place, bat I can't say we like the gnats," said Lord Lambeth.

Mr. Westgate stared and laughed. " Oh, no, of course you don't like the gnats. We shall expect you to like a good many things over here, but we shan't insist upon your liking the gnats ; though certainly you'll admit that, as gnats, they are fine, eh ? But you oughtn't to remain in the city."

" So we think," said Lord Lambeth. " If you would kindly suggest something "

" Suggest something, my dear sir ? " — and Mr. Westgate looked at him, narrowing his eyelids. " Open your mouth and shut your eyes! Leave it to me, and I'll put you through. It's a matter of national pride with me that all Englishmen should have a good time ; and, as I have had considerable practice, I have learned to minister to their wants. I find they generally want the right thing. So just please to consider yourselves my property ; and if any one should try to

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appropriate you, please to say, c Hands off; too late for the market.' But let's see," continued the American, in his slow, humorous voice, with a distinctness of utterance which appeared to his visitors to be part of a facetious intention — a strangely leisurely, speculative voice for a man evidently so busy and, as they felt, so professional — " let's see ; are you going to make some- thing of a stay, Lord Lambeth ? "

"Oh dear no," said the young English- man ; " 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 with me."

" And you have been here before, sir ? "

" Never — never."

" I thought, from your referring to busi- ness " said Mr. Westgate.

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" Oh, you see Fm by way of being a barrister," Percy Beaumont answered. " I know some people that think of bringing a suit against one of your railways, and they asked me to come over and take measures 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 instant. " Well, I'm sorry you want to attack one of our institutions," he said, smiling. "But I guess you had better enjoy yourself first /"

" I'm certainly rather afraid I can't work in this weather," the young barrister confessed.

"Leave that to the natives," said Mr. Westgate. " Leave the Tennessee Central to me, Mr. Beaumont. Some day we'll talk it over, and I guess I can make it square. But I didn't know you English- men ever did any work, in the upper classes."

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" Oh, we do a lot of work ; don't we, Lambeth ?" asked Percy Beaumont.

" I must certainly be at home by the 1 9th 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. Westgate, " you had better amuse yourself first, also. You must go down and see Mrs. Westgate."

" We should be so happy — if you would kindly tell us the train," said Percy Beau- mont.

" 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

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oblige me by going down there and putting yourself into the hands of Mrs. Westgate. It isn't perhaps for me to say it ; but you couldn't be in better hands. Also in those of her sister, who is staying with her. She is very fond of Englishmen. She thinks there is nothing like them."

" Mrs. Westgate or — a — her sister ? " asked 'Percy Beaumont, modestly, yet in the tone of an inquiring traveller.

" Oh, I mean my wife," said Mr. 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 ? "

" I believe it is very intellectual. I don't go there much," responded his host.

" I say, we ought to go there," said Lord Lambeth to his companion.

" Oh, Lord Lambeth, wait till the great heat is over ! " Mr. Westgate interposed. " Boston in this weather would be very trying ;

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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 complexion ; glancing aside after a moment to see that' his companion was not looking too credu- lous, for he had heard a great deal about American humour. "I daresay it is very jolly," said the younger gentleman.

"I daresay it is," said Mr. Westgate. "Only I must impress upon you that at present — to-morrow morning, at an early hour — you will be expected at Newport. We have a house there ; half the people in New York go there for the summer. I am not sure that at this very moment my wife can take you in ; she has got a lot of people staying with her ; I don't know who they all are ; only she may have no room. But you can begin with the hotel, and meanwhile you

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can live at my house. In that way — simply sleeping at the hotel — you will find it toler- able. 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 some- thing about that. I expect you'll find some pretty girls on the premises. I shall write to my wife by this afternoon's mail, and to- morrow she and Miss Alden will look out for you. Just walk right in and make your- self 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 few days hence, at the end of the week, I will come down to Newport and see how you are getting on."

The two young Englishmen inaugurated the policy of not resisting Mrs. Westgate by

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submitting, with great docility and thankful- ness, to her husband. He was evidently a very good fellow, and he made an impression upon his visitors ; his hospitality seemed to recommend itself, consciously — with a friendly wink, as it were — as if it hinted, judicially, that you could not possibly make a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his cousin left their entertainer to his labours and returned to their hotel, where they spent three or four hours in their respective shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had sug- gested that they ought to see something of the town ; but " Oh, damn the town ! " his noble kinsman had rejoined. They returned to Mr. Westgate's office in a carriage, with their luggage, very punctually ; but it must be reluctantly recorded that, this time, he kept them waiting so long that they felt themselves missing the steamer and were deterred only by an amiable modesty from dispensing with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to the wharf. But when at last he appeared, and the carriage

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plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they jolted and jostled to such good purpose that they reached the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was still ringing and the absorption of passengers still active. It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and his leadership in the innumerable and interminable corridors and cabins, with which he seemed perfectly acquainted, and of which any one and every one appeared to have the entree, was very grateful to the slightly bewildered voyagers. He showed them their state-room — a spacious apartment, embellished with gas-lamps, mirrors en pied and sculptured furniture — and then, long after they had been intimately convinced that the steamer was in motion and launched upon the unknown stream that they were about to navigate, he bade them a sociable farewell.

" Well, good-bye, Lord Lambeth," he said. " Good-bye, Mr. Percy Beaumont ; I hope you'll have a good time. Just let them do what they want with you. I'll come down by-and-by and look after you."

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

II.

THE young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with wandering about the immense labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as an extra- ordinary mixture of a ship and an hotel. It was densely crowded with passengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and very young children ; and in the big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, which followed each other in surprising suc- cession, beneath the swinging gas-lights and among the small side-passages where the negro domestics of both sexes assembled with an air of philosophic leisure, every one was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and familiar observations. Eventually, at the instance of a discriminating black, our young men went and had some "supper,"

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in a wonderful place arranged like a theatre, where, in a gilded gallery upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra was playing operatic selections, and, below, people were handing about bills of fare, as if they had been programmes. All this was sufficiently curious ; but the agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm, breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make out the line of low, mysterious coast. The young Englishmen tried Ameri- can cigars — 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 espe- cially, like people thoroughly conscious of a common point of view, so that a style of conversation superficially lacking in finish might suffice for a reference to a fund of associations in the light of which everything was all right.

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" 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.' '

" I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lam- beth. "I want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You know he told us the place was an island ; and aren't all islands in the sea ? "

"Well," resumed the elder traveller after a while, " if his house is as good as his cigars, we shall do very well."

" He seems a very good fellow," said Lord Lambeth, as if this idea had just occurred to him.

" I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined his companion, presently. " I don't think I like the way he spoke of his house. I don't like stopping in the house with such a tremendous lot of women."

" Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked awhile in silence. "Fancy his thinking we do no work in England ! " the young man resumed.

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" I daresay he didn't really think so," said Percy Beaumont.

" Well, I guess they don't know much about England over here ! " declared Lord Lambeth, humorously. And then there was another long pause. " He was devilish civil," observed the young nobleman.

" Nothing, certainly, could have been more civil," rejoined his companion.

"Littledale said his wife was great fun," said Lord Lambeth.

" Whose wife — Littledale's ? "

" This American's — Mrs. Westgate. What's his name } J. L."

Beaumont was silent a moment. " What was fun to Littledale," he said at last, rather sententiously, " may be death to us."

" What do you mean by that ? " asked his kinsman. " I am as good a man as Littledale."

"My dear boy, I hope you won't begin to flirt," said Percy Beaumont.

" I don't care. I daresay I shan't begin."

" With a married woman, if she's bent

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upon it, it's all very well," Beaumont ex- pounded. " 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 Beaumont, " you have got your natural protectors. 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 Beaumont.

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" She said she felt very nervous. I promised to keep you out of mischief."

"You had better take care of yourself," said the object of maternal and ducal solicitude.

"Ah," rejoined the young barrister, "I haven't the expectation of a hundred thousand a year — not to mention other

attractions."

"Well," said Lord Lambeth, "don't cry out before you're hurt ! "

It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, where our travellers found them- selves assigned to a couple of diminutive bed-rooms in a far-away angle of an • im- mense 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 commo- dious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and health, they began to feel, towards eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked out of their windows across a row of

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small green fields, bordered with low stone dykes, of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky and flecked now and then with scintillating patches of foam. A strong, fresh breeze came in through the curtainless casements and prompted our young men to observe, generously, that it didn't seem half a bad climate. They made other observations after they had emerged from their rooms in pursuit of breakfast — a meal of which they partook in a huge bare hall, where a hundred negroes, in white jackets, were shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor ; where the flies were superabundant and the tables and dishes covered over with a strange, voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze ; and where several little boys and girls, who had risen late, were seated in fastidious solitude at the morning repast. These young persons had not the morning paper before them, but they were engaged in languid perusal of the bill of fare.

This latter document was a great puzzle

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to our friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories had relation to break- fast 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 terribly deflowered. It was perforated from end to end with immense bare corridors,, through which a strong draught was blowing — bearing along wonderful figures of ladies in white morning-dresses and clouds of Valen- ciennes lace, who seemed to float down the long vistas with expanded furbelows, like angels spreading their wings. In front was a gigantic verandah, upon which an army might have encamped — a vast wooden terrace, with a roof as lofty as the nave of a cathedral. Here our young Englishmen enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of American society, which was distributed over the measureless expanse in a variety of sedentary attitudes, and appeared to consist

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largely of pretty young girls, dressed as if for &fete champetre, swaying to and fro in rocking-chairs, fanning themselves with large straw fans, and enjoying an enviable exemption from social cares. Lord Lam- beth had a theory, which it might be interesting to trace to its origin, that it would be not only agreeable, but easily possible, to enter into relations with one of these young ladies ; and his companion found occasion to check the young noble- man'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 Lam- beth replied. " You know the Americans come to these big hotels to make ac- quaintances."

" I know nothing about it, and neither do you," said his kinsman, who, like a clever man, had begun to perceive that the ob- servation of American society demanded a readjustment of one's standard.

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" Hang it, then, let's find out ! " cried Lord Lambeth with some impatience. " You know, I don't want to miss anything."

"We will find out/' said Percy Beau- mont, very reasonably. "We will go and see Mrs. Westgate and make all the proper inquiries."

And so the two inquiring Englishmen, who had this lady's address inscribed in her husband's hand upon a card, descended from the verandah of the big hotel and took their way, according to direction, along a large straight road, past a series of fresh-looking villas, 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 entertaining. Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh paint the day before — the red roofs, the green shutters, the clean, bright browns and buffs of the house- fronts. The flower-beds on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in the radiant air, aid the

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gravel in the short carriage-sweeps to flash and twinkle. Along the road came a hundred little basket-phaetons, in which, almost always, a couple of ladies were sitting — ladies in white dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking at the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive, through thick blue veils, tied tightly about their faces as if to guard their complexions. At last the young men came within sight of the sea again, and then, having interrogated a gardener over the paling of a villa, they turned into an open gate. Here they found themselves face to face with the ocean and with a very pictur- esque structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was perched upon a green embankment just above it. The house had a verandah of extraordinary width all around it, and a great many doors and windows standing open to the verandah. These various apertures had, in common, such an accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy flutter, within, of light curtains, such expan-

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sive thresholds and reassuring interiors, that our friends hardly knew which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating a moment, presented themselves at one of the windows. The room within was dark, but in a moment a graceful figure vaguely shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom, and a lady came to meet them. Then they saw that she had been seated at a table, writing, and that she had heard them and had got up. She stepped out into the light ; she wore a frank, charming smile, with which she held out her hand to Percy Beaumont.

"Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont," she said. " I have heard from my husband that you would come. I am extremely glad to see you." And she shook hands with each of her visitors. Her visitors were a little shy, but they had very good manners; they responded with smiles and exclamations, and they apologised 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

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those distinctions, and that Mr. Westgate had written to her of his English friends in terms that made her really anxious. " He said you were so terribly prostrated," said Mrs. Westgate.

"Oh, you mean by the heat?" replied Percy 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 you," murmured Lord Lambeth.

Mrs. Westgate stood smiling ; she was extremely pretty. "Well, I did mind," she said ; " and I thought of sending for you this morning, to the Ocean House. I am very glad you are better, and I am charmed you have arrived. You must come round to the other side of the piazza." And she led the way, with a light, smooth step, looking back at the young men and smiling.

The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very

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jolly place. It was of the most liberal proportions, 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 lawnlike smoothness, it formed a charming complement to the drawing- room. As such it was in course of use at the present moment; it was occupied by a social circle. There were several ladies and two or three gentlemen, to whom Mrs. Westgate proceeded to introduce the distinguished strangers. She men- tioned a great many names, very freely and distinctly ; the young Englishmen, shuffling about and bowing, were rather bewildered. But at last they were provided with chairs — low wicker chairs, gilded and tied with a great many ribbons — and one of the ladies (a very young person, with a little snub nose and several dimples) offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also adorned with pink love-knots ; but Percy Beaumont declined it, although he was very

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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 comfort- able. 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 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

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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 herself between them, and, talking a great deal to each, they had occasion to observe that she was as pretty as their friend Littledale had promised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was extremely light and graceful, elegant, exquisite. Mrs. Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She was very frank and demonstrative, and appeared always — while she looked at you delightedly with her beautiful young eyes — to be making sudden confessions and concessions, after momentary hesitations.

" We shall expect to see a great deal of you," she said to Lord Lambeth, with a kind of joyous earnestness. "We are very fond of Englishmen here ; that is, there are a great many we have been fond of. After

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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. Beau- mont will have no difficulty about that. Englishmen are very well received here ; there are almost always two or three of them about. I think they always like it, and I must say I should think they would. They receive ever so much attention. I must say I think they sometimes get spoiled ; but I am sure you and Mr. Beaumont are proof against that. My husband tells me you are a friend of Captain Littledale; he was such a charming man. He made himself most agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder he didn't stay. It couldn't have been pleasanter for him in his own country. Though I suppose it is very pleasant in 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

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say I'm extremely fond of Paris ; you know we Americans always are ; we go there when we die. Did you ever hear that before ? that was said by a great wit. I mean the good 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 V Anglaise ; and I must say that is a talent I never possessed. In Paris they will make things to suit your peculiarities ; but in England I think you like much more to have — how shall I say it t — one thing for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I don't know about other things ; but I have always supposed that in

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other things everything was different. I mean according to the people — according to the classes, and all that. I am afraid you will think that I don't take a very favourable view ; but you know you can't take a very favourable view in Dover Street, in the month of November. That has always been my fate. Do you know Jones's Hotel, in Dover Street ? That's all I know of England. Of course, every one admits that the English hotels are your weak point. There was always the most frightful fog ; I couldn't see to try my things on. When I got over to America — into the light — I usually found they were twice too big. The next time I mean to go in the season; I think I shall go next year. I want very much to take my sister ; she has never been to England. I don't know whether you know what I mean by saying that the Englishmen who come here sometimes get spoiled. I mean that they take things as a matter of course — things that are done for them. Now, naturally, they are only a matter of

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course when the Englishmen are very nice. But, of course, they are almost always very nice. Of course, this isn't nearly such an interesting country as England ; there are not nearly so many things to see, and we haven't your country life. I have never seen anything of your country life ; when I am in Europe I am always on the Continent. But I have heard a great deal about it ; I know that when you are among yourselves in the country you have the most beautiful time. Of course, we have nothing of that sort, we have nothing on that scale. I don't apolo- gise, Lord Lambeth ; some Americans are always apologising; 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 things over. The American flag has quite gone out of fashion ; it's very carefully folded up, like an old tablecloth. Why should we apolo-

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gise ? The English never apologise — do they? No, I must say I never apologise. You must take us as we come — with all our imperfections on our heads. Of course we haven't your country life, and your old ruins, and your great estates, and your leisure - class, and all that. But if we haven't, I should think you might find it a pleasant change — I think any country is pleasant where they have pleasant manners. Captain Littledale told me he had never seen such pleasant manners as at Newport ; and he had been a great deal in European society. Hadn't he been in the diplomatic service ? He told me the dream of his life was to get appointed to a diplomatic post in Washington. But he doesn't seem to have succeeded. I suppose that in England promotion — and all that sort of thing — is fearfully slow. With us, you know, it's a great deal too fast. You see I admit our drawbacks. But I must confess I think Newport is an ideal place. I don't know anything like it anywhere. Captain Little-

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dale told me he didn't know anything like it anywhere. It's entirely different from most watering-places ; it's a most charming life. I must say I think that when one goes to a foreign country, one ought to enjoy the differences. Of course there are differences ; otherwise what did one come abroad for ? Look for your pleasure in the differences. Lord Lambeth; that's the way to do it ; and then I am sure you will find American society — at least New- port society — most charming and most inter- esting. I wish very much my husband were here; but he's dreadfully confined to New York. I suppose you think that is very strange — for a gentleman. But you see we haven't any leisure-class."

Mrs. Westgate's discourse, delivered in a soft, sweet voice, flowed on like a miniature torrent and was interrupted by a hundred little smiles, glances, and gestures, which might have figured the irregularities and obstructions of such a stream. Lord Lam- beth listened to her with, it must be

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confessed, a rather ineffectual attention, although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and ejaculations of assent and deprecation. He had no great faculty for apprehending generalisations. There were some three or four indeed which, in the play of his own intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed con- venient at the moment ; but at the present time he could hardly have been said to follow Mrs. Westgate as she darted gracefully about in the sea of speculation. Fortunately she asked for no especial rejoinder, for she looked about at the rest of the company as well, and smiled at Percy Beaumont, on the other side of her, as if he too must understand her and agree with her. He was rather more successful than his companion ; for besides being, as we know, cleverer, his attention was not vaguely distracted by close vicinity to a remarkably interesting young girl, with dark hair and blue eyes. This was the case with Lord Lambeth, to whom it occurred after a while

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that the young girl with blue eyes and dark hair was the pretty sister of whom Mrs. Westgate had spoken. She presently turned to him with a remark which estab- lished her identity.

''It's a great pity you couldn't have brought my brother-in-law with you. It's a great shame he should be in New York in these days."

" Oh yes ; it's so very hot," said Lord Lambeth.

" It must be dreadful," said the young girl.

" I daresay he is very busy," Lord Lam- beth observed.

"The gentlemen in America work too much," the young girl went on.

" Oh, do they ? I daresay they like it," said her interlocutor.

" I don't like it. One never sees them."

"Don't you, really?" asked Lord Lambeth. "I shouldn't have fancied that."

"Have you come to study American manners r " asked the young girl.

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" Oh, I don't know. I just came over for a lark. I haven't got long." Here there was a pause, and Lord Lambeth began again. "But Mr. Westgate will come down here, will not he ? "

" I certainly hope he will. He must help to entertain you and Mr. Beaumont."

Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his 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 a moment, and then — " I daresay he would, " she answered.

"Really!" said the young Englishman. u He was immensely civil to Beaumont and me," he added.

" He is a dear good fellow," the young lady rejoined. c{ And he is a perfect husband. But all Americans are that," she continued, smiling.

" Really ! " Lord Lambeth exclaimed again ; and wondered whether all American ladies had such a passion for generalising as these two.

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III.

HE sat there a good while : there was a great deal of talk ; it was all very friendly and lively and jolly. Every one present, sooner or later, said something to him, and seemed to make a particular point of addressing him by name. Two or three other persons came in, and there was a shifting of seats and changing of places; the gentlemen all entered into intimate conversation with the two Englishmen, made them urgent offers of hospitality 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 private as those dear little English inns of yours." This last gentleman went on to say that unfortunately, as yet, perhaps, privacy was not quite so

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easily obtained in America as might be desired ; still, he continued, you could gener- ally get it by paying for it ; in fact you could get everytnmg in America nowadays by paying for it. American life was cer- tainly growing a great deal more private ; 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 people, and, in any case, they would be a great deal at Mrs. Westgate's. They would find that very charming; it was the pleasantest house in Newport. It was a pity Mr. Westgate was always away; he was a man of the highest ability — very acute, very acute. He worked like a horse and he left his wife — well, to do about as she liked. He liked her to enjoy herself, and she seemed to know how. She was extremely brilliant, and a splendid

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talker. Some people preferred her sister ; but Miss Alden was very different; she was in a different style altogether. Some people even . thought her prettier, and, cer- tainly, she was not so sharp. She was more in the Boston style ; she had lived a great deal in Boston and she was very highly educated. Boston girls, it was intimated, were more like English young ladies.

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this proposition ; for on the company rising in compliance with a sug- gestion 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 obligation to exert an active hospitality ; and this was perhaps the more to be noticed as she seemed by nature a reserved and retiring person, and had little of her sister's fraternising quality. She was perhaps rather too thin, and she was a little pale ; but as

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she moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging at her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the sea and then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. Westgate, and reflected that if this was the Boston style the Boston style was very charming. He thought she looked very clever; he could imagine that she was highly educated; but at the same time she seemed gentle and graceful. For all her cleverness, however, he felt that she had to think a little what to say ; she didn't say the first thing that came into her head ; he had come from a different part of the world and from a- different society, and she was trying to adapt her conversation. The others were scattering themselves near the rocks ; Mrs. Westgate had charge of Percy Beaumont.

" Very jolly place, isn't it ? " said Lord Lambeth. " It's a very jolly place to sit."

" Very charming," said the young girl ; " I often sit here ; there are all kinds of cosy

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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 daresay you go in for pure nature as you were saying. Nature, over here, must be so grand, you know." And Lord Lam- beth looked about him.

The little coast-line hereabouts was very pretty, but it was not at all grand ; and Miss Alden appeared to rise to a perception of this fact. " I am afraid it seems to you very rough," she said. " It's not like the coast scenery in Kingsley's novels."

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" Ah, the novels always overdo it, you know,"' Lord Lambeth rejoined. "You must not go by the novels."

They were wandering about a little on the rocks, and they stopped and looked down into a narrow chasm where the rising tide made a curious bellowing sound. It was loud enough to prevent their hearing each other, and they stood there for some moments in silence. The young girl looked at her companion, observing him attentively but covertly, as women, even when very young, know how to do. Lord Lambeth repaid observation ; tail, straight and strong, he was handsome as certain young English- men, and certain young Englishmen almost alone, are handsome ; with a perfect finish of feature and a look of intellectual repose and gentle good temper which seemed somehow to be consequent upon his well-cut nose and chin. And to speak of Lord Lambeth's expression of intellectual repose is not simply a civil way of saying that he looked stupid. He was evidently not a young man of an

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irritable imagination ; he was not, as he would himself have said, tremendously clever ; but, though there was a kind of appealing dulness in his eye, he looked thoroughly reasonable and competent, and his appearance proclaimed that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent fellow, was a sufficiently brilliant combin- ation of qualities. The young girl beside him, it may be attested without farther delay, thought him the handsomest young man she had ever seen ; and Bessie Alden's imagination, unlike that of her companion, was irritable. He, however, was also making up his mind that she was uncommonly pretty.

" I daresay 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 having, with women, a sufficiency of conversation.

" Oh yes, there is a great deal going on," Bessie Alden replied. "There are not so many balls, but there are a good many other

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things. You will see for yourself; we live rather in the midst of it."

" It's very kind of you to say that. But I thought you Americans were always dancing."

" I suppose we dance a good deal ; but I have never seen much of it. We don't do it much, at any rate, in summer. And I am sure," said Bessie Alden, " that we don't have so many balls as you have in England."

" Really ! " exclaimed Lord Lambeth. " Ah, in England it all depends, you know."

u You will not think much of our gaieties/' said the young girl, looking at him with a little mixture of interrogation and decision which was peculiar to her. The interroga- tion 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,"

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the young girl declared. " Certainly, from what I have read about English society, it is very different."

"Ah, 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 minding 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.

u Oh, I daresay they know ; they were so very clever. But those fashionable novels," said Lord Lambeth, " they are awful rot, you know."

His companion looked at him a moment with her dark blue eyes, and then she looked down into the chasm where the water was

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tumbling about. "Do you mean Mrs. Gore, for instance ? " she said presently, raising her eyes.

" I am afraid I haven't read that either," was the young man's rejoinder, laughing a little and blushing. " I am afraid you'll think I am not very intellectual."

" Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of in- tellect. But I like reading everything about English life — even poor books. I am so curious about it."

" Aren't ladies always curious ? " asked the young man, jestingly.

But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to answer his question seriously. " I don't think so — I don't think we are enough so — that we care about many things. So it's all the more ot a compliment," she added, " that I should want to know so much about England."

The logic here seemed a little close ; but Lord Lambeth, conscious of a compliment, found his natural modesty just at hand. " I am sure you know a great deal more than I do."

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" 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 daresay you'll go soon, won't you?"

"It's the dream of my life!" declared Bessie Alden, smiling.

"But your sister seems to know a tre- mendous lot about London," Lord Lambeth went on.

The young girl was silent a moment. " My sister and I are two very different per- sons/' she presently said. " She has been a great deal in Europe. She has been in England several times. She has known a great many English people."

" But you must have known some, too," said Lord Lambeth.

" I don't think that I have ever spoken to one before. You are the first Englishman

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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 impressiveness. Attempts at impressiveness always made him feel awk- ward, and he now began to laugh and swing his stick. "Ah, you would have been sure to know ! " he said. And then he added, after an instant — " I'm sorry I am not a better specimen."

The young girl looked away; but she smiled, laying aside her impressiveness. ." You must remember that you are only a beginning," she said. Then she retraced her steps, leading the way back to the lawn, where they saw Mrs. Westgate come towards them with Percy Beaumont still at her side. " Perhaps I shall go to England next year," Miss Alden continued ; " I want to, immensely. My sister is going to Europe, and she has asked me to go with her. If we go, I shall make her stay as long as possible in London."

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" 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 com- panion were near them. " Kitty," said Miss Alden, " I have given out that we are going to London next May. So please to conduct yourself accordingly."

Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat ani- mated— even a slightly irritated — air. He was by no means so handsome a man as his cousin, although in his cousin's absence he might have passed for a striking specimen of the tall, muscular, fair-bearded, clear-eyed Englishman. Just now Beaumont's clear eyes, which were small and of a pale grey colour, had a rather troubled light, and, after glancing at Bessie Alden while she spoke, he rested them upon his kinsman. Mrs. Westgate meanwhile, with her superfluously pretty gaze, looked at every one alike.

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" 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 delightful."

" Oh, I say, Percy ! " exclaimed Lord Lambeth.

"I disagree," said Beaumont, stroking down his black hair, " even to the point of not thinking it delightful."

" Oh, I say !" cried Lord Lambeth again.

"I don't see anything delightful in my disagreeing with Mrs. Westgate," said Percy Beaumont.

" Well, I do ! " Mrs. Westgate declared ; and she turned to her sister. " You know you have to go to town. The phaeton is there. You had better take Lord Lambeth."

At this point Percy Beaumont certainly looked straight at his kinsman ; he tried to catch his eye. But Lord Lambeth would

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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 her- self/' said Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beau- mont with her bright expository air, " must buy something every day of her life. If she cannot do it herself, she must send out some member of her family for the purpose. So Bessie goes forth to fulfil my mission."

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.

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" Extremely shy/' Mrs. Westgate repeated. " But she is a dear good girl ; she is a charm- ing species of girl. She is not in the least a flirt ; that isn't at all her line ; she doesn't know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She is 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 cultivated. She has studied immensely and read everything ; she is what they call in Boston 'thought- ful/ "

"A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get hold of! " his lordship's kinsman privately reflected.

"I really believe," Mrs. Westgate con- tinued, " that the most charming girl in the world is a Boston superstructure upon a New Yorkfonds; or perhaps a New York superstructure upon a Boston fonds. At any rate it's the mixture," said Mrs. Westgate, who continued to give Percy Beaumont a great deal of information.

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Lord Lambeth got into a little basket- phaeton with Bessie Alden, and she drove him down the long avenue, whose extent he had measured on foot a couple of hours before, into the ancient town, as it was called in that part of the world, of Newport. The ancient town was a curious affair — a collection of fresh-looking little wooden houses, painted white, scattered over a hill-side and clustered about a long, straight street, paved with enormous cobble-stones. There were plenty of shops — a large proportion of which appeared to be those of fruit-vendors, with piles of huge water-melons and pumpkins stacked in front of them ; and, drawn up before the shops, or bumping about on the cobble-stones, were innumerable other basket-phaetons freighted with ladies of high fashion, who greeted each other from vehicle to vehicle and 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

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went into seventeen shops — he amused him- self with counting them — and accumulated, at the bottom of the phaeton, a pile of bundles that hardly left the young English- man a place for his feet. As she had no groom nor footman, he sat in the phaeton to hold the ponies ; where, although he was not a particularly acute observer, he saw much to entertain him — especially the ladies just mentioned, who wandered up and down with the appearance of a kind of aimless intent- ness, as if they were looking for something to buy, and who, tripping in and out of their vehicles, displayed remarkably pretty feet. It all seemed to Lord Lambeth very odd, and bright, and gay. Of course, before they got back to the villa, he had had a great deal of desultory conversation with Bessie Alden.

The young Englishmen spent the whole of that day and the whole of many success- ive days in what the French call the intimite of their new friends. They agreed that it was extremely jolly — that they had never

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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 record of impressions none the less delectable that they were not exhaustively analysed. Many of them still linger in the minds of our travellers, attended by a train of harmonious images — images of brilliant mornings on lawns and piazzas that over- looked the sea ; of innumerable pretty girls ; of infinite lounging and talking and laugh- ing and flirting and lunching and dining ; of universal friendliness and frankness ; of occa- sions 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 tea-tables, on the return, informal, irregular, agreeable; of evenings at open windows or on the per- petual verandahs, in the summer starlight, above the warm Atlantic. The young

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Englishmen were introduced to everybody, entertained by everybody, intimate with everybody. At the end of three days they had removed their luggage from the hotel, and had gone to stay with Mrs. Westgate — • a step to which Percy Beaumont at first offered some conscientious opposition. I call his opposition conscientious because it was founded upon some talk that he had had, on the second day, with Bessie Alden. He had indeed had a good deal of talk with her, for she was not literally always in conversation with Lord Lambeth. He had meditated upon Mrs. Westgate' s account of her sister and he discovered, for himself, that the young lady was clever and appeared to have read a great deal. She seemed very nice, though he could not make out that, as Mrs. Westgate had said, she was shy. If she was shy she carried it off very well.

" Mr. Beaumont," she had said, " please tell me something about Lord Lambeth's family. How would you say it in England ? — his position."

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" His position ? " Percy Beaumont re- peated.

" His rank — or whatever you call it. Un- fortunately we haven't got a ( Peerage,' like the people in Thackeray."

"That's a great pity," said Beaumont. " You would find it all set forth there so much better than I can do it."

" He is a great noble, then ? "

" Oh yes, he is a great noble."

" Is he a peer ? "

« Almost."

" And has he any other title than Lord Lambeth ? "

"His title is the Marquis of Lambeth," said Beaumont; and then he was silent; Bessie Alden appeared to be looking at him with interest. " He is the son of the Duke of Bayswater," he added, presently.

"The eldest son?"

" The only son."

" And are his parents living ? "

" Oh yes ; if his father were not living he would be a duke."

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"So that when his father dies," pursued Bessie Alden, with more simplicity than might have been expected in a clever girl, " he will become Duke of Bayswater ? "

" Of course/' said Percy Beaumont. " But his father is in excellent health."

" And his mother ? "

Beaumont smiled a little. " The Duchess 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 r "

" 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.

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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."

" Damn 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 remembered his promise to the Duchess. It was obviously the memory of this promise that made him

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say to his companion a couple of days later that he rather wondered he should be so fond of that girl.

" In the first place, how do you know how fond I am of her?" asked Lord Lambeth. "And in the second place, why shouldn't I be fond of her ? "

" I shouldn't think she would be in your line."

" What do you call my c 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 meaning here."

"All the better. It's an animal I detest."

" You prefer a blue-stocking."

"Is that what you call Miss Alden ? "

"Her sister tells me," said Percy 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

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supposed you would have found that sort of thing awfully slow."

"In point of fact," Lord Lambeth re- joined, " I find it uncommonly lively."

After this, Percy Beaumont held his tongue; but on August loth he wrote to the Duchess of Bayswater. He was, as I have said, a man of conscience, and he had a strong, incorruptible sense of the pro- prieties of life. His kinsman, meanwhile, was having a great deal of talk with Bessie Alden — on the red sea-rocks beyond the lawn ; in the course of long island rides, with a slow return in the glowing twilight ; on the deep verandah, late in the evening. Lord Lambeth, who had stayed at many houses, had never stayed at a house in which it was possible for a young man to converse so frequently with a young lady. This young lady no longer applied to Percy Beaumont for information concerning his lordship. She addressed herself directly to the young nobleman. She asked him a great many questions, some of which bored

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him a little ; for he took no pleasure in talking about himself.

" Lord Lambeth," said Bessie Alden, " are you an hereditary legislator ? "

" Oh, I say," cried Lord Lambeth, " don't make me call myself such names as that."

" But you are a member of Parliament," said the young 'girl.

" I don't like the sound of that either."

" Doesn't your father sit in the House of Lords ? " Bessie Alden went on.

" Very seldom," said Lord Lambeth.

"Is it an important position ? " she asked.

" Oh dear no," said Lord Lambeth.

" I should think it would be very grand," said Bessie Alden, " to possess simply by an accident of birth the right to make laws for a great nation."

"Ah, but one doesn't make laws. It's a great humbug."

"I don't believe that," the young girl declared. " It must be a great privilege,

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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.

" Oh, I say ! " he cried. " Have you got a clergyman that is looking out ? " But she made him tell her that he had a Castle ; he confessed to but one. It was the place in which he had been born and brought up, and, as he had an old-time liking for it, he was beguiled into describing it a little and saying it was really very jolly. Bessie Alden listened with great interest, and declared that she would give the world to see such a

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place. Whereupon — "It would be awfully- kind of you to come and stay there," said Lord Lambeth. He took a vague satis- faction 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 propounded when the young men were together, that

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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. American ladies certainly don't mind contradicting you. Upon my word I don't think I was ever treated so by a woman before. She's so devilish positive."

Mrs. Westgate's positive quality, however, evidently had its attractions ; for Beaumont was constantly at his hostess's side. He detached himself one day to the extent of going to New York to talk over the Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate ; but he was absent only forty-eight hours, during which, with Mr. Westgate's assistance, he comoletelv settled this piece of business. "They certainly do things quickly in New York," he observed to his cousin ; and he

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added that Mr. Westgate had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her visitor — he had been in such an awful hurry to .send him back to her. " I'm afraid you'll never come up to an American husband — if that's what the wives expect/' he said to Lord Lambeth.

Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much longer the entertainment with which an indulgent husband had desired to keep her provided. On August 2ist Lord Lambeth received a telegram from his mother, requesting him to return immedi- ately to England; his father had been t'iken 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 ha<i deemed it his duty, as I have narrated, to write to the Duchess, but he had not expected that this distinguished woman

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would act so promptly upon his hint. "It means," he said, "that your father is laid up. I don't suppose it's any- thing 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 London," she answered, " I should think you would hear of it."

Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his sense of duty compelled him, one windless afternoon, in mid-Atlantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he suspected that the Duchess's telegram was in part the result of something he himself had written to her.

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" I wrote to her — as I explicitly notified you I had promised to do — that you were ex- tremely interested in a little American girl."

Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he indulged for some moments in the simple language of resentment. But I have said that he was a reasonable young man, and I can give no better proof of it than the fact that he remarked to his companion at the end of half-an-hour — " You were quite right after all. I am very much in- terested in her. Only, to be fair," he added, "you should have told my mother also that she is not — seriously — interested in me."

Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. " There is nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in your position. That speech is a capital proof that you are sweet on her."

" She is not interested — she is not ! " Lord Lambeth repeated.

"My dear fellow," said his companion, "you are very far gone."

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IV.

IN point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would have said, Mrs. Westgate disembarked on the 1 8th of May on the British coast. She was accompanied by her sister, but she was not attended by any other member of her family. To the deprivation of her husband's society Mrs. Westgate was, however, habitu- ated ; she had made half-a-dozen journeys to Europe without him, and she now accounted for his absence, to interrogative friends on this side of the Atlantic, by allusion to the regrettable but 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 occasions the most agreeable impression at this establishment,

received an obsequious greeting. Bessie

Q

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Alden had felt much excited about coming to England ; she had expected the " associ- ations " 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 pictur- esque, of the past, of retrospect, of mementoes and reverberations of greatness ; so that on coming into the great English world, where strangeness and familiarity would go hand in hand, she was prepared for a multitude of fresh emotions. They began very promptly — these tender, fluttering sensations ; they began with the sight of the beautiful English landscape, whose dark richness was quickened and brightened by the season ; with the carpeted 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 manners, the thousand differences. Mrs.

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Westgate's impressions had of course much less novelty and keenness, and she gave but a wandering attention to her sister's ejacula- tions and rhapsodies.

" 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 physical. I don't think I can quite say what it is, my enjoyment of England." When once it was settled that the two ladies should come abroad and should spend a few weeks in England on their way to the Continent, they of course exchanged a good many allusions to their London acquaintance.

"It will certainly be much nicer having friends there," Bessie Alden had said one day, as she sat on the sunny deck of the steamer, at her sister's feet, on a large blue rug.

" Whom do you mean by friends r " Mrs.

Westgate asked.

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"All those English gentlemen whom you have known and entertained. Captain Littledale, for instance. And Lord Lam- beth and Mr. Beaumont/' added Bessie Alden.

" Do you expect them to give us a very grand reception ? "

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 understand you," said Bessie.

" Shall I tell you a story?" asked her sister.

" If you would be so good. That is what they do to amuse simple people."

Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory,

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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/7 her sister went on.

" It's a proof of my simplicity."

" My story is meant to illustrate that of some other people," said Mrs. Westgate. " The Duke of Green-Erin is what they call in England a great swell ; and some five years ago he came to America. He spent most of his time in New York, and in New York he spent his days and his nights at the Butterworths'. You have heard at least of the Butterworths. Bien. They did every- thing in the world for him — they turned themselves inside out. They gave him a dozen dinner-parties and balls, and were the means of his being invited to fifty more. At first he used to come into Mrs. Butter- worth's box at the opera in a tweed travelling- suit ; but some one stopped that. At any rate, he had a beautiful time, and they parted the best friends in the world. Two years

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elapse, and the Butterworths come abroad and go to London. The first thing they see in all the papers — in England those things are in the most prominent place — is that the Duke of Green-Erin has arrived in town for the Season. They wait a little, and then Mr. Butterworth — as polite as ever — goes and leaves a card. They wait a little more ; the visit is not returned ; they wait three weeks — silence de mort — the Duke gives no sign. The Butterworths see a lot of other people, put down the Duke of Green-Erin as a rude, ungrateful man, and forget all about him. One fine day they go to Ascot Races, and there they meet him face to face. He stares a moment and then comes up to Mr. Butterworth, taking something from his pocket-book — something which proves to be a bank-note. ( I'm glad to see you, Mr. Butterworth,' he says, c so that I can pay you that ten pounds I lost to you in New York. I saw the other day you remembered our bet; here are the ten pounds, Mr. Butter- worth. Good-bye, Mr. Butterworth/ And

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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.

" T don't believe it," said the young girl.

"Ah!" cried Mrs. Westgate, "you are not so simple after all. Believe it or not as you please ; there is no smoke without fire."

"Is that the way," asked Bessie after a moment, "that you expect your friends to treat you ? "

" I defy them to^ treat me very ill, because I shall not give them the opportunity. With the best will in the world, in that case, they can't be very disobliging."

Bessie Alden was silent a moment. " I don't see what makes you talk that way," she said. "The English are a great people."

" Exactly ; and that is just the way they have grown great — by dropping you when

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you have ceased to be useful. People say they are not clever ; but I think they are very clever."

"You know you have liked them — all the Englishmen you have seen," said Bessie.

" They have liked me," her sister rejoined ; " it would be more correct to say that. And of course one likes that."

Bessie Alden resumed for some moments her studies in sea-green. "Well," she said, " whether they like me or not, I mean to like them. And happily," she added, "Lord Lambeth does not owe me ten pounds/'

During the first few days after their arrival at Jones's Hotel our charming Americans were much occupied with what they would have called looking about them. They found occasion to make a large number of purchases, and their opportunities for conversation were such only as were' offered by the deferential London shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in driving from the

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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 consider- able period she desired no higher pleasure than to drive about the crowded streets in a Hansom cab. To her attentive eyes they were full of a strange picturesque life, and it is at least beneath the dignity of our historic muse to enumerate the trivial objects and incidents which this simple young lady from Boston found so 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 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

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monument, which she spoke of ever after- wards, vaguely, as a dreadful disappoint- ment ; so that she expressed the liveliest disapproval of any attempt to combine historical researches with the purchase ot hair-brushes and note-paper. The most she would consent to do in this line was to spend half-an-hour at Madame Tussaud's, where she saw several dusty wax effigies of members of the Royal Family. She told Bessie that if she wished to go to the Tower she must get some one else to take her. Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest disposition to go alone ; but upon this proposal as well Mrs. Westgate sprinkled cold water.

"Remember," she said, "that you are not in your innocent little Boston. It is not a question of walking up and down Beacon Street.' Then she went on to explain that there were two classes of American girls in Europe — those that walked about alone and those that did not. " You happen to belong, my dear," she

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not."

"It is only/' answered Bessie, laughing, " because you happen to prevent me." And she devoted much private meditation to this question of effecting a visit to the Tower of London.

Suddenly it seemed as if the problem might be solved; the two ladies at Jones's Hotel received a visit from Willie Woodley. Such was the social appellation of a young American who had sailed from New York a few days after their own departure, and who, having the privilege of intimacy with them in that city, had lost no time, on his arrival in London, in coming to pay them his respects. He had, in fact, gone to see them directly after going to see his tailor; than which there can be no greater exhibition of promptitude on the part of a young American who has just alighted at the Charing Cross Hotel. He was a slim, pale youth, of the most amiable disposition, famous for the skill with which

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he led the " German " in New York. Indeed, by the young ladies who habitually figured in this fashionable frolic he was believed to be "the best dancer in the world;" it was in these terms that he was always spoken of, and that his identity was indicated. He was the gentlest, softest young man it was possible to meet ; he was beautifully dressed — " in the English style " — and he knew an immense deal about London. He had been at Newport during the previous summer, at the time of our young Englishmen's visit, and he took extreme pleasure in the society of Bessie Alden, whom he always addressed as " Miss Bessie." She immediately arranged with him, in the presence of her sister, that he should conduct her to the scene of Lady Jane Grey's execution.

"You may do as you please," said Mrs. Westgate. " Only — if you desire the information — it is not the custom here for young ladies to knock about London with young men."

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" 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. West- gate, " 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 ? "

" 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. " 1 consent to your going with Mr. Woodley; but I should not let you go with an Englishman."

" Miss Bessie wouldn't care to go with an Englishman ! " Mr. Woodley declared, with a faint asperity that was, perhaps, not unnatural in a young man who, dressing

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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 Little- dale," Mrs. Westgate replied.

"But Mr. Woodley said that Captain Littledale had gone to India."

" He said he thought he had heard so ; he knew nothing about it."

For a moment Bessie Alden said nothing more ; then, at last, " And don't you intend to write to — to Mr. Beaumont ? " she inquired.

" You mean to Lord Lambeth," said her sister.

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"I said Mr. Beaumont because he was so good a friend of yours."

Mrs. Westgate looked at the young girl with sisterly candour. "I don't care two straws for Mr. Beaumont."

" You were certainly very nice to him."

" I am nice to every one/' said Mrs. Westgate, simply.

"To every one but me," rejoined Bessie, smiling.

Her sister continued to look at her; then, at last, "Are you in love with Lord Lambeth ? " she asked.

The young girl stared a moment, and the question was apparently too humorous even to make her blush. " Not that I know of," she answered.

"Because if you are," Mrs. Westgate went on, " I shall certainly not send for him."

"That proves what I said/' declared Bessie, smiling — " that you are not nice

to me."

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"It would be a poor service, my dear child," said her sister.

"In what sense? There is nothing against Lord Lambeth, that I know of."

Mrs. Westgate was silent a moment. " You are in love with him, then ? "

Bessie stared again ; but this time she blushed a little. " Ah ! if you won't be serious," she answered, "we will not mention him again."

For some moments Lord Lambeth was not mentioned again, and it was Mrs. Westgate who, at the end of this period, reverted to him. "Of course I will let him know we are here ; because I think he would be hurt — justly enough — if we should go away without seeing him. It is fair to give him a chance to come and thank me for the kindness we showed him. But I don't want to seem eager."

"Neither do I," said Bessie, with a little laugh.

"Though I confess," added her sister, "that I am curious to see how we will behave."

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" He behaved very well at Newport."

"Newport is not London. At Newport he could do as he liked; but here, it is another affair. He has to have an eye to consequences."

" If he had more freedom, then, at Newport," argued Bessie, "it is the more to his credit that he behaved well; and if he has to be so careful here, it is possible he will behave even better."

" Better — better," repeated her sister. " My dear child, what is your point of

view ? "

" How do you mean — my point of

view ? "

"Don't you care for Lord Lambeth — a little?"

This time Bessie Alden was displeased ; she slowly got up from table, turning her face away from her sister. " You will oblige me by not talking so," she said.

Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for some moments as she moved slowly about the room and went and stood at the window.

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" I will write to him this afternoon/' she said at last.

" Do as you please ! " Bessie answered ; and presently she turned round. " I am not afraid to say that I like Lord Lambeth. I like him very much."

"He is not clever/' Mrs. Westgate declared.

"Well, there have been clever people whom I have disliked," said Bessie Alden ; " so that I suppose I may like a stupid one. Besides, Lord Lambeth is not stupid."

" Not so stupid as he looks ! " exclaimed her sister, smiling.

"If I were in love with Lord Lambeth, as you said just now, it would be bad policy on your part to abuse him."

"My dear child, don't give me lessons in policy!" cried Mrs. Westgate. "The policy I mean to follow is very deep."

The young girl began to walk about the room again ; then she stopped before her sister. "I have never heard in the course of five minutes," she said, " so many hints

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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 moment there were tears in them. "Do they talk that way

here ? " she asked.

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" You will see. I shall leave you alone."

" Don't leave me alone/' said Bessie Alden. " Take me away."

" No ; I want to see what you make of it," her sister continued.

" I don't understand."

" You will understand after Lord Lambeth has come," said Mrs. Westgate, with a little laugh.

The two ladies had arranged that on this afternoon Willie Woodley should go with them to Hyde Park, where Bessie Alden expected to derive much entertainment 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 country- man, whose mission in life, it might almost be said, was to find chairs for ladies, and who appeared on the stroke of half-past five with a white camellia in his button-hole.

"I have written to Lord Lambeth, my

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dear/' said Mrs. Westgate to her sister, on coming into the room where Bessie Alden, drawing on her long grey gloves, was enter- taining their visitor.

Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley exclaimed that his lordship was in town ; he had seen his name in the Morning Post.

" Do you read the Morning Post ? " asked Mrs. Westgate.

" Oh yes ; it's great fun," Willie Woodley affirmed.

" I want so to see it," said Bessie, " there is so much about it in Thackeray."

" I will send it to you every morning," said Willie Woodley.

He found them what Bessie Alden thought excellent places, under the great trees, beside the famous avenue whose humours had been made familiar to the young girl's childhood by the pictures in 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

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London Season at its height, and Bessie Alden found more entertainment in it than she was able to express to her companions. She sat silent, under her parasol, and her imagination, according to its wont, let itself loose into the great changing assemblage of striking and suggestive figures. They stirred up a host of old impressions and precon- ceptions, and she found herself fitting a history to this person and a theory to that, and making a place for them all in her little private museum of types. But if she said little, her sister on one side and Willie Woodley on the other expressed themselves in lively alternation.

" Look at that green dress with blue flounces," said 'Mrs. Westgate. " Quelle toilette!"

" That's the Marquis of Blackborough," said the young man — " the one in the white coat. I heard nim speak the other night in the House of Lords ; it was something about ramrods ; he called them wamwods. He's an awful swell."

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" Did you ever see anything like the way they are pinned back?" Mrs. Westgate resumed. "They never know where to stop."

"They do nothing but stop," said Willie Woodley. " It prevents them from walking. Here comes a great celebrity — Lady Beatrice Bellevue. She's awfully fast ; see what little steps she takes."

" Well, my dear," Mrs. Westgate pursued, " I hope you are getting some ideas for your couturier e f "

" I am getting plenty of ideas," said Bessie, " but I don't know that my couturiere would appreciate them."

Willie Woodley presently perceived a friend on horseback, who drove up beside the barrier of the Row and beckoned to him. He went forward and the crowd of pedes- trians closed about him, so that for some ten minutes he was hidden from sight. At last he reappeared, bringing a gentle- man with him — a gentleman whom Bessie at first supposed to be his friend dis-

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mounted. But at a second glance she found herself looking at Lord Lambeth, who was shaking hands with her sister.

"I found him over there," said Willie Woodley, " and I told him you were here." ,,:., And then Lord Lambeth, touching his hat a little, shook hands with Bessie. " Fancy your being here ! " he said. He was blushing and smiling ; he looked very- handsome, and he had a kind of splendour that he had not had in America. Bessie Alden's imagination, as we know, was just then in exercise ; so that the tall young Englishman, as he stood there looking down at her, had the benefit of it. " He is handsomer and more splendid than any- thing I have ever seen," she said to herself. And then she remembered that he- was a Marquis, and she thought he looked like a Marquis.

" Really, you know," he cried, " you ought to have let a man know you were here ! "

" I wrote to you an hour ago," said Mrs. Westgate.

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" Doesn't all the world know it ? " asked Bessie, smiling.

" I assure you I didn't know it ! " cried Lord Lambeth. " Upon my honour I hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley now ; had 1. Woodley ? "

" Well, I think you are rather a humbug," said Willie Woodley.

" You don't believe that — do you, Miss Alden ? " asked his lordship. " You don't believe I'm a humbug, eh ? "

"No," said Bessie, "I don't"

" You are too tall to stand up, Lord 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 sidewise, close to the two ladies. " If I hadn't met Woodley I should never have found you," he went on. " Should I, Woodley ? "

" Well, I guess not," said the young American.

"Not even with my letter?" asked Mrs. Westgate.

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"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 daresay you have been here a month."

"We have been here three," said Mrs. Westgate.

" Have you been here three months ? " the young man asked again of Bessie.

" It seems a long time," Bessie answered.

" I say, after that you had better not call me a humbug ! " cried Lord Lambeth. " I have only been in town three weeks ; but you must have been hiding away. I haven't seen you anywhere."

" Where should you have seen us — where should we have gone ? " asked Mrs. West- gate.

" You should have gone to Hurlingham," said Willie Woodley.

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"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 declared. " We are here as travellers/'

"We have been to Madame Tussaud's," Bessie pursued.

" Oh, I say ! " cried Lord Lambeth.

"We thought we should find your image there," said Mrs. Westgate — " yours and Mr. Beaumont's."

" In the Chamber of Horrors ? " laughed the young man.

" It did duty very well for a party," said Mrs. Westgate. " All the women were de'colletees, and many of the figures looked as if they could speak if they tried."

"Upon my word," Lord Lambeth re- joined, " you see people at London parties

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that look as if they couldn't speak if they tried."

"Do you think Mr. Woodley could find us Mr. Beaumont ? " asked Mrs. Westgate.

Lord Lambeth stared and looked round him. ".I daresay he could. Beaumont often comes here. Don't you think you could find him, Woodley? Make a dive into the crowd."

" Thank you ; I have had enough diving," said Willie Woodley. " I will wait till Mr. Beaumont comes to the surface."

" I will bring him to see you," said Lord Lambeth ; " where are you staying r "

" You will find the address in my letter — Jones's Hotel."

"Oh, one of those places just out of Piccadilly ? Beastly hole, isn't it ? " Lord Lambeth inquired.

" I believe it's the best hotel in London," said Mrs. Westgate.

" But they give you awful rubbish to eat, don't they r " his lordship went on.

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" Yes," said Mrs. Westgate.

" I always feel so sorry for the people that come up to town and go to live in those places," continued the young man. " They eat nothing but poison."

« Oh, I say ! " cried Willie Woodley.

"Well, how do you like London, Miss Alden ? " Lord Lambeth asked, unperturbed by this ejaculation.

"I think it's grand," said Bessie Alden.

"My sister likes it, in spite of the "poison" !" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed.

" I hope you are going to stay a long time."

" As long as I can," said Bessie.

"And where is Mr. Westgate?" asked Lord Lambeth of this gentleman's wife.

"He's where he always is — in that 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

254 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

purpose to relate their conversation in full. He addressed a great many remarks to Bessie Alden, and finally turned towards her alto- gether, while Willie Woodley entertained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie herself said very little ; she was on her guard, thinking of what her sister had said to her at lunch. Little by little, however, she interested her- self in Lord Lambeth again, as she had done at Newport ; only it seemed to her that here he might become more interesting. He would be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the impressiveness, the picturesque- ness of England ; and poor Bessie Alden, like many a Yankee maiden, was terribly at the mercy of picturesqueness.

" 1 have often wished I were at Newport again," said the young man. " Those days I spent at your sister's were awfully jolly."

"We enjoyed them very much; I hope your father is better."

" Oh dear, yes. When I got to England, he was out grouse-shooting. It was what you call in America a gigantic fraud. My

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mother had got nervous. My three weeks at Newport seemed like a happy dream."

" America certainly is very different from England," said Bessie.

" I hope you like England better, eh ? " Lord Lambeth rejoined, almost persuasively.

"No Englishman can ask that seriously of a person of another country."

Her companion looked at her for a moment. " You mean it's a matter of course ? "

" If I were English/' said Bessie, " it would certainly seem to me a matter of course that every one should be a good patriot."

" Oh dear, yes ; patriotism is everything," said Lord Lambeth, not quite following, but very contented. " Now, what are you going to do here r "

"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

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Lambeth. "I was taken there by my governess, when I was six years old. It's a rum idea, your going there."

"Do give me a few more rum ideas," said Bessie. "I want to see everything of that sort. I am going to Hampton Court, and to Windsor, and to the Dulwich Gallery."

Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. " I wonder you don't go to the Rosherville Gardens."

" Are they interesting ? " asked Bessie.

" Oh, wonderful ! "

" Are they very old ? That's all I care for," said Bessie.

"They are tremendously old ; they are all falling to ruins."

" I think there is nothing so charming as an old ruinous garden," said the young girl. " We must certainly go there."

Lord Lambeth broke out into merriment. "I say, Woodley," he cried, "here's Miss Alden wants to go to the Rosherville Gardens!"

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Willie Woodley looked a little blank ; he was caught in the fact of ignorance of an apparently conspicuous feature of London life. But in a moment he turned it off. "Very well," he said, "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 ladies," said Lord Lambeth, smiling.

Bessie Alden looked at him awhile; smiling, too, in the shadow of her parasol. " You are very strange," she murmured. " I don't think I approve of you."

" Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Alden ! " said Lord Lambeth, smiling still more. a Please don't be severe. I want you to like me — awfully."

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" To like you awfully ? You must not laugh at me, then, when I make mistakes. I consider it my right — as a free-born American — to make as many mistakes as I choose."

" Upon my word, I didn't laugh at you," said Lord Lambeth.

" And not only that," Bessie went on ; " but I hold that all my mistakes shall be set down to my credit. You must think the better of me for them."

" I can't think better of you than I do," the young man declared.

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment again. " You certainly speak very well to young ladies. But why 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

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one of your mistakes — to your credit." And, as if he disliked talking about his position, he changed the subject. " I wish you would let me go with you to the Tower, and to Hampton Court, and to all those other places."

" We shall be most happy, " said Bessie.

"And of course I shall be delighted to show you the Houses of Parliament — some day that suits you. There are a lot of things I want to do for you. I want you to have a good time. And I should like very much to present some of my friends to you, if it wouldn't bore you. Then it would be awfully kind of you to come down to Branches."

" We are much obliged to you, Lord Lam- beth," said Bessie. "What is Branches ? "

"It's a house in the country. 1 think you might like it."

Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate, at this moment, were sitting in silence, and the young man's ear caught these last words of Lord Lambeth's. "He's inviting Miss

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Bessie to one of his castles/' he murmured to his companion.

Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she men- tally called " complications," immediately got up ; and the two ladies, taking leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, under Mr Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel

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V.

LORD LAMBETH came to see them on the morrow, bringing Percy Beaumont with him — the latter having instantly declared his intention of neglecting none of the usual offices of civility. This declaration, however, when his kinsman informed him of the advent of their American friends, had been preceded by another remark.

"Here they are, then, and you are in for it."

" What am I in for ? " demanded Lord Lambeth.

" I will let your mother give it a name. With all respect to whom," added Percy Beaumont, " I must decline on this occasion to do any more police duty. Her Grace must look after you herself."

"I will give her a chance," said her

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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 conversation — conversa- tion, at least, that was animated on her side — with Mrs. Westgate, while his companion made himself agreeable to the younger lady. Mrs. Westgate began confessing and pro- testing, declaring and expounding.

" I must say London is a great deal brighter and prettier just now than it was when I was here last — in the month ot November. There is evidently a great deal going on, and you seem to have a good many flowers. I have no doubt it is very charming for all you people, and that you amuse yourselves immensely. It is very good of you to let Bessie and me come and

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sit and look at you. I suppose you will think I am very satirical, but I must confess that that's the feeling I have in London."

"I am afraid I don't quite understand to what feeling you allude," said Percy Beaumont.

" The feeling that it's all very well for you English people. Everything is beautifully arranged for you."

" It seems to me it is very well for some Americans, sometimes," rejoined Beaumont.

" For some of them, yes — if they like to be patronised. But I must say I don't like to be patronised. I may be very eccentric and undisciplined and unreasonable ; but I confess I never was fond of patronage. I like to associate with people on the same terms as I do in my own country ; that's a peculiar taste that I have. But here people seem to expect something else — Heaven knows what ! I am afraid you will think I am very ungrateful, for I certainly have received a great deal of attention. The last

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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 naif, I must say that for you!" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "It must be a great advantage to you here in London. I suppose that if I myself had a little more naivete, I should enjoy it more. I should be content to sit on a chair in the Park, and see the people pass, and be told that this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and that is the Lord Chamberlain, and that I must be thankful for the privilege of beholding them. I daresay it is very wicked and critical of me to ask for anything else. But I was always critical, and I freely confess to the sin of being fastidious. I am told there is some remarkably superior second-rate society provided here for strangers. Merci ! I don't want any superior second-rate society. I want the society that I have been accustomed to.

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" I hope you don't call Lambeth and me second-rate," Beaumont interposed.

"Oh, I am accustomed to you!" said Mrs. Westgate. "Do you know that you English sometimes make the most wonder- ful speeches? The first time I came to London, I went out to dine — as I told you, I have received a great deal of attention. After dinner, in the drawing-room, I had some conversation with an old lady; I assure you I had. I forget what we talked about ; but she presently said, in allusion to something we were discussing, 'Oh, you know, the aristocracy do so-and-so; but in one's own class of life it is very 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 exclaimed. "If you are trying to bring me to admit that London is an odious place, you'll not

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succeed. I'm extremely fond of it, and I think it the j oiliest place in the world."

" Pour vous autres. I never said the contrary," Mrs. Westgate retorted. I make use of this expression because both inter- locutors 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 country- woman of mine," Mrs. Westgate continued, with charming ardour, though with imperfect relevancy. She smiled at the two gentlemen fjr a moment with terrible brightness, as if to toss at their feet — upon their native heath • — the gauntlet of defiance. " For me, there are only two social positions worth speaking of — that of an American lady and that of the Emperor of Russia."

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"And what do you do with the American 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 with them to the Tower, and that he had kindly offered to bring his " trap," and drive them thither. Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this communication, and for some time after- wards she said nothing. But at last, " If you had not requested me the other day not to mention it," she began, "there is something I should venture to ask you." Bessie frowned a little ; her dark blue eyes were more dark than blue. But her sister went on. "As it is, I will take the risk. You are not in love with Lord Lambeth : I believe it, perfectly. Very good. But is there, by chance, any danger of your becoming so ? It's a very simple question ; don't take offence, I have a particular reason," said Mrs. West- gate, " for wanting to know."

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Bessie Alden for some moments said nothing ; she only looked displeased. " No ; there is no danger," she answered at last, curtly.

"Then I should like to frighten them," declared Mrs. Westgate, clasping her jewelled hands.

" To frighten whom ? "

" All these people ; Lord Lambeth's family and friends."

" How should you frighten them ? " asked the young girl.

" It wouldn't be I — it would be you. It would frighten them to think that you should absorb his lordship's young affections."

Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still overshadowed by her dark brows, continued to interrogate. " Why should that frighten them?"

Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with a smile before delivering it. "Because they think you are not good enough. You are a charming girl, beautiful and amiable,

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intelligent and clever, and as bien-elevee as it is possible to be; but you are not a fit match for Lord Lambeth."

Bessie Alden was immensely disgusted. "Where do you get such extraordinary ideas ? " she asked. " You have said some such strange things lately. My dear Kitty, where do you collect them ? "

Kitty was evidently enamoured of her idea. " Yes, it would put them on pins and needles, and it wouldn't hurt you. Mr. Beaumont is already most uneasy ; I could soon see that."

The young girl meditated a moment. " Do you mean that they spy upon him — that they interfere with him ? "

"I don't know what power they have to interfere, but I know that a British mamma may worry her son's life out."

It has been intimated that, as regards certain 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.

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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 imagina- tion, there could in the nature of things be, to her sense, no reality in the idea of her belonging to a vulgar category. What she said aloud was — "I must say that in that case I am very sorry for Lord Lambeth."

Mrs. Westgate, more and more exhilarated by her scheme, was smiling at her again. " If I could only believe it was safe ! " she exclaimed. "When you begin to pity him, I, on my side, am afraid."

" Afraid of what ? "

" Of your pitying him too much."

Bessie Alden turned away impatiently ; but at the end of a minute she turned back. "What if I should pity him too much?" she asked.

Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, but after a moment's reflection she also faced her sister again. "It would come, after all, to the same thing," she said.

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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 eastward, through some of the duskier portions of the metropolis, to the great turreted donjon which overlooks the London shipping. They all descended from their vehicle and entered the famous enclosure; and they secured the services of a venerable beefeater, who, though there were many other claimants for legendary information, made a fine exclusive party of them and marched them through courts and corridors, through armouries and prisons. He delivered his usual peripatetic discourse, and they stopped and stared, and peeped and stooped, accord- ing to the official admonitions. Bessie Alden asked the old man in the crimson doublet a great many questions ; she thought it a most fascinating place. Lord Lambeth was in high good-humour; he was constantly laughing; he enjoyed what he would have called the lark. Willie Woodley

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kept looking at the ceilings and tapping the walls with the knuckle of a pearl-grey 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 Eessie 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

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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 thumbscrews : "

" All these historical things. You belong to an historical family."

"Bessie is really too historical," said Mrs. Westgate, catching a word of this dialogue.

" Yes, you are too historical," said Lord Lambeth, laughing, but thankful for a formula. "Upon my honour, you are too historical ! "

He went with the ladies a couple of days later to Han.pton Court, Willie Woodley being also of the party. The afternoon was charming, the famous horse-chestnuts were in blossom, and Lord Lambeth, who quite

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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 discretion upon the local antiquities. It happened in this manner that, in default of another in- formant, 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 unhappy," he added in a moment.

" You are very disappointing, Lord Lambeth," she said.

" Ah, now, don't say that ! " he cried.

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"That's the worst thing you could possibly say."

" No," she rejoined ; " it is not so bad as to say that I had expected nothing of you."

" I don't know. Give me a notion of the sort of thing you expected."

"Well," said Bessie Alden, "that you would be more what I should like to be — what I should try to be — in your place."

"Ah, my place!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth ; " you are always talking about my place."

The young girl looked at him ; he thought she coloured a little ; and for a moment she made no rejoinder.

"Does it strike you that I am always talking about your place ? " she asked.

" I am sure you do it a great honour," he said, fearing he had been uncivil.

" I have often thought about it," she went on after a moment. " I have often thought about your being an hereditary legislator. An hereditary legislator ought to know a

great many things."

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" Not if he doesn't legislate."

" But you will legislate ; it's absurd your saying you won't. You are very much looked up to here — I am assured of that."

" I don't know that I ever noticed it."

"It is because you are used to it, then. You ought to fill the place."

"How do you mean, to fill it?" asked Lord Lambeth.

" You ought to be very clever and brilliant, and to know almost everything."

Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. "Shall I tell you something?" he asked. " A young man in my position, as you call

it "

" 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

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with you," said Bessie Alden, laughing, "it is not for me to complain. But I shall always think that, properly, you should have a great mind — a great character."

" Ah, that's very theoretic ! ". Lord Lambeth declared. " Depend upon it, that's a Yankee prejudice."

" Happy the country," said Bessie Alden, "where even people's prejudices are so ele- vated!"

"Well, after all," observed Lord Lambeth, " I don't know that I am such a fool as you are trying to make me out."

" I said nothing so rude as that ; but I must repeat that you are disappointing."

" My dear Miss Alden," exclaimed the young man, " I am the best fellow in the world!"

" Ah, if it were not for that ! " said Bessie Alden, with a smile.

Mrs. Westgate had a good many more friends in London than she pretended, and before long she had renewed acquaintance with most of them. Their hospitality was

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extreme, so that, one thing leading to another, she began, as the phrase is, to go out. Bessie Alden, in this way, saw something of what she found it a great satisfaction to call to herself English society. She went to balls and danced, she went to dinners and talked, she went to concerts and listened (at concerts Bessie always listened), she went to exhibitions and wondered. Her enjoy- ment was keen and her curiosity insatiable, and, grateful in general for all her oppor- tunities, she especially prized the privilege of meeting certain celebrated persons — authors and artists, philosophers and statesmen — of whose renown she had been a humble and distant beholder, and who now, as a part of the habitual furniture of London drawing- rooms, struck her as stars fallen from the firmament and become palpable — revealing also, sometimes, on contact, qualities not to have been predicted of bodies sidereal. Bessie, who knew so many of her contem- poraries by reputation, had a good many personal disappointments ; but, on the other

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hand, she had innumerable satisfactions and enthusiasms, and she communicated the emotions of either class to a dear friend, of her own sex, in Boston, with whom she was in voluminous correspondence. Some of her reflections, indeed, 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 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 col- lections 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

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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, inquiring what on earth he was put there for, if not to make the proper arrangements for one's going to a Drawing Room.

Lord Lambeth declared that he hated Drawing Rooms, but he participated in the ceremony on the day on which the two ladies at Jones's Hotel repaired to Bucking- ham Palace in a remarkable coach which his lordship had sent to fetch them. He had on a gorgeous uniform, and Bessie Alden was particularly struck with his appearance — especially when on her asking him, rather foolishly as she felt, if he were a loyal subject, he replied that he was a loyal sub- ject to her. This declaration was empha- sised by his dancing with her at a royal ball to which the two ladies afterwards went, and was not impaired by the fact that she thought he danced very ill. He seemed to her wonderfully kind ; she asked herself,

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with growing vivacity, why he should be so kind. It was his disposition — that seemed the natural answer. She had told her sister that she liked him very much, and now that she liked him more she wondered why. She liked him for his disposition ; to this question as well that seemed the natural answer. When once the impressions of London life began to crowd thickly upon her she completely forgot her sister's warn- ing about the cynicism of public opinion. It had given her great pain at the moment ; but there was no particular reason why she should remember it ; it corresponded too little with any sensible reality ; and it was disagreeable to Bessie to remember 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 the state of a young lady's affec- tions is already ambiguous ; and indeed Bessie Alden made no attempt to dissimulate

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— to herself, of course — a certain tenderness that she felt for the young nobleman. She said to herself that she liked the type to which he belonged — the simple, candid, manly, healthy English temperament. She spoke to herself of him as women speak of young men they like — alluded to his bravery (which she had never in the least seen tested), to his honesty and gentlemanliness ; and was not silent upon the subject of his good looks. She was perfectly conscious, moreover, that she liked to think of his more adventitious merits — that her imagin- ation was excited and gratified by the sight of a handsome young man endowed with such large opportunities — opportunities she hardly knew for what, but, as she supposed, for doing great things — for setting an example, for exerting an influence, for con- ferring 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

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might attempt to fit a silhouette in cut paper upon a shadow projected upon a wall. But Bessie Alden's silhouette refused to coin- cide 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 humour and simplicity, she measured it more accurately, and she felt acutely that if Lord Lambeth's position was heroic, there was but little of the hero in the young man himself. Then her imagination wandered away from him — very far away; for it was an incontestable fact that at such moments he seemed distinctly dull. I am afraid that while Bessie's imagination was thus invidiously roaming, she cannot have been herself a very lively companion ; but it may well have been that these occasional fits of indifference seemed to Lord Lambeth a

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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 irresponsibly — more at her ease and her leisure, as it were — than several young ladies with whom he had been on the whole about as intimate. To feel this, and yet to feel that she also liked him, was very agreeable to Lord Lambeth. He fancied he had compassed that gratification so desirable 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, devoted some time, on grounds of conscience, to trying to like him more. I say on grounds of conscience, because she felt that he had been extremely "nice" to her sister, and

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because she reflected that it was no more than fair that she should think as well of him as he thought of her. This effort was possibly sometimes not so successful as it might have been, for the result of it was occasionally a vague irritation, which ex- pressed itself in hostile criticism of several British institutions. Bessie Alden went to some entertainments at which she met Lord Lambeth ; but she went to others at which his lordship was neither actually nor potenti- ally present ; and it was chiefly on these latter occasions that she encountered those literary and artistic celebrities of whom mention has been made. After a while she reduced the matter to a principle. If Lord Lambeth should appear anywhere, it was a symbol that there would be no poets and philosophers ; and in consequence — for it was almost a strict consequence — she used to enumerate to the young man these objects of her admiration.

"You seem to be awfully fond of that sort of people," said Lord Lambeth one

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day, as if the idea had just occurred to him.

"They are the people in England I am most curious to see/' Bessie Alden replied.

"I suppose that's because you have read so much," said Lord Lambeth, gallantly.

" I have not read so much. It is because we think so much of them at home."

" Oh, I see ! " observed the young nobleman. " In Boston."

" Not only in Boston ; everywhere," said Bessie. "We hold them in great honour; 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 Lambeth, very humbly " But I must say I don't like the looks of some of them."

" Neither do I — of some of them. But there are all kinds, and many of them are charming."

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" 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 Alden demanded.

" I'm sure I don't know. Why, indeed ? "

"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 England," she said ; " your keeping the distinguished people apart."

" How do you mean, apart ? "

" Why, letting them come only to certain places. You never see them."

Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. " What people do you mean ? "

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"The eminent people — the authors and artists — the clever people."

"Oh, there are other eminent people be- sides 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 gave a light laugh. "Not many," she said.

On another occasion — just after a dinner- party— she told him that there was some- thing else in England she did not like.

"Oh, I say!" he cried; "haven't you abused us enough r "

" I have never abused you at all," said Bessie ; " but I don't like your precedence?'

" It isn't my precedence ! " Lord Lambeth declared, laughing.

"Yes, it is yours — -just exactly yours; and I think it's odious," said Bessie.

"I never saw such a young lady for discussing things ! Has some one had the

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impudence to go before you ? " asked his lordship.

" It is not the going before me that I object to," said Bessie ; " it is their thinking that they have a right to do it — a right that I should recognise."

" I never saw such a young lady as you are for not 'recognising/ I have no doubt the thing is beastly, but it saves a lot of trouble."

" It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid ! " said Bessie.

" But how would you have the first people go?" asked Lord Lambeth. "They can't go last."

"Whom do you mean by the first people ? "

"Ah, if you mean to question first principles ! " said Lord Lambeth.

" If those are your first principles, no wonder some of your arrangements are horrid," observed Bessie Alden, with a very pretty ferocity. " I am a young girl, so of course I go last ; but imagine what Kitty

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must feel on being informed that she is not at liberty to budge until certain other ladies have passed out ! "

"Oh, I say, she is not 'informed'!" cried Lord Lambeth. "No one would do such a thing as that."

•c 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.

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VI.

PERCY BEAUMONT all this time had been a very much less frequent visitor at Jones's Hotel than his noble kinsman ; he had in fact called but twice upon the two American ladies. Lord Lambeth, who often saw him, reproached him with his neglect, and declared that although Mrs. Westgate had said nothing about it, he was sure that she was secretly wounded by it. "She suffers too much to speak," said Lord Lambeth.

" That's all gammon," said Percy Beaumont ; " there's a limit to what people can suffer ! " And, though sending no apologies to Jones's Hotel, he undertook in a manner to explain his absence. " You are always there," he said; "and that's reason

enough for my not going."

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" I don't see why. There is enough for both of us."

" I don't care to be a witness of your — your reckless passion," said Percy Beaumont.

Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold eye, and for a moment said nothing. " It's not so obvious as you might suppose," he rejoined, dryly, " considering what a demon- strative 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 them- selves."

" You are devilish considerate," said Lord Lambeth. "They never question me."

"They are afraid of you. They are afraid of irritating you and making you worse. So they go to work very cautiously,

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and, somewhere or other, they get their information. They know a great deal about you. They know that you have been with those ladies to the dome of St. Paul's and — where was the other place ?— to the Thames Tunnel."

"If all their knowledge is as accurate as that, it must be very valuable," said Lord Lambeth.

" Well, at any rate, they know that you have been visiting the 'sights of the metropolis.' They think — very naturally, as it seems to me — that when you take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little American girl, there is serious cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation by scornful laughter, and his companion continued, after a pause : " I said just now I didn't want to know anything about the affair ; but I will confess that I am curious to learn whether you propose to marry Miss Bessie Alden."

On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor no immediate satisfaction ; he

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was musing, with a frown. " By Jove," he said, "they go rather too far. They shall find me dangerous — I promise them."

Percy Beaumont began to laugh. "You don't redeem your promises. You said the other day you would make your mother call."

Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. "I asked her to call," he said, simply.

" And she declined ? "

" Yes, but she shall do it yet."

" Upon my word," said Percy Beaumont, "if she gets much more frightened I believe she will." Lord 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

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Branches/' he said, " and this evening I shall name a day."

" And shall you invite your mother and your sisters to meet them ? "

" Explicitly ! "

"That will set the Duchess off;' said Percy Beaumont. " I suspect she will come."

" She may do as she pleases."

Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. " You do really propose to marry the little sister, then ? "

" I like the way you talk about it ! " cried the young man. " She won't gobble me down ; don't be afraid."

"She won't leave you on your knees," said Percy Beaumont. " What is the inducement ? "

" You talk about proposing — wait till I have proposed," Lord Lambeth went on.

" That's right, my dear Bellow ; think about it," said Percy Beaumont.

"She's a charming .girl," pursued his lordship.

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" Of course she's a charming girl. I don't know a girl more charming, intrinsically. But there are other charming girls nearer home."

" I like her spirit," observed Lord Lam- beth, almost as if he were trying to torment his cousin.

" What's the peculiarity of her spirit ? "

" She's not afraid, and she says things out, and she thinks herself as good as any one. She is the only girl I have ever seen that was not dying to marry me."

" How do you know that, if you haven't asked her?"

" I don't know how ; but I know it."

" I am sure she asked me questions enough about your property and your titles," said Beaumont.

" She has asked me questions, too ; no end of them," Lord Lambeth admitted. " But she asked for information, don't you know."

" Information ? Ay, I'll warrant she wanted it. Depend upon it that she is dying to

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marry you just as much and just as little as all the rest of them."

"I shouldn't like her to refuse me — I shouldn't like that."

" If the thing would be so disagreeable, then, both to you and to her, in Heaven's name leave it alone," said Percy Beaumont.

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the non-appearance of the Duchess of Bayswater. 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, " most marked. It is a delicious proof that we have made them miserable. The day we dined with Lord Lambeth I. was really sorry for the poor fellow." It will have been gathered that the entertainment offered by Lord Lambeth to his American friends had not been graced by the presence of his anxious mother. He had invited several choice spirits to meet them ; but the

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ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. Westgate's sense — a sense, possibly, morbidly acute — conspicuous by their absence.

"I don't want to express myself in a manner that you dislike," said Bessie Alden ; " but I don't know why you should have so many theories about Lord Lambeth's poor mother. You know a great many young men in New York without knowing their mothers."

Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister, and then turned away. " My dear Bessie, you are superb ! " she said.

" One thing is certain," the young girl continued. " 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.

"No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again ; I want to see Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathe- dral. But I should insist upon his coming to see us no more."

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"That would be very modest and very pretty of you — but you wouldn't do it now."

" Why do you say ' now ' ? " asked Bessie Alden. "Have I ceased to be modest ? "

"You care for him too much. A month ago, when you said you didn't, I believe it was quite true. But at present, my dear child,'' said Mrs. Westgate, "you wouldn't find it quite so simple a matter never to see Lord Lambeth again. I have seen it coming on."

"You are mistaken," said Bessie. "You don't 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 ! ' J Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "Come, you would not marry him ? "

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" Oh no," said the young girl.

Mrs. Westgate, for a moment, seemed vexed. " Why not, pray ? " she de- manded.

"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 noble- man said. " Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaintance." Bessie Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility was now proved to be a vain illusion.

"Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate. "And if she is to meet

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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 appeared 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 Pimlico. Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. " It is not yet four," she said ; " they have come early ; they wish to see us. We will receive them." And she gave orders that her visitors should be admitted. A few moments later they were introduced, and there was a solemn exchange of amenities. The Duchess was a large lady, with a fine fresh colour ; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.

The Duchess looked about her as she sat down — looked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. " I dare say my son has told

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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 allowing her to assent to this proposition — and indeed not permitting her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.

" He says you were so kind to him in America," said the Duchess.

"We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to have been able to make him a little more — a little less — a little more comfortable."

" I think he stayed at your house," remarked the Duchess of Bayswater, looking at Bessie Alden.

" A very short time," said Mrs. Westgate.

" Oh ! " said the Duchess ; and she con- tinued to look at Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with her daughter.

" Do you like London ? " Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie, after looking at her a good deal — at her face and her hands, her dress and her hair.

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" Very much indeed," said Bessie.

" Do you like this hotel?"

" It is very comfortable," said Bessie.

" Do you like stopping at hotels ? " inquired Lady Pimlico, after a pause.

" I am very fond of travelling," Bessie answered, " and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But they are not the part I am fondest of."

"Oh, I hate travelling!" said the Countess of Pimlico, and transferred her attention to Mrs. Westgate.

"My son tells me you are going to Branches," the Duchess presently resumed.

"Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate, who 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 inspected her visitor's own costume, she said to herself, " She won't know how well I am dressed ! "

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" 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, walked to a chair that stood empty at the young girl's right hand, and silently seated herself. As she was a majestic, voluminous woman, this little transaction had, inevitably, an air of somewhat impressive intention. It diffused a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate.

" I dare say you go out a great deal/' she observed.

"No, very little. We are strangers, and we didn't come here for society."

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" 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 impression on him," said Bessie, smiling.

The Duchess was not smiling ; her large fresh face was very tranquil. " He is very susceptible," she said. "He thinks every one clever, and sometimes they are."

" Sometimes," Bessie assented, smiling still.

The Duchess looked at her a little and then went on — " Lambeth is very sus- ceptible, but he is very volatile, too."

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" Volatile ? " asked Bessie.

" He is very inconstant. It won't do to depend on him."

" Ah ! " said Bessie ; " I don't recognise 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 t Duchess.

Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused at the Duchess's persistency. "I suppose it will depend on what we expect of him."

"The less you expect the better," Lord Lambeth's mother declared.

" Well," said Bessie, " we expect nothing 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.

" 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

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am told there is a great deal of that in America."

" A great deal of kindness ? " the young girl inquired, smiling.

"Is that what you call it ? I know you have different expressions."

"We certainly don't always understand each other," said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of whose interview with Lady Pimlico allowed her to give her attention to their elder visitor.

"I am speaking of the young men calling so much upon the young ladies," the Duchess explained.

"But surely in England," said Mrs. Westgate, " the young ladies don't call upon the young men ? "

" Some of them do — almost ! " Lady Pimlico 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,

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in a little book she keeps for the pur- pose."

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 rejoined.

" Delightful ! " murmured Mrs. Westgate.

" I shall expect to see a deal of you," the Duchess continued. "When I go to Branches I monopolise my son's guests."

"They must be most happy," said Mrs. Westgate, very graciously.

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" 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 ? " inquired her Grace.

" Immensely ! " replied the young girl. " It has been the dream of my life to live

in one."

The Duchess looked at her a moment, as if she hardly knew how to take this assurance, which, from her Grace's point of view, was either very artless or very audacious. " Well," she said, rising, " I will show you Branches myself." And upon this the two great ladies took their departure.

"What did they mean by it?" asked Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone.

"They meant to be polite," said Bessie, " because we are going to meet them."

"It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied, almost grimly. "They meant to overawe us by their fine manners

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and their grandeur, and to make you Idcher 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."

" They were not even good ! " Mrs. Westgate declared.

Bessie was silent awhile, but in a few moments she observed that she had a very

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good theory. " They came to look at me ! " she said, as if this had been a very ingenious hypothesis. Mrs. Westgate did it justice ; she greeted it with a smile and pronounced it most brilliant ; while in reality she felt that the young girl's scepticism, or her charity, or, as she had sometimes called it, appropri- ately, 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. West- gate had occasion to go out for an hour, and left her sister writing a letter. When she came back she met Lord Lambeth at the door of the hotel, coming away. She thought he looked slightly embarrassed ; he was certainly very grave. " 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.

312 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

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. " I told him," she said at last, u that we could not go to Branches."

Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation. "He might have waited," she said with a smile, "till one had seen the Castle." Later, an hour afterwards, she said, "Dear Bessie, I wish you might have accepted him."

" I couldn't," said Bessie, gently.

" He is a dear good fellow," said Mrs. Westgate.

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 3*3

" I couldn't," Bessie repeated.

" If it is only," her sister added, " because those women will think that they succeeded — that they paralysed us ! "

Bessie Alden turned away ; but presently she added, " They were interesting ; I should have liked to see them again."

"So should I!" cried Mrs. Westgate, significantly.

"And I should have liked to see the Castle," said Bessie. "But now we must leave England," she added.

Her sister looked at her. "You will not wait to go to the National Gallery ? "

"Not now."

" Nor to Canterbury Cathedral ? "

Bessie reflected a moment. "We can stop there on our way to Paris," she said.

Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beau- mont that the contingency he was not prep, red at all to like had occurred; but Percy Beaumont, on hearing that the two ladies had left London, wondered with some

314 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE.

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.

FOUR MEETINGS.

FOUR MEETINGS.

I SAW her only four times, but I remember them vividly ; she made an impression upon me. I thought her very pretty and very interesting — a charming specimen of a type. I am very sorry to hear of her death ; and yet, when I think of it, why should I be sorry ? The last time I saw her she was

certainly not But I will describe all

our meetings in order.

I.

THE first one took place in the country, at a little tea-party, one snowy night. It must have been some seventeen years ago. My friend Latouche, going to spend Christmas with his mother, had persuaded me to go with him, and the good lady had given in our honour the entertainment of which I speak. To me it was really

3i8 FOUR MEETINGS.

entertaining ; I had never been in the depths of New England at that season. It had been snowing all day and the drifts were knee-high. I wondered how the ladies had made their way to the house ; but I per- ceived that at Grimwinter a conversazione offering the attraction of two gentlemen from New York was felt to be worth an effort.

Mrs. Latouche in the course of the evening asked me if I " didn't want to " show the photographs to some of the young ladies. The photographs were in a couple of great portfolios, and had been brought home by her son, who, like myself, was lately returned from Europe. I looked round and was struck with the fact that most of the young ladies were provided with an object of interest more absorbing than the most vivid sun-picture. But there was a person standing alone near the mantel-shelf, and looking round the room with a small, gentle smile which seemed at odds, somehow, with her isolation. I

FOUR MEETINGS. 319

looked at her a moment, and then said, " I should like to show them to that young lady."

" Oh yes," said Mrs. Latouche, " she is just the person. She doesn't care for flirting ; I will speak to her/'

I rejoined that if she did not care for flirting, she was, perhaps, not just the person ; but Mrs. Latouche had already gone to propose the photographs to her.

" She's delighted," she said, coming back. " She is just the person, so quiet and so bright." And then she told me the young lady was, by name, Miss Caroline Spencer, and with this she introduced me.

Miss Caroline Spencer was not exactly a beauty, but she was a charming little figure. She must have been close upon thirty, but she was made almost like a little girl, and she had the complexion of a child. She had a very pretty head, and her hair was arranged as nearly as possible like the hair of a Greek bust, though indeed it was to be doubted if she had ever seen a Greek

320 FOUR MEETINGS.

bust. She was " artistic/' I suspected, so far as Grimwinter allowed such tendencies. She had a soft, surprised eye, and thin lips, with very pretty teeth. Round her neck she wore what ladies call, I believe, a " ruche," fastened with a very small pin in pink coral, and in her hand she carried a fan made of plaited straw and adorned with pink ribbon. She wore a scanty black silk dress. She spoke with a kind of soft pre- cision, showing her white teeth between her narrow but tender-looking lips, and she seemed extremely pleased, even a little flut- tered, at the prospect of my demonstrations. These went forward very smoothly, after I had moved the portfolios out of their corner and placed a couple of chairs near a lamp. The photographs were usually things I knew, — large views of Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, landscapes, copies of famous build- ings, pictures and statues. I said what I could about them, and my companion, looking at them as I held them up, sat perfectly still, with her straw fan raised to

FOUR MEETINGS. 321

her under-lip. Occasionally, as I laid one of the pictures down, she said very softly, " Have you seen that place ? " I usually answered that I had seen it several times (I had been a great traveller), and then I felt that she looked at me askance for a moment with her pretty eyes. I had asked her at the outset whether she had been to Europe ; to this she answered, " No, no, no," in a little quick, confidential whisper. But after that, though she never took her eyes off the pictures, she said so little that I was afraid she was bored. Accordingly, after we had finished one portfolio, I offered, if she 'esired it, to desist. I felt that she was not bored, but her reticence puzzled me and I wished to make her speak. I turned round to look at her, and saw that there was a faint flush in each of her cheeks. She was waving her little fan to and fro. Instead of looking at me she fixed her eyes upon the other portfolio, which was leaning against the table.

" Won't you show me that ? " she asked,

322 FOUR MEETINGS.

with a little tremor in her voice. I could almost have believed she was agitated.

"With pleasure," I answered, "if you are not tired."

" No, I am not tired," she affirmed. " I like it— I love it."

And as I took up the other portfolio she laid her hand upon it, rubbing it softly.

" And have you been here too ? " she asked.

On my opening the portfolio it appeared that I had been there. One of the first photographs was a large view of the Castle of Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva.

" Here," I said, " I have been many a time. Is it not beautiful?" And I pointed to the perfect reflection of the rugged rocks and pointed towers in the clear, still water. She did not say, " Oh, enchanting ! " and push it away to see the next picture. She looked awhile, and then she asked if it was not where Bonivard, about whom Byron wrote, was confined. I assented, and tried to

FOUR MEETINGS. 323

quote some of Byron's verses, but in this attempt I succeeded imperfectly.

She fanned herself a moment and then repeated the lines correctly, in a soft, flat, and yet agreeable voice. By the time she had finished, she was blushing. I complimented her and told her she was perfectly equipped for visiting Switzerland and Italy. She looked at me askance again, to see whether I was serious, and I added, that if she wished to recognise Byron's descriptions she must go abroad speedily ; Europe was getting sadly dis- Byronised.

" How soon must I go ? " she asked.

" Oh, I will give you ten years."

" I think I can go within ten years," she answered very soberly.

"Well," I said, " you will enjoy it im- mensely; you will find it very charming." And just then I came upon a photograph of some nook in a foreign city which I had been very fond of, and which recalled tender memories. I discoursed (as I suppose)

324 FOUR MEETINGS.

with a certain eloquence ; my companion sat listening, breathless.

"Have you been very long in foreign lands ? " she asked, some time after I had ceased.

" Many years," I said.

" And have you travelled everywhere ? "

" I have travelled a great deal. I am very fond of it ; and, happily, I have been able."

Again she gave me her sidelong gaze. "And do you know the foreign lan- guages ? "

"After a fashion."

" Is it hard to speak them r "

"I don't believe you would find it hard," I gallantly responded.

" Oh, I shouldn't want to speak — I should only want to listen," she said. Then, after a pause, she added — "They say the French theatre is so beautiful."

" It is the best in the world."

" Did you go there very often ? "

"When I was first in Paris I went every night."

FOUR MEETINGS. 325

" Every night ! " And she opened her clear eyes very wide. "That to me is — " and she hesitated a moment — "is very wonderful." A few minutes later she asked — " Which country do you prefer ? "

"There is one country I prefer to all others. I think you would do the same."

She looked at me a moment, and then she said softly — " Italy ? "

" Italy," I answered softly, too ; and for a moment we looked at each other. She looked as pretty as if, instead of showing her photographs, I had been making love to her. To increase the analogy, she glanced away, blushing. There was a silence, which she broke at last by saying —

" That is the place, which — in parti- cular— I thought of going to."

" Oh, that's the place — that's the place ! " I said.

She looked at two or three photographs in silence. " They say it is not so dear."

" As some other countries ? Yes, that is not the least of its charms."

326 FOUR MEETINGS.

" But it is all very dear, is it not ? "

" Europe, you mean ? "

" Going there and travelling. That has been the trouble. I have very little money. I give lessons," said Miss Spencer.

"Of course one must have money," I said, " but one can manage with a moderate amount."

" I think I should manage. I have laid something by, and I am always adding a little to it. It's all for that." She paused a moment, and then went on with a kind of suppressed eagerness, as if telling me the story were a rare, but a possibly impure, satisfaction. "But it has not been only the money ; it has been everything. Every- thing has been against it. I have waited and waited. It has been a mere castle in the air. I am almost afraid to talk about it. Two or three times it has been a little nearer, and then I have talked about it and it has melted away. I have talked about it too much," she said, hypocritically; for I saw that such talking was now a small

FOUR MEETINGS. 327

tremulous ecstasy. " There is a lady who is a great friend of mine ; she doesn't want to go ; I always talk to her about it. I tire her dreadfully. She told me once she didn't know what would become of me. I should go crazy if I did not go to Europe, and I should certainly go crazy if I did."

"Well," I said, "you have not gone yet and nevertheless you are not crazy."

She looked at me a moment, and said — " I am not so sure. I don't think of any- thing else. I am always thinking of it. It prevents me from thinking of things that are nearer home — things that I ought to attend to. That is a kind of craziness."

" The cure for it is to go," I said.

" I have a faith that I shall go. I have a cousin in Europe ! " she announced.

We turned over some more photographs, and I asked her if she had always lived at Grimwinter.

"Oh, no, sir," said Miss Spencer. "I have spent twenty-three months in Bos- ton."

328 FOUR MEETINGS.

I answered, jocosely, that in that case foreign lands would probably prove a dis- appointment to her; but I quite failed to alarm her.

" I know more about them than you might think," she said, with her shy, neat little smile. "I mean by reading; I have read a great deal. I have not only read Byron ; I have read histories and guide- books. I know I shall like it ! "

" I understand your case, " I rejoined. "You have the native American passion — the passion for the picturesque. With us, I think, it is primordial — antecedent to ex- perience. Experience comes and only shows us something we have dreamt of."

" I think that is very true," said Caroline Spencer. " I have dreamt of everything ; I shall know it all ! "

" I am afraid you have wasted a great deal of time."

" Oh yes, that has been my great wicked-

ness."

The people about us had begun to scat-

FOUR MEETINGS. 329

ter; they were taking their leave. She got up and put out her hand to me, timidly, but with a peculiar brightness in her eyes.

" I am going back there," I said, as I shook hands with her. "I shall look out for you."

" I will tell you," she answered, " if I am disappointed."

And she went away, looking delicately agitated and moving her little straw fan.

330 FOUR MEETINGS.

II.

A FEW months after this I returned to Europe, and some three years elapsed. I had been living in Paris, and, toward the end of October, I went from that city to Havre, to meet my sister and her husband, who had written me that they were about to arrive there. On reaching Havre I found that the steamer was already in ; I was nearly two hours late. I repaired di- rectly to the hotel, where my relatives were already established. My sister had gone to bed, exhausted and disabled by her voyage ; she was a sadly incompetent sailor, and her sufferings on this occasion had been extreme. She wished, for the moment, for undisturbed rest, and was unable to see me more than five minutes ; so it was agreed that we should remain at Havre until the

FOUR MEETINGS. 331

next day. My brother-in-law, who was anxious about his wife, was unwilling to leave her room ; but she insisted upon his going out with me to take a walk and recover his land-legs. The early autumn day was warm and charming, and our stroll through the bright-coloured, busy streets of the old French sea-port was sufficiently en- tertaining. We walked along the sunny, noisy quays and then turned into a wide, pleasant street which lay half in sun and half in shade — a French provincial street, that looked like an old water-colour draw- ing : tall, gray, steep- roofed, red-gabled, many-storied houses ; green shutters on windows and old scroll-work above them ; flower-pots in balconies and white-capped women in door-ways. We walked in the shade ; all this stretched away on the sunny side of the street and made a picture. We looked at it as we passed along ; then, suddenly, my brother-in-law stopped — pressing my arm and staring. I followed his gaze and saw that we had paused just

332 FOUR MEETINGS.

before coming to a cafe, where, under an awning, several tables and chairs were disposed upon the pavement. The windows were open behind ; half-a-dozen plants in tubs were ranged beside the door; the pavement was besprinkled with clean bran. It was a nice little, quiet, old-fashioned cafe ; inside, in the comparative dusk, I saw a stout, handsome woman, with pink ribbons in her cap, perched up with a mirror behind her back, smiling at some one who was out of sight. All this, however, I perceived after- wards ; what I first observed was a lady sitting alone, outside, at one of the little marble-topped tables. My brother-in-law had stopped to look at her. There was something on the little table, but she was leaning back quietly, with her hands folded, looking down the street, away from us. I saw her only in something less than profile ; nevertheless, I instantly felt that I had seen her before.

"The little lady of the steamer!" ex- claimed my brother-in-law.

FOUR MEETINGS. 333

" Was she on your steamer ? " I asked.

•( From morning till night. She was never sick. She used to sit perpetually at the side of the vessel with her hands crossed that way, looking at the eastward horizon."

" Are you going to speak to her ? "

"I don't know her. I never made acquaintance with her. I was too seedy. But I used to watch her and — I don't know why — to be interested in her. She's a dear little Yankee woman. I have an idea she is a school-mistress taking a holiday — for which her scholars have made up a purse."

She turned her face a little more into profile, looking at the steep, gray house- fronts opposite to her. Theu I said — " I shall speak to her myself."

" I wouldn't ; she is very shy," said my brother-in-law.

"My dear fellow, I know her. I once showed her photographs at a tea-party."

And I went up to her. She turned and looked at me, and I saw she was in fact Miss Caroline Spencer. But she was not so

334 FOUR MEETINGS.

quick to recognise me ; she looked startled. I pushed a chair to the table and sat down.

"Well," I said, "I hope you are not dis- appointed ! "

She stared, blushing a little ; then she gave a small jump which betrayed recog- nition.

" It was you who showed me the photo- graphs— at Grimwinter ! "

"Yes, it was I. This happens very charmingly, for I feel as if it were for me to give you a formal reception here — an official welcome. I talked to you so much about Europe."

"You didn't say too much. I am so happy ! " she softly exclaimed.

Very happy she looked. There was no sign of her being older ; she was as gravely, decently, demurely pretty as before. If she had seemed before a thin-stemmed, mild- hued flower of Puritanism, it may be imag- ined whether in her present situation this delicate bloom was less apparent. Beside

FOUR MEETINGS. 335

her an old gentleman was drinking absinthe ; behind her the dame de comptoir in the pink ribbons was calling " Alcibiade ! Alcibiade ! " to the long-aproned waiter. I explained to Miss Spencer that my companion had lately been her ship-mate, and my brother-in-law came up and was introduced to her. But she looked at him as if she had never seen him before, and I remembered that he had told me that her eyes were always fixed upon the eastward horizon. She had evi- dently not noticed him, and, still timidly smiling, she made no attempt whatever to pretend that she had. I staid with her at the cafe door, and he went back to the hotel and to his wife. I said to Miss Spencer that this meeting of ours in the first hour of her landing was really very strange, but that I was delighted to be there and receive her first impressions.

" Oh, I can't tell you," she said ; " I feel as if I were in a dream. I have been sitting here for an hour, and I don't want to move. Everything is so picturesque. I don't know

33^ FOUR MEETINGS

whether the coffee has intoxicated me ; it's so delicious."

" Really," said I, " if you are so pleased with this poor prosaic Havre, you will have no admiration left for better things. Don't spend your admiration all the first day ; remember it's your intellectual letter of credit. Remember all the beautiful places and things that are waiting for you ; remem- ber that lovely Italy ! "

"I'm not afraid of running short," she said gayly, still looking at the opposite houses. " I could sit here all day, saying to myself that here I am at last. It's so dark, and old, and different."

" By the way," I inquired, " how come you to be sitting here ? Have you not gone to one of the inns ? " For I was half amused, half alarmed at the good conscience with which this delicately pretty woman had stationed herself in conspicuous isolation on the edge of the sidewalk.

"My cousin brought me here," she answered. " You know I told you I had a

FCUR MEETINGS. 337

cousin in Europe. He met me at the steamer this morning."

" It was hardly worth his while to meet you if he was to desert you so soon."

"Oh, he has only left me for half-an- hour." said Miss Spencer. " He has gone to get my money."

" Where is your money r "

She gave a little laugh. " It makes me feel very fine to tell you! It is in some circular notes."

" And where are your circular notes ? "

" In my cousin's pocket."

This statement was very serenely uttered, but — -I can hardly say why — it gave me a sensible chill. At the moment I should have been utterly unable to give the reason of this sensation, for I knew nothing of Miss Spencer's cousin. Since he was her cousin, the presumption was in his favour. But I felt suddenly uncomfortable at the thought that, half-an-hour after her landing, her scanty funds should have passed into his hands.

" Is he to travel with you ? " I asked.

338 FOUR MEETINGS.

" Only as far as Paris. He is an art- student in Paris. I wrote to him that I was coming, but I never expected him to come off to the ship. I supposed he would only just meet me at the train in Paris. It is very kind of him. But he is very kind — and very bright."

I instantly became conscious of an ex- treme curiosity to see this bright cousin who was an art-student.

" He is gone to the banker's ? " I asked.

"Yes, to the banker's. He took me to an hotel — such a queer, quaint, delicious little place, with a court in the middle, and a gallery all round, and a lovely landlady, in such a beautifully fluted cap, and such a perfectly fitting dress ! After a while we came out to walk to the banker's, for I haven't got any French money. But I was very dizzy from the motion of the vessel, and I thought I had better sit down. He found this place for me here, and he went off to the banker's himself. I am to wait here till he comes back."

FOUR MEETINGS. 339

It may seem very fantastic, but it passed through my mind that he would never come back. I settled myself in my chair beside Miss Spencer and determined to await the event. She was extremely observant ; there was something touching in it. She noticed everything that the movement of the street brought before us — the peculiarities of costume, the shapes of vehicles, the big Norman horses, the fat priests, the shaven poodles. We talked of these things, and there was something charming in her fresh- ness of perception and the way her book- nourished fancy recognised and welcomed everything.

" And when your cousin comes back what are you going to do ? " I asked.

She hesitated a moment. " We don't quite know."

" When do you go to Paris ? If you go the four o'clock train I may have tiie pleasure of making the journey with you."

"I don't think we shall do that. My

2*

340 FOUR MEETINGS.

cousin thinks I had better stay here a few days."

" Oh ! " said I ; and for five minutes said nothing more. I was wondering what her cousin was, in vulgar parlance, " up to." I looked up and down the street, but saw nothing that looked like a bright American art-student. At last I took tfhe liberty of observing that Havre was hardly a place to choose as one of the aesthetic stations of a European tour. It was a place of conveni- ence, nothing more ; a place of transit, through which transit should be rapid. I recommended her to go to Paris by the afternoon train, and meanwhile to amuse herself by driving to the ancient fortress at the mouth of the harbour — that picturesque, circular structure which bore the name of Francis the First and looked like a small castle of St. Angelo. (It has lately been demolished.)

She listened with much interest ; then for a moment she looked grave.

"My cousin told me that when he

FOUR MEETINGS. 341

returned he should have something par- ticular to say to me, and that we could do nothing or decide nothing until I should have heard it. But I will make him tell me quickly, and then we will go to the ancient fortress. There is no hurry to get to Paris ; there is plenty of time."

She smiled with her softly severe little lips as she spoke those last words. But I, looking at her with a purpose, saw just a tiny gleam of apprehension in her eye.

"Don't tell me," I said, "that this wretched man is going to give you bad

news!"

" I suspect it is a little bad, but I don't believe it is very bad. At any rate, I must listen to it."

I looked at her again an instant. " You didn't come to Europe to listen," I said. " You came to see ! " But now I was sure her cousin would come back ; since he had something disagreeable to say to her, he certainly would turn up. We sat a while

342 FOUR MEETINGS.

longer, and I asked her about her plans ot travel. She had them on her fingers' ends, and she told over the names with a kind of solemn distinctness : from Paris to Dijon and to Avignon, from Avignon to Marseilles and the Cornice road ; thence to Genoa, to Spezia, to Pisa, to Florence, to Rome. It apparently had never occurred to her that there could be the least incommodity in her travelling alone ; and since she was unpro- vided with a companion I of course scrupul- ously abstained from disturbing her sense of security.

At last her cousin came back. I saw him turn towards us out of a side-street, and from the moment my eyes rested upon him I felt that this was the bright American art-student. He wore a slouch hat and a rusty black velvet jacket, such as I had often en- countered in the Rue Bonaparte. His shirt- collar revealed a large section of a throat which, at a distance, was not strikingly statuesque. He was tall and lean; he had red hair and freckles. So much I had time

FOUR MEETINGS. 343

to observe while he approached the cafe, staring at me with natural surprise from under his umbrageous coiffure. When he came up to us I immediately introduced myself to him as an old acquaintance of Miss Spencer. He looked at me hard with a pair of little red eyes, then he made me a solemn bow in the French fashion, with his sombrero.

" You were not on the 'ship ? " he said.

"No, I was not on the ship. I have been in Europe these three years."

He bowed once more, solemnly, and motioned me to be seated again. I sat down, but it was only for the purpose of observing him an instant — I saw it was time I should return to my sister. Miss Spencer's cousin was a queer fellow. Nature had not shaped him for a Raphaelesque or Byronic attire, and his velvet doublet and naked throat were not in harmony with his facial attributes. His hair was cropped close to his head ; his ears were large and ill-adjusted to the same. He had a lackadaisical carriage

344 FOUR MEETINGS.

and a sentimental droop which were pecu- liarly at variance with his keen, strange- coloured eyes. Perhaps I was prejudiced, but I thought his eyes treacherous. He said nothing for some time ; he leaned his hands on his cane and looked up and down the street. Then at last, slowly lifting his cane and pointing with it, "That's a very nice bit," he remarked, softly. He had his head on one side, and his little eyes were half closed. I followed the direction of his stick ; the object it indicated was a red cloth hung out of an old window. " Nice bit of colour," he continued ; and without moving his head he transferred his half-closed gaze to me. " Composes well," he pursued. " Make a nice thing." He spoke in a hard, vulgar voice.

" I see you have a great deal of eye," I replied. "Your cousin tells me you are studying art." He looked it me in the same way without answering, and I went on with deliberate urbanity — " I suppose you are at the studio of one of those great men."

FOUR MEETINGS. 345

Still he looked at me, and then he said softly—" Gerome."

" Do you like it ? " I asked.

" Do you understand French ? " he said.

" Some kinds," I answered.

He kept his little eyes on me ; then he said — " J'adore la pe'nture ! "

"Oh, I understand that kind!" I rejoined. Miss Spencer laid her hand upon her cousin's arm with a little pleased and flut- tered movement ; it was delightful to be among people who were on such easy terms with foreign tongues. I got up to take leave, and asked Miss Spencer where, in Paris, I might have the honour of waiting upon her. To what hotel would she go?

She turned to her cousin inquiringly and he honoured me again with his little languid leer. "Do you know the Hotel des Princes ? "

" I know where it is."

" I shall take her there."

"I congratulate you," I said to Caroline

346 FOUR MEETINGS.

Spencer. " I believe it is the best inn in the world ; and in case I should still have a moment to call upon you here, where are you lodged ? "

" Oh, it's such a pretty name," said Miss Spencer, gleefully. " A la Belle Normande."

As I left them her cousin gave me a great flourish with his picturesque hat.

FOUR MEETINGS. 347

III.

MY sister, as it proved, was not sufficiently restored to leave Havre by the afternoon train ; so that, as the autumn dusk began to fall, I found myself at liberty to call at the sign of the Fair Norman. I must confess that I had spent much of the interval in wondering what the disagreeable thing was that my charming friend's disagreeable cousin had been telling her. The "Belle Normande " was a modest inn in a shady by- street, where it gave me satisfaction to think Miss Spencer must have encountered local colour in abundance. There was a crooked little court, where much of the hospitality of the house was carried on ; there was a stair- case climbing to bedrooms on the outer side of the wall ; there was a small trickling fountain with a stucco statuette in the midst

34? FOUR MEETINGS.

of it : there was a little boy in a white cap and apron cleaning copper vessels at a conspicuous kitchen door; there was a chattering landlady, neatly laced, arranging apricots and grapes into an artistic pyramid upon a pink plate. I looked about, and on a green bench outside of an open door labelled Salle a Manger, I perceived Caroline Spencer. No sooner had I looked at her than I saw that something had hap- pened since the morning. She was leaning back on her bench, her hands were clasped in her lap: and her eyes were fixed upon the landlady, at the other side of the court, manipulating her apricots.

But I saw she was not thinking of apricots. She was staring absently, thought- fully; as I came near her I perceived that she had been crying. I sat down on the bench beside her before she saw me ; then, when she had done so, she simply turned round, without surprise, and rested her sad eyes upon me. Scmething very bad indeed had happened ; she was completely changed.

FOUR MEETINGS. 349

I immediately charged her with it. " Your cousin has been giving you bad news ; you are in great distress. "

For a moment she said nothing, and I supposed that she was afraid to speak, lest her tears should come back. But presently I perceived that in the short time that had elapsed since my leaving her in the morning she had shed them all, and that she was now softly stoical — intensely composed.

" My poor cousin is in distress," she said at last. " His news was bad." Then, after a brief hesitation — " He was in terrible want of money."

" In want of yours, you mean ? "

" Of any that he could get — honestly. Mine was the only money."

" And he has taken yours ? "

She hesitated again a moment, but her glance, meanwhile, was pleading. " I gave him what I had."

I have always remembered the accent of those words as the most angelic bit of human utterance I had ever listened to;

35° FOUR MEETINGS.

but then, almost with a sense of personal outrage, I jumped up. "Good heavens!" I said, "do you call that getting it honestly ? "

1 had gone too far; she blushed deeply. " We will not speak of it," she said.

"We must speak of it," I answered, sitting down again. " I am your friend ; it seems to me you need one. What is the matter with your cousin ? "

" He is in debt."

"No doubt! But what is the special fitness of your paying his debts ? "

" He has told me all his story ; I am very sorry for him."

"So am I ! But I hope he will give you back your money."

" Certainly he will ; as soon as he can."

" When will that be ? "

" When he has finished his great picture."

" My dear young lady, conf jund his great picture ! Where is this desperate cousin?"

She certainly hesitated now. Then — "At his dinner," she answered.

FOUR MEETINGS. 351

I turned about and looked through the open door into the salle a manger. There, alone at the end of a long table, I perceived the object of Miss Spencer's compassion — the bright young art-student. He was dining too attentively to notice me at first ; but in the act of setting down a well-emptied wine-glass he caught sight of my observant attitude. He paused in his repast, and, with his head on one side and his meagre jaws slowly moving, fixedly returned my gaze. Then the landlady came lightly brushing by with her pyramid of apricots.

" And that nice little plate of fruit is for him ? " I exclaimed.

Miss Spencer glanced at it tenderly. " They do that so prettily ! " she murmured.

I felt helpless and irritated. "Come now, really," I said ; " do you approve of that long strong fellow accepting your funds ? " She looked away from me ; I was evidently giving her pain. The case was hopeless; the long strong fellow had " interested " her.

" Excuse me if I speak of him so uncere-

352 FOUR MEETINGS.

moniously," I said. "But you are really too generous, and he is not quite delicate enough. He made his debts himself — he ought to pay them himself.'*

" He has been foolish," she answered ; " I know that. He has told me everything. We had a long talk this morning ; the poor fellow threw himself upon my charity. He has signed notes to a large amount."

" The more fool he ! "

" He is in extreme distress ; and it is not only himself. It is his poor wife."

" Ah, he has a poor wife ? "

" I didn't know it — but he confessed everything. He married two years since, secretly.''

"Why secretly?'5

Caroline Spencer glanced about her, as if she feared listeners. Then softly, in a little impressive tone — " She was a Countess ! "

" Are you very sure of that ? "

" She has written me a most beautiful letter."

" Asking you for money, eh r "

FOUR MEETINGS. 353

"Asking me for confidence and sympa- thy," said Miss Spencer. "She has been disinherited by her father. My cousin told me the story and she tells it in her own way, in the letter. It is like an old romance. Her father opposed the marriage and when he discovered that she had secretly disobeyed him he cruelly cast her off. It is really most romantic. They are the oldest family in Provence."

I looked and listened, in wonder. It really seemed that the poor woman was enjoying the "romance" of having a dis- carded Countess-cousin, out of Provence, so deeply as almost to lose the sense of what the forfeiture of her money meant for her.

" My dear young lady," I said, " you don't want to be ruined for picturesqueness' sake ? "

" I shall not be ruined. I shall come back before long to stay with them. The Countess insists upon that."

"Come back! You are going home, then?"

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354 FOUR MEETINGS.

She sat for a moment with her eyes lowered, then with an heroic suppression ot a faint tremor of the voice — " I have no money for travelling ! " she answered.

" You gave it all up ? "

" I have kept enough to take me home."

I gave an angry groan, and at this juncture Miss Spencer's cousin, the fortunate possessor of her sacred savings and of the hand of the Provenqal Countess, emerged from the little dining-room. He stood on the threshold for an instant, removing the stone from a plump apricot which he had brought away from the table ; then he put the apricot into his mouth, and while he let it sojourn there, gratefully, stood looking at us, with his long legs apart and his hands dropped into the pockets of his velvet jacket. My companion got up, giving him a thin glance which I caught in its passage, and which expressed a strange commixture of resignation and fascination — a sort of per- verted exaltation. Ugly, vulgar, pretentious,

FOUR MEETINGS. 355

dishonest as I thought the creature, he had appealed successfully to her eager and tender imagination. I was deeply disgusted, but I had no warrant to interfere, and at any rate I felt that it would be vain.

The young man waved his hand with a pictorial gesture. " Nice old court," he ob- served. " Nice mellow old place. Good tone in that brick. Nice crooked old stair-case."

Decidedly, I couldn't stand it; without responding I gave my hand to Caroline Spencer. She looked at me an instant with her little white face and expanded eyes, and as she showed her pretty teeth I suppose she meant to smile.

" Don't be sorry for me," she said, " I am very sure I shall see something of this dear old Europe yet."

I told her that I would not bid her good- bye— I should find a moment to come back the next morning. Her cousin, who had put on his sombrero again, nourished it off at me by way of a bow — upon which I took my departure.

A A2

356 FOUR MEETINGS.

The next morning I came back to the inn, where I met in the court the landlady, more loosely laced than in the evening. On my asking for Miss Spencer, — " Par tie, monsieur," said the hostess. "She went away last night at ten o'clock, with her — -her — not her husband, eh ? — in fine her Mon- sieur. They went down to the American ship." I turned away ; the poor girl had been about thirteen hours in Europe.

FOUR MEETINGS. 357

IV.

I MYSELF, more fortunate, was there some five years longer. During this period I lost my friend Latouche, who died of a malarious fever during a tour in the Levant. One of the first things I did on my return was to go up to Grimwinter to pay a consolatory visit to his poor mother. I found her in deep affliction, and I sat with her the whole of the morning that followed my arrival (I had come in late at night), listening to her tearful descant and singing the praises of my friend. We talked of nothing else, and our conversation terminated only with the arrival of a quick little woman who drove herself up to the door in a " carry-all," and whom I saw toss the reins upon the horse's back with the briskness of a startled sleeper throwing back

358 FOUR MEETINGS.

the bed-clothes. She jumped out of the carry-all and she jumped into the room. She proved to be the minister's wife and the great town-gossip, and she had evidently, in the latter capacity, a choice morsel to communicate. I was as sure of this as I was that poor Mrs. Latouche was not abso- lutely too bereaved to listen to her. It seemed to me discreet to retire ; I said I believed I would go and take a walk before dinner.

" And, by the way," I added, " if you will tell me where my old friend Miss Spencer lives I will walk to her house."

The minister's wife immediately re- sponded. Miss Spencer lived in the fourth house beyond the Baptist church ; the Baptist church was the one on the right, with that queer green thing over the door; they called it a portico, but it looked more like an old-fashioned bedstead.

"Yes, do go and see poor Caroline," said Mrs. Latouche. " It will refresh her to see a strange face."

FOUR MEETINGS. 359

" I should think she had had enough of strange faces ! " cried the minister's wife.

u I mean, to see a visitor," said Mrs. Latouche, amending her phrase.

" I should think she had had enough of visitors ! " her companion rejoined. " But you don't mean to stay ten years, " she added, glancing at me.

'- Has she a visitor of that sort ? " I in- quired, perplexed.

" You will see the sort ! " said the minister's wife. " She's easily seen ; she generally sits in the front yard. Only take care what you say to her, and be very sure you are polite."

"Ah, she is so sensitive?"

The minister's wife jumped up and drop- ped me a curtsey — a most ironical curtsey.

" That's what she is, if you please. She's a Countess ! "

And pronouncing this word with the most scathing accent, the little woman seemed fairly to laugh in the Countess's face. I stood a moment, staring, wondering, remem- bering.

360 FOUR MEETINGS.

" Oh, I shall be very polite ! " I cried ; and grasping my hat and stick, I went on my way.

I found Miss Spencer's residence without difficulty. The Baptist church was easily identified, and the small dwelling near it, of a rusty white, with a large central chimney- stack and a Virginia creeper, seemed natur- ally and properly the abode of a frugal old maid with a taste for the picturesque. As I approached I slackened my pace, for I had heard that some one was always sitting in the front yard, and I wished to reconnoitre. I looked cautiously over the low white fence which separated the small garden-space from the unpaved street; but I descried nothing in the shape of a Countess. A small straight path led up to the crooked door- step, and on either side of it was a little grass-plot, fringed with currant-bushes. In the middle of the grass, on either side, was a large quince-tree, full of antiquity and contortions, and beneath one of the quince- trees were placed a small table and a couple

FOUR MEETINGS. 361

of chairs. On the table lay a piece of unfinished embroidery and two or three books in bright-coloured paper covers. I went in at the gate and paused half-way along the path, scanning the place for some farther token of its occupant, before whom — I could hardly have said why — I hesitated abruptly to present myself. Then I saw that the poor little house was very shabby. I felt a sudden doubt of my right to intrude ; for curiosity had been my mo- tive, and curiosity here seemed singularly indelicate. While I hesitated, a figure appeared in the open door-way and stood 4 there looking at me. I immedi- ately recognised Caroline Spencer, but she looked at me as if she had never seen me before. Gently, but gravely and timidly, I advanced to the door-step, and then I said, with an attempt at friendly badinage — •

"I waited for you over there to come back, but you never came."

''Waited where, sir?" she asked softly,

362 FOUR MEETINGS.

and her light-coloured eyes expanded more than before.

She was much older; she looked tired and wasted.

" Well," I said, "I waited at Havre."

She stared ; then she recognised me. She smiled and blushed and clasped her two hands together. (i I remember you now," she said. " I remember that day." But she stood there, neither coming out nor asking me to come in. She was embar- rassed.

I, too, felt a little awkward. I poked my stick into the path, " I kept looking out for you, year after year,''* I said.

" You mean in Europe ? " murmured Miss Spencer.

"In Europe, of course ! Here, ap- parently, you are easy enough to find."

She leaned her hand against the un painted door-post, and her head fell a little to one side. She looked at me for a moment without speaking, and I thought I recog-

FOUR MEETINGS. 363

nised the expression that one sees in women's eyes when tears are rising. Suddenly she stepped out upon the cracked slab of stone before the threshold and closed the door behind her. Then she began to smile intently, and I saw that her teeth were as pretty as ever. But there had been tears too.

" Have you been there ever since ? " she asked, almost in a whisper.

" Until three weeks ago. And you — you never came back ? n

Still looking at me with her fixed smile, she put her hand behind her and opened the door again. "I am not very polite," she said. " Won't you come in ? "

" I am afraid I incommode you."

" Oh no ! " she answered, smiling more than ever. And she pushed back the door, with a sign that I should enter.

I went in, following her. She led the way to a small room on the left of the narrow hall, which I supposed to be her parlour, though it was at the back of the

364 FOUR MEETINGS.

house, and we passed the closed door of another apartment which apparently enjoyed a view of the quince-trees. This one looked out upon a small wood-shed and two clucking hens. But I thought it very pretty, until I saw that its elegance was of the most frugal kind ; after which, presently, I thought it prettier still, for I had never seen faded chintz and old mezzotint engravings, framed in varnished autumn leaves, disposed in so graceful a fashion. Miss Spencer sat down on a very small portion of the sofa, with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. She looked ten years older, and it would have sounded very perverse now to speak of her as pretty. But I thought her so ; or at least I thought her touching. She was peculiarly agitated. I tried to appear not to notice it; but suddenly, in the most inconsequent fashion — it was an irresistible memory of our little friendship at Havre — I said to her — "I do incommode you. You are distressed."

She raised her two hands to her face,

FOUR MEETINGS. 365

and for a moment kept it buried in them.

Then, taking them away "It's because

you remind me " she said.

" I remind you, you mean, of that miser- able day at Havre ? "

She shook her head. " It was not miserable. It was delightful."

" I never was so shocked as when, on going back to your inn the next morning, I found you had set sail again."

She was silent a moment ; and then she said " Please let us not speak of that."

"Did you come straight back here?" I asked.

" I was back here just thirty days after I had gone away."

"And here you have remained ever since ? "

" Oh yes ! " she said gently.

" When are you going to Europe again ? "

This question seemed brutal ; but there was something that irritated me in the softness of her resignation, and I wished

366 FOUR MEETINGS.

to extort from her some expression of impatience.

She fixed her eyes for a moment upon a small sun-spot on the carpet ; then she got up and lowered the window-blind a little, to obliterate it. Presently, in the same mild voice, answering my question, she said— "Never!"

" I hope your cousin repaid you your money."

"I don't care for it now," she said, looking away from me.

" You don't care for your money ? "

" For going to Europe."

" Do you mean that you would not go if you could ? "

" I can't — I can't," said Caroline Spencer. " It is all over ; I never think of it."

" He never repaid you, then ! " I ex- claimed.

" Please — please," she began.

But she stopped ; she was looking toward the door. There had been a rustling and a sound of steps in the hall.

FOUR MEETINGS. 367

I also looked toward the door, which was open, and now admitted another person — a lady who paused just within the threshold. Behind her came a young man. The lady looked at me with a good deal of fixedness — long enough for my glance to receive a vivid impression of herself. Then she turned to Caroline Spencer, and, with a smile and a strong foreign accent

" Excuse my interruption ! " she said. " I knew not you had company — the gentle- man came in so quietly."

With this, she directed her eyes toward me again.

She was very strange ; yet my first feeling was that I had seen her before. Then 1 perceived that I had only seen ladies who were very much like her. But I had seen them very far away from Grimwinter, and it was an odd sensation to be seeing her here. Whither was it the sight of her seemed to transport me? To some dusky landing before a shabby Parisian quatrieme

368 FOUR MEETINGS.

— to an open door revealing a greasy ante- chamber, and to Madame leaning over the banisters while she holds a faded dressing- gown together and bawls down to the portress to bring up her coffee. Miss Spencer's visitor was a very large woman, of middle age, with a plump, dead-white face and hair drawn back a la chinoise. She had a small, penetrating eye, and what is called in French an agreeable smile. She wore an old pink cashmere dressing-gown, covered with white embroideries, and, like the figure in my momentary vision, she was holding it together in front with a bare and rounded arm and a plump and deeply- dimpled hand.

"It is only to spick about my cafe" she said to Miss Spencer with her agreeable smile. " I should like it served in the garden under the leetle tree/'

The young man behind her had now stepped into the room, and he also stood looking at me. He was a pretty-faced little

FOUR MEETINGS. 369

fellow, with an air of provincial foppishness — a tiny Adonis of Grimwinter. He had a small, pointed nose, a small, pointed chin, and, as I observed, the most diminutive feet. He looked at me foolishly, with his mouth open.

"You shall have your coffee," said Miss Spencer, who had a faint red spot in each of her cheeks.

" It is well ! " said the lady in the dressing- gown. "Find your bouk," she added, turning to the young man.

He looked vaguely round the room. " My grammar, d'ye mean ? " he asked, with a helpless intonation.

But the large lady was looking at me curiously, and gathering in her dressing- gown with her white arm.

" Find your bouk, my friend," she re- peated.

" My poetry, d'ye mean ? " said the young man, also gazing at me again.

" Never mind your bouk," said his com- panion. "To-day we will talk. We will

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370 FOUR MEETINGS.

make some conversation. But we must not interrupt. Come," and she turned away. " Under the leetle tree/' she added, for the benefit of Miss Spencer.

Then she gave me a sort of salutation, and a " Monsieur ! " — with which she swept away again, followed by the young man.

Caroline Spencer stood there with her eyes fixed upon the ground.

« Who is that ? " I asked.

"The Countess, my cousin."

" And who is the young man ? "

" Her pupil, Mr. Mixter."

This description of the relation be- tween the two persons who had just left the room made me break into a little laugh. Miss Spencer looked at me gravely.

u She gives French lessons ; she has lost her fortune."

" I see/' I said. " She is determined to be a burden to no one. That is very proper."

FOUR MEETINGS. 371

Miss Spencer looked down on the ground again. " I must go and get the coffee," she said.

" Has the lady many pupils ? " I asked.

"She has only Mr. Mixter. She gives all her time to him."

At this I could not laugh, though I smelt provocation. Miss Spencer was too grave. " He pays very well/' she presently added, with simplicity. "He is very rich. He is very kind. He takes the Countess to drive." And she was turning away.

"You are going for the Countess's coffee ? " I said.

" If you will excuse me a few moments."

" Is there no one else to do it ? "

She looked at me with the softest serenity. " I keep no servants."

" Can she not wait upon herself ? "

" She is not used to that."

" I see," said I, as gently as possible. " But before you go, tell me this : who is this lady?"

"I told you about her before — that day.

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372 FOUR MEETINGS.

•She is the wife of my cousin, whom you

»» saw.

"The lady who was disowned by her family in consequence of her marriage?"

uYes; they have never seen her again. They have cast her off."

" And where is her husband ? "

"He is dead."

" And where is your money ? "

The poor girl flinched , there was some- thing too methodical in my questions. " I • don't know," she said wearily.

But I continued a moment. "On her Imsband's death this lady came over here ? "

" Yes, she arrived one day."

" How long ago ? "

" Two years."

" She has been here ever since r "

" Every moment."

" How does she like it r "

" Not at all."

" And how do you like it ? "

Miss Spencer laid her face in her two hands an instant, as she had done ten

FOUR MEETINGS. 373

minutes before. Then, quickly, she went to get the Countess's coffee.

I remained alone in the little parlour ; I wanted to see more — to learn more. At the end of five minutes the young man whom Miss Spencer had described as the Countess's pupil came in. He stood looking at me for a moment with parted lips. I saw he was a very rudimentary young man.

"She wants to know if you won't come out there ? " he observed at last.

" Who wants to know ? "

" The Countess. That French lady."

" She has asked you to bring me ? "

"Yes, sir," said the young man feebly, looking at my six feet of stature.

I went out with him, and we found the Countess sitting under one of the little quince-trees in front of the house. She was drawing a needle through the piece of em- broidery which she had taken from the small table. She pointed graciously to the chair beside her and I seated myself. Mr. Mixter glanced about him, and then sat

374 FOUR MEETINGS.

down in the grass at her feet. He gazed upward, looking with parted lips from the Countess to me.

" I am sure you speak French," said the Countess, fixing her brilliant little eyes upon me.

" I do, madam, after a fashion," I answered, in the lady's own tongue.

" Foila!" she cried most expressively. "I knew it so soon as I looked at you. You have been in my poor dear country."

" A long time."

"You know Paris?"

"Thoroughly, madam." And with a cer- tain conscious purpose I let my eyes meet her own.

She presently, hereupon, moved her own and glanced down at Mr. Mixter. "What are we talking about ? " she demanded of her attentive pupil.

He pulled his knees up, plucked at the grass with his hand, stared, blushed a little. "You are talking French," said Mr. Mixter.

" La belle decouverte ! " said the Countess.

FOUR MEETINGS. 375

"Here are ten months," she explained to me, " that I am giving him lessons. Don't put yourself out not to say he's a fool ; he wont understand you."

" I hope your other pupils are more grati- fying," I remarked.

" I have no others. They don't know what French is in this place ; they don't want to know. You may therefore imagine the pleasure it is to me to meet a person who speaks it like yourself." I replied that my own pleasure was not less, and she went on drawing her stitches through her embroidery, with her little finger curled out. Every few moments she put her eyes close to her work, near-sightedly. I thought her a very dis- agreeable person; she was coarse, affected, dishonest, and no more a Countess than I was a caliph. "Talk to me of Paris," she went on. " The very name of it gives me an emotion ! How long since you were there?"

" Two months ago."

"Happy man ! Tell me something about

3?6 FOUR MEETINGS.

it. What were they doing? Oh, for an hour of the boulevard ! "

" They were doing about what they are always doing — amusing themselves a good deal."

" At the theatres, eh ? " sighed the Coun- tess. "At the cafes-concerts — at the little tables in front of the doors? Quelle exist- ence! You know I am a Parisienne, mon- sieur/' she added, " — to my finger-tips."

"Miss Spencer was mistaken, then," I ventured to rejoin, " in telling me that you are a Proven^ale."

She stared a moment, then she put her nose to her embroidery, which had a dingy, desultory aspect. " Ah, I am a Provencale by birth ; but I am a Parisienne by — inclination."

"And by experience, I suppose?" I said.

She questioned me a moment with her hard little eyes. " Oh, experience ! I could talk of experience if I wished. I never expected, for example, that experience had

FOUR MEETINGS. 377

this in store for me." And she pointed with her bare elbow, and with a jerk of her head, at everything that surrounded her — at the little white house, the quince-tree, the rickety paling, even at Mr. Mixter.

" You are in exile ! " I said smiling.

" You may imagine what it is ! These two years that I have been here I have passed hours — hours ! One gets used to things, and sometimes I think I have got used to this. But there are some things that are always beginning over again. For example, my coffee."

"Do you always have coffee at this hour ? " I inquired.

She tossed back her head and measured me.

"At what hour would you prefer me to have it? I must have my little cup after breakfast."

" Ah5 you breakfast at this hour ? "

" At mid-day — comme cela se fait. Here they breakfast at a quarter past seven ! That 6 quarter past ' is charming ! "

378 FOUR MEETINGS.

" But you were telling me about your coffee," I observed, sympathetically.

" My cousine can't believe in it ; she can't understand it. She's an excellent girl ; but that little cup of black coffee, with a drop of cognac, served at this hour — -they exceed her comprehension. So I have to break the ice every day, and it takes the coffee the time you see to arrive. And when it arrives, monsieur! If I don't offer you any of it you must not take it ill. It will be because I know you have drunk it on the boulevard."

I resented extremely this scornful treat- ment of poor Caroline Spencer's humble hospitality ; but I said nothing, in order to say nothing uncivil. I only looked on Mr. Mixter, who had clasped his arms round his knees and was watching my com- panion's demonstrative graces in solemn fascination. She presently saw that I was observing him ; she glanced at me with a little bold explanatory smile. " You know, he adores me," she murmured, putting her nose into her tapestry again. I expressed

FOUR MEETINGS. 379

the promptest credence and she went on. " He dreams of becoming my lover ! Yes, it's his dream. He has read a French novel ; it took him six months. But ever since that he has thought himself the hero, and me the heroine ! "

Mr. Mixter had evidently not an idea that he was being talked about ; he was too preoccupied with the ecstasy of contem- plation. At this moment Caroline Spencer came out of the house, bearing a coffee-pot on a little tray. I noticed that on her way from the door to the table she gave me a single quick, vaguely appealing glance. I wondered what it signified ; I felt that it signified a sort of half-frightened longing to know what, as a man of the world who had been in France, I thought of the Countess. It made me extremely uncomfortable. I could not tell her that the Countess was very possibly the runaway wife of a little hair-dresser. I tried suddenly, on the con- trary, to ihow a high consideration for her. But I got up; I couldn't stay longer.

380 FOUR MEETINGS.

It vexed me to see Caroline Spencer standing there like a waiting-maid.

" You expect to remain some time at Grimwinter ? " I said to the Countess.

She gave a terrible shrug.

" Who knows ? Perhaps for years. When one is in misery ! # =& * Chere belle" she added, turning to Miss Spencer, " you have forgotten the cognac ! "

I detained Caroline Spencer as, after looking a moment in silence at the little table, she was turning away to procure this missing delicacy. 1 silently gave her my hand in farewell. She lookefl very tired, but there was a strange hint of prospective patience in her severely mild little face. I thought she was rather glad I was going. Mr. Mixter had risen to his feet and was pouring out the Countess's coffee. As I went back past the Baptist church I reflected that poor Miss Spencer had been right in her presentiment that she should still see something of that dear old Europe.

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