An International Episode...................................................................................................................................1

Four years agoin 1874two 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 highhung

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 favorable one; still,

it is not without its picturesque and even brilliant side. Nothing could well resemble less a typical English

street than the interminable avenue, rich in incongruities, through which our two travelers

advancedlooking out on each side of them at the comfortable animation of the sidewalks, the

highcolored, heterogeneous architecture, the huge white marble facades glittering in the strong, crude light,

and bedizened with gilded lettering, the multifarious awnings, banners, and streamers, the extraordinary

number of omnibuses, horsecars, 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 Washington in the very shadow,

indeed, projected by the image of the (i pater patriae)one of them remarked to the other, "It seems a

This animated discussion was checked by their arrival at the hotel, which had been recommended to them by

an American gentleman whose acquaintance they madewith whom, indeed, they became very

intimateon the steamer, and who had proposed to accompany them to the inn and introduce them, in a

friendly way, to the proprietor. This plan, however, had been defeated by their friend's finding that his

"partner" was awaiting him on the wharf and that his commercial associate desired him instantly to come and

give his attention to certain telegrams received from St. Louis. But the two Englishmen, with nothing but

their national prestige and personal graces to recommend them, were very well received at the hotel, which

had an air of capacious hospitality. They found that a bath was not unattainable, and were indeed struck with

the facilities for prolonged and reiterated immersion with which their apartment was supplied. After bathing a

good dealmore, indeed, than they had ever done before on a single occasionthey made their way into the

dining room of the hotel, which was a spacious restaurant, with a fountain in the middle, a great many tall

plants in ornamental tubs, and an array of French waiters. The first dinner on land, after a sea voyage, is,

under any circumstances, a delightful occasion, and there was something particularly agreeable in the

circumstances in which our young Englishmen found themselves. They were extremely good natured young

men; they were more observant than they appeared; in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally dissimulative

fashion, they were highly appreciative. This was, perhaps, especially the case with the elder, who was also, as

I have said, the man of talent. They sat down at a little table, which was a very different affair from the great

clattering seesaw in the saloon of the steamer. The wide doors and windows of the restaurant stood open,

beneath large awnings, to a wide pavement, where there were other plants in tubs, and rows of spreading

trees, and beyond which there was a large shady square, without any palings, and with marblepaved walks.

And above the vivid verdure rose other facades of white marble and of pale chocolatecolored 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 streetcars, and a constant strolling and shuffling and rustling

of many pedestrians, a large proportion of whom were young women in Pompadourlooking dresses. Within,

the place was cool and vaguely lighted, with the plash of water, the odor of flowers, and the flitting of French

"I suppose it's the French waiters," said the first speaker. "Why don't they have French waiters in London?"

The young Englishman started 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'shisname's, close to the thingumbob? They always

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

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

And so, in desultory observation of the idiosyncrasies of the new society in which they found themselves, the

young Englishmen proceeded to dine going in largely, as the phrase is, for cooling draughts and dishes, of

which their attendant offered them a very long list. After dinner they went out and slowly walked about the

neighboring streets. The early dusk of waning summer was coming on, but the heat was still very great. The

pavements were hot even to the stout boot soles of the British travelers, and the trees along the curbstone

emitted strange exotic odors. The young men wandered through the adjoining squarethat queer place

without palings, and with marble walks arranged in black and white lozenges. There were a great many

benches, crowded with shabbylooking people, and the travelers 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 horsecars,

and all round it, in the upper dusk, was a sinister hum of mosquitoes. The ground floor of the hotel seemed to

be a huge transparent cage, flinging a wide glare of gaslight into the street, of which it formed a sort of public

adjunct, absorbing and emitting the passersby promiscuously. The young Englishmen went in with everyone

else, from curiosity, and saw a couple of hundred men sitting on divans along a great marblepaved corridor,

with their legs stretched out, together with several dozen more standing in a queue, as at the ticket office of a

railway station, before a brilliantly illuminated counter of vast extent. These latter persons, who carried

portmanteaus in their hands, had a dejected, exhausted look; their garments were not very fresh, and they

seemed to be rendering some mysterious tribute to a magnificent young man with a waxed mustache, and a

shirtfront adorned with diamond buttons, who every now and then dropped an absent glance over their

multitudinous patience. They were American citizens doing homage to a 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 travelers had only the

satisfaction of seeing some of the secondor perhaps even the third taking the evening air upon balconies

and high flights of doorsteps, in the streets which radiate from the more ornamental thoroughfare. They went

a little way down one of these side streets, and they saw young ladies in white dressescharminglooking

persons seated in graceful attitudes on the chocolatecolored 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, neverthelessthe younger oneintimated that he felt a disposition to

interrupt a few of these soft familiarities; but his companion observed, pertinently enough, that he had better

"But he told us, you knowhe told us," urged the young man, alluding again to the friend on the steamer.

"Never mind what he told us!" answered his comrade, who, if he had greater talents, was also apparently

By bedtimein their impatience to taste of a terrestrial couch again our seafarers went to bed earlyit was

still insufferably hot, and the buzz of the mosquitoes at the open windows might have passed for an audible

crepitation of the temperature. "We can't stand this, you know," the young Englishmen said to each other; and

they tossed about all night more boisterously than they had tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On the morrow,

their first thought was that they would reembark that day for England; and then it occured to them that they

might find an asylum nearer at hand. The cave of Aeolus became their ideal of comfort, and they wondered

where the Americans went when they wished to cool off. They had not the least idea, and they determined to

apply for information to Mr. J. L. Westgate. This was the name inscribed in a bold hand on the back of a

letter carefully preserved in the pocketbook of our junior traveler. Beneath the address, in the lefthand

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 tremendously hospitable he will do everything in the world for you;

and as he knows everyone over there, it is quite needless I should give you any other introduction. He will

make you see everyone; trust to him for putting you into circulation. He has got a tremendously pretty wife."

It was natural that in the hour of tribulation Lord Lambeth and Mr. Percy Beaumont should have bethought

themselves of a gentleman whose attractions had been thus vividly depicted; all the more so that he lived in

the Fifth Avenue, and that the Fifth Avenue, as they had ascertained the night before, was contiguous to their

hotel. "Ten to one he'll be out of town," said Percy Beaumont; "but we can at least find out where he has

gone, and we can immediately start in pursuit. He can't possibly have gone to a hotter place, you know."

"Oh, there's only one hotter place," said Lord 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 chocolatecolored 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

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

"It depends upon what London house you mean," replied his companion. "You have a tremendous chance to

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

The door was opened by a long Negro in a white jacket, who grinned familiarly when Lord Lambeth asked

"Well, sah, 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 pocketbook. The two gentlemen then returned, languidly, to

their hotel, and sent for a hackney coach, and in this commodious vehicle they rolled comfortably downtown.

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 keenfaced, lightlimbed 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 keenfaced young men he was a charming fellow, in wonderful creamcolored

garments and a hat with a blue ribbon, who had evidently perceived them to be aliens and helplessto a very

snug hydraulic elevator, in which they took their place with many other persons, and which, shooting upward

in its vertical socket, presently projected them into the seventh horizontal compartment of the edifice. Here,

after brief delay, they found themselves face to face with the friend of their friend in London. His office was

composed of several different rooms, and they waited very silently in one of them after they had sent in their

letter and their cards. The letter was not one which it would take Mr. Westgate very long to 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 businesslike, a quick, intelligent eye,

and a large brown mustache, which concealed his mouth and made his chin, beneath it, look small. Lord

"How do you do, Lord Lambethhow do you do, sir?" he said, holding the open letter in his hand. "I'm very

glad to see you; I hope you're very well. You had better come in here; I think it's cooler," and he led the way

into another room, where there were law books and papers, and windows wide open beneath striped awning.

Just opposite one of the windows, on a line with his eyes, Lord Lambeth observed the weathervane of a

church steeple. The uproar of the street sounded infinitely far below, and Lord Lambeth felt very high in the

air. "I say it's cooler," pursued their host, "but everything is relative. How do you stand the heat?"

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

"Well, it won't last," Mr. Westgate very cheerfully declared; "nothing unpleasant lasts over here. It was very

hot when Captain Littledale was here; he did nothing but drink sherry cobblers. He expressed some doubt in

his letter whether I will 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."

"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

"The Englishmen and the watermelons just now are about the same thing," Percy Beaumont observed, wiping

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

"Yes, you want to go to Newport; that's what you want to do," Mr. Westgate affirmed. "But let's seewhen

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

Mr. Westgate stared and laughed. "Oh, no, of course you don't like the gnats. We shall expect you to like a

good many things over here, but we shan't insist upon your liking the gnats; though certainly you'll admit

"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 anyone should try to appropriate you, please to say, 'Hands off; too late for the market.' But let's see,"

continued the American, in his slow, humorous voice, with a distinctness of utterance which appeared to his

visitors to be part of a humorous intention a strangely leisurely, speculative voice for a man evidently so

busy and, as they felt, so professional"let's see; are you going to make something of a stay, Lord

"Oh, dear, no," said the young Englishman; "my cousin was coming over on some business, so I just came

"I was obliged to come on some business," said Percy Beaumont, "and I brought Lambeth along."

"Oh, you see I'm by way of being a barrister," Percy Beaumont answered. "I know some people that think of

bringing a suit against one of your railways, and they asked me to come over and take measures accordingly."

The American tilted back his chair a little and poised it an instant. "Well, I'm sorry you want to attack one of

our institutions," he said, smiling. "But I guess you had better enjoy yourself FIRST!"

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

"Leave that to the natives," said Mr. Westgate. "Leave the Tennessee Central to me, Mr. Beaumont. Some

day we'll talk it over, and I guess I can make it square. But I didn't know you Englishmen ever did any work,

"I must certainly be at home by the 19th of September," said the younger Englishman, irrelevantly but gently.

"For the shooting, eh? or is it the hunting, or the fishing?" inquired his entertainer.

"Well, then," rejoined Mr. Westgate, "you had better amuse yourself first, also. You must go down and see

"We should be so happy, if you would kindly tell us the train," said Percy Beaumont.

"It isn't a town," said Mr. Westgate, laughing. "It's awell, what shall I call it? It's a watering place. In short,

it's Newport. You'll see what it is. It's cool; that's the principal thing. You will greatly oblige me by going

down there and putting yourself into the hands of Mrs. Westgate. It isn't perhaps for me to say it, but you

couldn't be in better hands. Also in those of her sister, who is staying with her. She is very fond of

"Mrs. Westgate ora her sister?" asked Percy Beaumont modestly, yet in the tone of an inquiring

"Oh, I mean my wife," said Mr. Westgate. "I don't suppose my sisterinlaw knows much about them. She

Percy Beaumont listened with interest. "That, I believe," he said, "is the mosta intellectual town?"

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

be very trying; it's not the temperature for 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 alsobut only with his fine natural

complexion glancing aside after a moment to see that his companion was not looking too credulous, for he

had heard a great deal of American humor. "I daresay it is very jolly," said the younger gentleman.

"I daresay it is," said Mr. Westgate. "Only I must impress upon you that at presenttomorrow morning, at an

early hour you will be expected at Newport. We have a house there; half the people in New York go there

for the summer. I am not sure that at this very moment my wife can take you in; she has got a lot of people

staying with her; I don't know who they all are; only she may have no room. But you can begin with the

hotel, and meanwhile you can live at my house. In that waysimply sleeping at the hotel you will find it

tolerable. For the rest, you must make yourself at home at my place. You mustn't be shy, you know; if you

are only here for a month that will be a great waste of time. Mrs. Westgate won't neglect you, and you had

better not try to resist her. I know something about that. I expect you'll find some pretty girls on the premises.

I shall write to my wife by this afternoon's mail, and tomorrow morning she and Miss Alden will look out for

you. Just walk right in and make yourself comfortable. Your steamer leaves from this part of the city, and I

will immediately send out and get you a cabin. Then, at half past four o'clock, just call for me here, and I will

go with you and put you on board. It's a big boat; you might get lost. A few days hence, at the end of the

The two young Englishmen inaugurated the policy of not resisting Mrs. Westgate by submitting, with great

docility and thankfulness, to her husband. He was evidently a very good fellow, and he made an impression

upon his visitors; his hospitality seemed to recommend itself consciously with a friendly wink, as it

wereas if it hinted, judicially, that you could not possibly make a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his

cousin left their entertainer to his labors and returned to their hotel, where they spent three or four hours in

their respective shower baths. Percy Beaumont had suggested that they ought to see something of the town;

but "Oh, damn the town!" his noble kinsman had rejoined. They returned to Mr. Westgate's office in a

carriage, with their luggage, very punctually; but it must be reluctantly recorded that, this time, he kept them

waiting so long that they felt themselves missing the steamer, and were deterred only by an amiable modesty

from dispensing with his attendance and starting on a hasty scramble to the wharf. But when at last he

appeared, and the carriage plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they jolted and jostled to such good

purpose that they reached the huge white vessel while the bell for departure was still ringing and the

absorption of passengers still active. It was indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big boat, and his leadership in

the innumerable and interminable corridors and cabins, with which he seemed perfectly acquainted, and of

which anyone and everyone appeared to have the entree, was very grateful to the slightly bewildered

voyagers. He showed them their staterooma spacious apartment, embellished with gas lamps, mirrors en

pied, and sculptured furnitureand 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

"Well, goodbye, Lord Lambeth," he said; "goodbye, Mr. Percy Beaumont. I hope you'll have a good time.

Just let them do what they want with you. I'll come down byandby and look after you."

The young Englishmen emerged from their cabin and amused themselves with wandering about the immense

labyrinthine steamer, which struck them as an extraordinary mixture of a ship and a hotel. It was densely

crowded with passengers, the larger number of whom appeared to be ladies and very young children; and in

the big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, which followed each other in surprising succession, beneath

the swinging gaslight, and among the small side passages where the Negro domestics of both sexes

assembled with an air of philosophic leisure, everyone was moving to and fro and exchanging loud and

familiar observations. Eventually, at the instance of a discriminating black, our young men went and had

some "supper" in a wonderful place arranged like a theater, 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 programs. All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later, was

to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm breezy darkness, and, in the vague

starlight, to make out the line of low, mysterious coast. The young Englishmen tried American cigarsthose

of Mr. Westgate and talked together as they usually talked, with many odd silences, lapses of logic, and

incongruities of transition; like people who have grown old together and learned to supply each other's

missing phrases; or, more especially, like people thoroughly conscious of a common point of view, so that a

style of conversation superficially lacking in finish might suffice for reference to a fund of associations in the

"We really seem to be going out to sea," Percy Beaumont observed. "Upon my word, we are going back to

"I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lambeth. "I want to see those pretty girls at Newport. You know, he told

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

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

"I say, we had better remain at the inn," rejoined his companion presently. "I don't think I like the way he

spoke of his house. I don't like stopping in the house with such a tremendous lot of women."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. And then they smoked a while in silence. "Fancy his thinking we do

"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.

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

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

"With a married woman, if she's bent upon it, it's all very well," Beaumont expounded. "But our friend

mentioned a young ladya sister, a sisterinlaw. For God's sake, don't get entangled with her!"

"Ah, but in England," replied Beaumont, "you have got your natural protectors. You have got your mother

"My mother and sisters" began the young nobleman with a certain energy. But he stopped in time, puffing

"Your mother spoke to me about it, with tears in her eyes," said Percy Beaumont. "She said she felt very

"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

It was certainly very much cooler at Newport, where our travelers found themselves assigned to a couple of

diminutive bedrooms in a faraway angle of an immense hotel. They had gone ashore in the early summer

twilight and had very promptly put themselves to bed; thanks to which circumstance and to their having,

during the previous hours, in their commodious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and health, they began to feel,

toward eleven o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They looked out of their windows across a row of small

green fields, bordered with low stone walls of rude construction, and saw a deep blue ocean lying beneath a

deep blue sky, and 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, generally, that it didn't seem half

a bad climate. They made other observations after they had emerged from their rooms in pursuit of

breakfasta meal of which they partook in a huge bare hall, where a hundred Negroes, in white jackets,

were shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor; where the flies were superabundant, and the tables and dishes

covered over with a strange, voluminous integument of coarse blue gauze; and where several little boys and

girls, who had risen late, were seated in fastidious solitude at the morning repast. These young persons had

not the morning paper before them, but they were engaged in languid perusal of the bill of fare.

This latter document was a great puzzle to our friends, who, on reflecting that its bewildering categories had

relation to breakfast alone, had an uneasy prevision of an encyclopedic 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 blowingbearing along wonderful figures of

ladies in white morning dresses and clouds of Valenciennes lace, who seemed to float down the long vistas

with expanded furbelows, like angels spreading their wings. In front was a gigantic veranda, 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 largely of pretty young girls,

dressed as if for a fete champetre, swaying to and fro in rocking chairs, fanning themselves with large straw

fans, and enjoying an enviable exemption from social cares. Lord Lambeth had a theory, which it might be

interesting to trace to its origin, that it would be not only agreeable, but easily possible, to enter into relations

with one of these young ladies; and his companion (as he had done a couple of days before) found occasion

"You had better take care," said Percy Beaumont, "or you will have an offended father or brother pulling out

"I assure you it is all right," Lord Lambeth replied. "You know the Americans come to these big hotels to

"I know nothing about it, and neither do you," said his kinsman, who, like a clever man, had begun to

perceive that the observation of American society demanded a readjustment of one's standard.

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

"We will find out," said Percy Beaumont very reasonably. "We will go and see Mrs. Westgate and make all

And so the two inquiring Englishmen, who had this lady's address inscribed in her husband's hand upon a

card, descended from the veranda of the big hotel and took their way, according to direction, along a large

straight road, past a series of freshlooking 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 travelers was very entertaining. Everything looked as if it had received a coat of fresh

paint the day beforethe red roofs, the green shutters, the clean, bright browns and buffs of the housefronts.

The flower beds on the little lawns seemed to sparkle in the radiant air, and the gravel in the short carriage

sweeps to flash and twinkle. Along the road came a hundred little basket phaetons, in which, almost always, a

couple of ladies were sittingladies in white dresses and long white gloves, holding the reins and looking at

the two Englishmen, whose nationality was not elusive, through thick blue veils tied tightly about their faces

as if to guard their complexions. At last the young men came within sight of the sea again, and then, having

interrogated a gardener over the paling of a villa, they turned into an open gate. Here they found themselves

face to face with the ocean and with a very picturesque structure, resembling a magnified chalet, which was

perched upon a green embankment just above it. The house had a veranda of extraordinary width all around it

and a great many doors and windows standing open to the veranda. These various apertures had, in common,

such an accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy flutter within of light curtains, such expansive thresholds and

reassuring interiors, that our friends hardly knew which was the regular entrance, and, after hesitating a

moment, presented themselves at one of the windows. The room within was dark, but in a moment a graceful

figure vaguely shaped itself in the richlooking 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

apologized for not knowing the front door. The lady rejoined, with vivacity, that when she wanted to see

people very much she did not insist upon those 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.

"Oh, you mean by the heat?" replied Percy Beaumont. "We were rather knocked up, but we feel wonderfully

better. We had such a jollya voyage down here. It's so very good of you to mind."

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,

The other side of the piazza was, as Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very jolly place. It was of the most

liberal proportions, and with its awnings, its fanciful chairs, its cushions and rugs, its view of the ocean, close

at hand, tumbling along the base of the low cliffs whose level tops intervened in lawnlike smoothness, it

formed a charming complement to the drawing room. As such it was in course of use at the present moment;

it was 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 mentioned 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 chairslow, wicker chairs, gilded, and tied with a great many ribbonsand one of the

ladies (a very young person, with a little snub nose and several dimples) offered Percy Beaumont a fan. The

fan was also adorned with pink love knots; but Percy Beaumont declined it, although he was very hot.

Presently, however, it became cooler; the breeze from the sea was delicious, the view was charming, and the

people sitting there looked exceedingly fresh and comfortable. Several of the ladies seemed to be young girls,

and the gentlemen were slim, fair youths, such as our friends had seen the day before in New York. The

ladies were working upon bands of tapestry, and one of the young men had an open book in his lap.

Beaumont afterward 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

"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 Englishmen with an air of animated sympathy and interest; they smiled, brightly and unanimously, at

everything either of the visitors said. Lord Lambeth and his companion felt that they were being made very

welcome. Mrs. Westgate seated herself between them, and, talking a great deal to each, they had occasion to

observe that she was as pretty as their friend Littledale had promised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes

and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was 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 eyesto be making sudden confessions and

"We shall expect to see a great deal of you," she said to Lord Lambeth with a kind of joyous earnestness. "We

are very fond of Englishmen here; that is, there are a great many we have been fond of. After a day or two

you must come and stay with us; we hope you will stay a long time. Newport's a very nice place when you

come really to know it, when you know plenty of people. Of course you and Mr. Beaumont will have no

difficulty about that. Englishmen are very well received here; there are almost always two or three of them

about. I think they always like it, and I must say I should think they would. They receive ever so much

attention. I must say I think they sometimes get spoiled; but I am sure you and Mr. Beaumont are proof

against that. My husband tells me you are a friend of Captain Littledale; he was such a charming man. He

made himself most agreeable here, and I am sure I wonder he didn't stay. It couldn't have been pleasanter for

him in his own country, though, I suppose, it is very pleasant in England, for English people. I don't know

myself; I have been there very little. I have been a great deal abroad, but I am always on the Continent. I must

say I'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 hatat least I never

couldunless you dress your hair a l'Anglaise; and I must say that is a talent I have never possessed. In Paris

they will make things to suit your peculiarities; but in England I think you like much more to havehow

shall I say it?one thing for everybody. I mean as regards dress. I don't know about other things; but I have

always supposed that in other things everything was different. I mean according to the peopleaccording to

the classes, and all that. I am afraid you will think that I don't take a very favorable view; but you know you

can't take a very favorable view in Dover Street in the month of November. That has always been my fate. Do

you know Jones's Hotel in Dover Street? That's all I know of England. Of course everyone 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 Americainto the light I usually found they were twice too big. The next time I

mean to go in the season; I think I shall go next year. I want very much to take my sister; she has never been

to England. I don't know whether you know what I mean by saying that the Englishmen who come here

sometimes get spoiled. I mean that they take things as a matter of course things that are done for them.

Now, naturally, they are only a matter of course when the Englishmen are very nice. But, of course, they are

almost always very nice. Of course this isn't nearly such an 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 apologize, Lord Lambeth; some Americans are always

apologizing; you must have noticed that. We have the reputation of always boasting and bragging and waving

the American flag; but I must say that what strikes me is that we are perpetually making excuses and trying to

smooth things over. The American flag has quite gone out of fashion; it's very carefully folded up, like an old

tablecloth. Why should we apologize? The English never apologize do they? No; I must say I never

apologize. You must take us as we comewith 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 promotionand all that sort of thing is fearfully slow. With us, you know, it's a

great deal too fast. You see, I admit our drawbacks. But I must confess I think Newport is an ideal place. I

don't know anything like it anywhere. Captain Littledale told me he didn't know anything like it anywhere.

It's entirely different from most watering places; it's a most charming life. I must say I think that when one

goes to a foreign country one ought to enjoy the differences. Of course there are differences, 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 societyat least Newport society most charming and most

interesting. I wish very much my husband were here; but he's dreadfully confined to New York. I suppose

you think that is very strangefor 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 Lambeth listened to her with, it must be confessed, a rather ineffectual

attention, although he indulged in a good many little murmurs and ejaculations of assent and deprecation. He

had no great faculty for apprehending generalizations. There were some three or four indeed which, in the

play of his own intelligence, he had originated, and which had seemed convenient at the 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 much understand her

and agree with her. He was rather more successful than his companion; for besides being, as we know,

cleverer, his attention was not vaguely distracted by close vicinity to a remarkably interesting young girl,

with dark hair and blue eyes. This was the case with Lord Lambeth, to whom it occurred after a while that the

young girl with blue eyes and dark hair was the pretty sister of whom Mrs. Westgate had spoken. She

"It's a great pity you couldn't have brought my brotherinlaw with you. It's a great shame he should be in

"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

Lord Lambeth looked at her a little with his handsome brown eyes. "Do you suppose he would have come

Mr. Westgate's sisterinlaw was silent a moment, and then, "I daresay he would," she answered.

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

"He is a dear good fellow," the young lady rejoined, "and he is a perfect husband. But all Americans are that,"

"Really!" Lord Lambeth exclaimed again and wondered whether all American ladies had such a passion for

He sat there a good while: there was a great deal of talk; it was all very friendly and lively and jolly.

Everyone 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 easily obtained in America as might be desired; still, he continued, you could

generally get it by paying for it; in fact, you could get everything in America nowadays by paying for it.

American life was certainly growing a great deal more private; it was 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

everyone 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 abilityvery acute, very acute. He

worked like a horse, and he left his wifewell, to do about as she liked. He liked her to enjoy herself, and

she seemed to know how. She was extremely brilliant and a splendid talker. Some people preferred her sister;

but Miss Alden was very different; she was in a different style altogether. Some people even thought her

prettier, and, certainly, she was not so sharp. She was more in the Boston style; she had lived a great deal in

Boston, and she was very highly educated. Boston girls, it was propounded, were more like English young

Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to test the truth of this proposition, for on the company rising in

compliance with a suggestion from their hostess that they should walk down to the rocks and look at the sea,

the young Englishman again found himself, as they strolled across the grass, in proximity to Mrs. Westgate's

sister. Though she was but a girl of twenty, she appeared to feel the 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 fraternizing quality. She was perhaps rather too thin, and she was a little pale; but as she

moved slowly over the grass, with her arms hanging at her sides, looking gravely for a moment at the sea and

then brightly, for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. Westgate, and

reflected that if this was the Boston style the Boston style was very charming. He thought she looked 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

"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 cozy cornersas if they had

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 benchesrustic seats and that sort of thing. It might be so jolly to

"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

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

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

They were wandering about a little on the rocks, and they stopped and looked down into a narrow chasm

where the rising tide made a curious bellowing sound. It was loud enough to prevent their hearing each other,

and they stood there for some moments in silence. The young girl looked at her companion, observing him

attentively, but covertly, as women, even when very young, know how to do. Lord Lambeth repaid

observation; tall, straight, and strong, he was handsome as certain young Englishmen, and certain young

Englishmen almost alone, are handsome; with a perfect finish of feature and a look of intellectual repose and

gentle good temper which seemed somehow to be consequent upon his wellcut nose and chin. And to speak

of Lord Lambeth's expression of intellectual repose is not simply a civil way of saying that he looked stupid.

He was evidently not a young man of an irritable imagination; he was not, as he would himself have said,

tremendously clever; but though there was a kind of appealing dullness in his eye, he looked thoroughly

reasonable and competent, and his appearance proclaimed that to be a nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent

fellow was a sufficiently brilliant combination of qualities. The young girl beside him, it may be attested

without further 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

"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 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."

"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 interrogation seemed earnest and the decision

seemed arch; but the mixture, at any rate, was charming. "Those things, with us, are much less splendid than

"I assure you I mean everything I say," the young girl declared. "Certainly, from what I have read about

"Ah well, you know," said her companion, "those things are often described by fellows who know nothing

"Oh, I SHALL mind what I read!" Bessie Alden rejoined. "When I read Thackeray and George Eliot, how

"Ah well, Thackeray, and George Eliot," said the young nobleman; "I haven't read much of them."

"Oh, I daresay they know; they were so very clever. But these fashionable novels," said Lord Lambeth, "they

His companion looked at him a moment with her dark blue eyes, and then she looked down in the chasm

where the water was tumbling about. "Do you mean Mrs. Gore, for instance?" she said presently, raising her

"I am afraid I haven't read that, either," was the young man's rejoinder, laughing a little and blushing. "I am

"Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of intellect. But I like reading everything about English lifeeven poor

But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to answer his question seriously. "I don't think soI don't think we are

enough sothat we care about many things. So it's all the more of a compliment," she added, "that I should

The logic here seemed a little close; but Lord Lambeth, made conscious of a compliment, found his natural

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

The young girl was silent a moment. "My sister and I are two very different persons," she presently said. "She

has been a great deal in Europe. She has been in England several times. She has known a great many English

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

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 awkward, and he now began to laugh and

swing his stick. "Ah, you would have been sure to know!" he said. And then he added, after an instant, "I'm

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 toward 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

"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 further, and Mrs. Westgate and her companion were near them. "Kitty," said Miss Alden, "I

have given out that we are going to London next May. So please to conduct yourself accordingly."

Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat animatedeven a slightly irritatedair. 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, fairbearded, cleareyed Englishman. Just now Beaumont's clear eyes, which were

small and of a pale gray color, 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,

"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

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

"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

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

Lambeth would not look at him; his own eyes were better occupied. "I shall be very happy," cried Bessie

Alden. "I am only going to some shops. But I will drive you about and show you the place."

"An American woman who respects herself," said Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beaumont with her bright

expository air, "must buy something every day of her life. If she can not do it herself, she must send out some

member of her family for the purpose. So Bessie goes forth to fulfill 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 toward the house. "She fulfills her own mission," he presently said;

"I don't know that I should say very attractive," Mrs. Westgate rejoined. "She is not so much that as she is

"Extremely shy," Mrs. Westgate repeated. "But she is a dear good girl; she is a charming species of girl. She

is not in the least a flirt; that isn't at all her line; she doesn't know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She is

very simple, very serious. She has lived a great deal in Boston, with another sister of minethe eldest of

uswho married a Bostonian. 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 'thoughtful.'"

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

"I really believe," Mrs. Westgate continued, "that the most charming girl in the world is a Boston

superstructure upon a New York fonds; 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

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 affaira collection of freshlooking little

wooden houses, painted white, scattered over a hillside and clustered about a long straight street paved with

enormous cobblestones. There were plenty of shopsa large proportion of which appeared to be those of

fruit vendors, with piles of huge watermelons and pumpkins stacked in front of them; and, drawn up before

the shops, or bumping about on the cobblestones, 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 went into seventeen shopshe amused himself with

counting themand accumulated at the bottom of the phaeton a pile of bundles that hardly left the young

Englishman a place for his feet. As she had no groom nor footman, he sat in the phaeton to hold the ponies,

where, although he was not a particularly acute observer, he saw much to entertain himespecially the

ladies just mentioned, who wandered up and down with the appearance of a kind of aimless intentness, as if

they were looking for something to buy, and who, tripping in and out of their vehicles, displayed remarkably

pretty feet. It all seemed to Lord Lambeth very odd, and bright, and gay. Of course, before they got back to

The young Englishmen spent the whole of that day and the whole of many successive days in what the

French call the intimite of their new friends. They agreed that it was extremely jolly, that they had never

known 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 nonetheless delectable

that they were not exhaustively analyzed. Many of them still linger in the minds of our travelers, attended by

a train of harmonious imagesimages of brilliant mornings on lawns and piazzas that overlooked the sea; of

innumerable pretty girls; of infinite lounging and talking and laughing and flirting and lunching and dining;

of universal friendliness and frankness; of occasions on which they knew everyone 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 marvelous sunsets; of suppers, on the return, informal, irregular, agreeable;

of evenings at open windows or on the perpetual verandas, in the summer starlight, above the warm Atlantic.

The young 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.

Westgatea 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, 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

"His rank, or whatever you call it. Unfortunately we haven't got a PEERAGE, like the people in Thackeray."

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

"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.

"So that when his father dies," pursued Bessie Alden with more simplicity than might have been expected in

Beaumont began to laugh again. "You would not find her so handsome as her brother," he said; and it was

after this that he attempted to dissuade the heir of the Duke of Bayswater from accepting Mrs. Westgate's

"It seems to me you are doing your best to make a fool of me," the modest young nobleman answered.

"She has been asking me," said Beaumont, "all about your people and your possessions."

"Damn my eyes!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. "If one is to be a dozen times a day at the house, it is a great deal

more convenient to sleep there. I am sick of traveling up and down this beastly avenue."

Since he had determined to go, Percy Beaumont would, of course, have been very sorry to allow him to go

alone; he was a man of conscience, and he remembered his promise to the duchess. It was obviously the

memory of this promise that made him say to his companion a couple of days later that he rather wondered he

"In the first place, how do you know how fond I am of her?" asked Lord Lambeth. "And, in the second place,

"Exactly so. Mrs. Westgate tells me that there is no such thing as the 'fast girl' in America; that it's an English

"Her sister tells me," said Percy Beaumont, "that she is tremendously literary."

"Well," said Beaumont, "I should have supposed you would have found that sort of thing awfully slow."

After this, Percy Beaumont held his tongue; but on the 10th of August he wrote to the Duchess of Bayswater.

He was, as I have said, a man of conscience, and he had a strong, incorruptible sense of the proprieties of life.

His kinsman, meanwhile, was having a great deal of talk with Bessie Aldenon 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 veranda 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 him a little; for he took no pleasure in

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

"I should think it would be very grand," said Bessie Alden, "to possess, simply by an accident of birth, the

"I don't believe that," the young girl declared. "It must be a great privilege, and I should think that if one

thought of it in the right wayfrom a high point of view it would be very inspiring."

"I think it's tremendous," said Bessie Alden; and on another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry.

"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

oldtime liking for it, he was beguiled into describing it a little and saying it was really very jolly. Bessie

Alden listened with great interest and declared that she would give the world to see such a place.

Whereupon"It would be awfully kind of you to come and stay there," said Lord Lambeth. He took a vague

satisfaction in the circumstance that Percy Beaumont had not heard him make the remark I have just

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

jeweled 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 slowpaced promenade which enabled

her welladjusted 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 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

"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

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 fortyeight hours, during which, with Mr. Westgate's

assistance, he completely settled this piece of business. "They certainly do things quickly in New York," he

observed to his cousin; and he added that Mr. Westgate had seemed very uneasy lest his wife should miss her

visitor he had been in such an awful hurry to send him back to her. "I'm afraid you'll never come up to an

Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy much longer the entertainment with which an indulgent husband

had desired to keep her provided. On the 21st of August Lord Lambeth received a telegram from his mother,

requesting him to return immediately to England; his father had been taken ill, and it was his filial duty to

The young Englishman was visibly annoyed. "What the deuce does it mean?" he asked of his kinsman. "What

Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well; he had deemed it his duty, as I have narrated, to write to the duchess,

but he had not expected that this distinguished woman would act so promptly upon his hint. "It means," he

said, "that your father is laid up. I don't suppose it's anything serious; but you have no option. Take the first

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

Bessie Alden looked at him a little, and she smiled. "Oh, if we come to London," she answered, "I should

Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, and his sense of duty compelled him, one windless afternoon, in

midAtlantic, to say to Lord Lambeth that he suspected that the duchess's telegram was in part the result of

something he himself had written to her. "I wrote to heras I explicitly notified you I had promised to do

Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and he indulged for some moments in the simple language of

indignation. But I have said that he was a reasonable young man, and 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 interested in her. Only, to be fair," he added, "you should have told my mother also that she is

Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. "There is nothing so charming as modesty in a young man in your

In point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would have said, Mrs. Westgate disembarked on the 18th of May on the

British coast. She was accompanied by her sister, but she was not attended by any other member of her

family. To the deprivation of her husband's society Mrs. Westgate was, however, habituated; she had made

half a dozen journeys to Europe without him, and she now accounted for his absence, to interrogative friends

on this side of the Atlantic, by allusion to the regrettable but 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 Alden had felt much excited about coming to England; she had expected the "associations"

would be very charming, that it would be an infinite pleasure to rest her eyes upon the things she had read

about in the poets and historians. She was very fond of the poets and historians, of the picturesque, of the

past, of retrospect, of mementos and reverberations of greatness; so that on coming into the English world,

where strangeness and familiarity would go hand in hand, she was prepared for a multitude of fresh emotions.

They began very promptlythese 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 hedgerows, as she looked at them from the window of the train; with the spires of the rural

churches peeping above the rookhaunted treetops; with the oakstudded parks, the ancient homes, the

cloudy light, the speech, the manners, the thousand differences. Mrs. Westgate's impressions had, of course,

much less novelty and keenness, and she gave but a wandering attention to her sister's ejaculations and

"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

"It will certainly be much nicer having friends there," Bessie Alden had said one day as she sat on the sunny

"All those English gentlemen whom you have known and entertained. Captain Littledale, for instance. And

Bessie reflected a moment; she was addicted, as we know, to reflection. "Well, yes."

"You are a little too simple; just a little. It is very becoming, but it pleases people at your expense."

Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory, while her companion sat gazing at the shining sea. "Did you ever hear

"My story is meant to illustrate that of some other people," said Mrs. Westgate. "The Duke of GreenErin is

what they call in England a great swell, and some five years ago he came to America. He spent most of his

time in New York, and in New York he spent his days and his nights at the Butterworths'. You have heard, at

least, of the Butterworths. Bien. They did everything in the world for him they turned 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. Butterworth's box at the opera in a tweed traveling suit; but someone stopped

that. At any rate, he had a beautiful time, and they parted the best friends in the world. Two years elapse, and

the Butterworths come abroad and go to London. The first thing they see in all the papersin England those

things are in the most prominent placeis that the Duke of GreenErin has arrived in town for the Season.

They wait a little, and then Mr. Butterworthas polite as evergoes and leaves a card. They wait a little

more; the visit is not returned; they wait three weekssilence de mortthe Duke gives no sign. The

Butterworths see a lot of other people, put down the Duke of GreenErin 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 pocketbooksomething which

proves to be a banknote. 'I'm glad to see you, Mr. Butterworth,' he says, 'so that I can pay you that ten pounds

I lost to you in New York. I saw the other day you remembered our bet; here are the ten pounds, Mr.

Butterworth. Goodbye, Mr. Butterworth.' And off he goes, and that's the last they see of the Duke of

"Ah," cried Mrs. Westgate, "you are not so simple after all! Believe it or not, as you please; there is no smoke

"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

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

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

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

Bessie Alden resumed for some moments her studies in sea green. "Well," she said, "whether they like me or

not, I mean to like them. And happily," she added, "Lord Lambeth does not owe me ten pounds."

During the first few days after their arrival at Jones's Hotel our charming Americans were much occupied

with what they would have called looking about them. They found occasion to make a large number of

purchases, and their opportunities for conversation were such only as were offered by the deferential London

shopmen. Bessie Alden, even in driving from the station, took an immense fancy to the British metropolis,

and at the risk of exhibiting her as a young woman of vulgar tastes it must be recorded that for a considerable

period she desired no higher pleasure than to drive about the crowded streets in a hansom cab. To her

attentive eyes they were full of a strange picturesque life, and it is at least beneath the dignity of our historic

muse to enumerate the trivial objects and incidents which this simple young lady from Boston found so

entertaining. It may be freely 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 monument, which she spoke of ever afterward

vaguely as a dreadful disappointment; so that she expressed the liveliest disapproval of any attempt to

combine historical researches with the purchase of hairbrushes and notepaper. 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 someone else

to take her. Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest disposition to go alone; but upon this proposal as well Mrs.

"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

Europethose that walked about alone and those that did not. "You happen to belong, my dear," she said to

"It is only," answered Bessie, laughing, "because you happen to prevent me." And she devoted much private

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 he led the "German" in New York. Indeed, by the young

ladies who habitually figured in this Terpsichorean revel he was believed to be "the best dancer in the world";

it was in these terms that he was always spoken of, and that his identity was indicated. He was the 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

"You may do as you please," said Mrs. Westgate. "Onlyif you desire the informationit is not the custom

"Miss Bessie has waltzed with me so often," observed Willie Woodley; "she can surely go out with me in a

"I consider waltzing," said Mrs. Westgate, "the most innocent pleasure of our time."

"It's a compliment to our time!" exclaimed the young man with a little laugh, in spite of himself.

"I don't see why I should regard what is done here," said Bessie Alden. "Why should I suffer the restrictions

"Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the ax, if you like," said Mrs. Westgate. "I consent to your going with Mr.

"Miss Bessie wouldn't care to go with an Englishman!" Mr. Woodley declared with a faint asperity that was,

perhaps, not unnatural in a young man, who, dressing in the manner that I have indicated and knowing a great

deal, as I have said, about London, saw no reason for drawing these sharp distinctions. He agreed upon a day

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.

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

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

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

"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."

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

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 hurtjustly

enoughif we should go away without seeing him. It is fair to give him a chance to come and thank me for

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

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

"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."

"Betterbetter," repeated her sister. "My dear child, what is your point of view?"

This time Bessie Alden was displeased; she slowly got up from the table, turning her face away from her

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

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

"Well, there have been clever people whom I have disliked," said Bessie Alden; "so that I suppose I may like

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

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

The young girl began to walk about the room again; then she stopped before her sister. "I have never heard in

the course of five minutes," she said, "so many hints and innuendoes. I wish you would tell me in plain

Her sister looked at her, hesitating an instant. "It will be said of you that you have come after Lord

Bessie Alden threw back her pretty head like a startled hind, and a look flashed into her face that made Mrs.

"You have a very convenient faculty of doubt. But my policy will be, as I say, very deep. I shall leave you to

Bessie fixed her eyes upon her sister, and Mrs. Westgate thought for a moment there were tears in them. "Do

"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 countryman,

whose mission in life, it might almost be said, was to find chairs for ladies, and who appeared on the stroke of

"I have written to Lord Lambeth, my dear," said Mrs. Westgate to her sister, on coming into the room where

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

He found them what Bessie Alden thought excellent places, under the great trees, beside the famous avenue

whose humors had been made familiar to the young girl's childhood by the pictures in Punch. The day was

bright and warm, and the crowd of riders and spectators, and the great procession of carriages, were

proportionately dense and brilliant. The scene bore the stamp of the London Season at its height, and Bessie

Alden found more entertainment in it than she was able to express to her companions. She sat silent, under

her parasol, and her imagination, according to its wont, let itself loose into the great changing assemblage of

striking and suggestive figures. They stirred up a host of old impressions and preconceptions, and she found

herself fitting a history to this person and a theory to that, and making a place for them all in her little private

museum of types. But if she said little, her sister on one side and Willie Woodley on the other expressed

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

"That's the Marquis of Blackborough," said the young man"the one in the white coat. I heard him speak

the other night in the House of Lords; it was something about ramrods; he called them 'wamwods.' He's an

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

"They do nothing but stop," said Willie Woodley. "It prevents them from walking. Here comes a great

celebrityLady 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 couturiere?"

"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 pedestrians closed about him, so that for some ten

minutes he was hidden from sight. At last he reappeared, bringing a gentleman with hima gentleman

whom Bessie at first supposed to be his friend dismounted. But at a second glance she found herself looking

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 splendor that he had not had in

America. Bessie Alden's imagination, as we know, was just then in exercise; so that the tall young

Englishman, as he stood there looking down at her, had the benefit of it. "He is handsomer and more splendid

than anything I have ever seen," she said to herself. And then she remembered that he was a marquis, and she

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

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

"You are too tall to stand up, Lord Lambeth," Mrs. Westgate observed. "You are only tolerable when you sit

He found a chair and placed it sidewise, close to the two ladies. "If I hadn't met Woodley I should never have

"Ah, well, I haven't got your letter yet; I suppose I shall get it this evening. I was awfully kind of you to

"Did she say so, Miss Alden?" Lord Lambeth inquired. "I daresay you have been here a month."

"I say, after that you had better not call me a humbug!" cried Lord Lambeth. "I have only been in town three

"There are plenty of places to go to," said Lord Lambeth; "each one stupider than the other. I mean people's

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

"It did duty very well for a party," said Mrs. Westgate. "All the women were decolletes, and many of the

"Upon my word," Lord Lambeth rejoined, "you see people at London parties that look as if they couldn't

Lord Lambeth stared and looked round him. "I daresay he could. Beaumont often comes here. Don't you

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

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

"I always feel so sorry for the people that come up to town and go to live in those places," continued the

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

Lord Lambeth sat for nearly an hour with his American friends; but it is not our purpose to relate their

conversation in full. He addressed a great many remarks to Bessie Alden, and finally turned toward her

altogether, while Willie Woodley entertained Mrs. Westgate. Bessie herself said very little; she was on her

guard, thinking of what her sister had said to her at lunch. Little by little, however, she interested herself in

Lord Lambeth again, as she had done at Newport; only it seemed to her that here he might become more

interesting. He would be an unconscious part of the antiquity, the impressiveness, the picturesqueness, of

England; and poor Bessie Alden, like many a Yankee maiden, was terribly at the mercy of picturesqueness.

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

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

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

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

"If I were English," said Bessie, "it would certainly seem to me a matter of course that everyone should be a

"Oh, dear, yes, patriotism is everything," said Lord Lambeth, not quite following, but very contented. "Now,

"Oh, yes, I have been there," said Lord Lambeth. "I was taken there by my governess when I was six years

"Do give me a few more rum ideas," said Bessie. "I want to see everything of that sort. I am going to

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

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

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

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.

Bessie Alden looked at him a while, smiling, too, in the shadow of her parasol. "You are very strange," she

"Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Alden," said Lord Lambeth, smiling still more. "Please don't be severe. I

"To like you awfully? You must not laugh at me, then, when I make mistakes. I consider it my rightas a

"And not only that," Bessie went on; "but I hold that all my mistakes shall be set down to my credit. You

Bessie Alden looked at him a moment again. "You certainly speak very well to young ladies. But why don't

He looked a moment at the back of his glove. "I'll set that down," he said, "as one of your mistakesto your

credit." And as if he disliked talking about his position, he changed the subject. "I wish you would let me go

"And of course I shall be delighted to show you the House of Lords some day that suits you. There are a

lot of things I want to do for you. I want to make you have a good time. And I should like very much to

present some of my friends to you, if it wouldn't bore you. Then it would be awfully kind of you to come

Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate at this moment were sitting in silence, and the young man's ear caught

these last words of Lord Lambeth's. "He's inviting Miss Bessie to one of his castles," he murmured to his

Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she mentally called "complications," immediately got up; and the two ladies,

taking leave of Lord Lambeth, returned, under Mr. Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel.

Lord Lambeth came to see them on the morrow, bringing Percy Beaumont with himthe 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

"I will let your mother give it a name. With all respect to whom," added Percy Beaumont, "I must decline on

this occasion to do any more police duty. Her Grace must look after you herself."

"I will give her a chance," said her Grace's son, a trifle grimly. "I shall make her go and see them."

But if Percy Beaumont took a somber 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

conversationconversation, at least, that was animated on her sidewith Mrs. Westgate, while his

companion made himself agreeable to the younger lady. Mrs. Westgate began confessing and protesting,

"I must say London is a great deal brighter and prettier just now than it was when I was here lastin the

month of November. There is evidently a great deal going on, and you seem to have a good many flowers. I

have no doubt it is very charming for all you people, and that you amuse yourselves immensely. It is very

good of you to let Bessie and me come and sit and look at you. I suppose you will think I am very satirical,

"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, yesif they like to be patronized. But I must say I don't like to be patronized. I may be

very eccentric, and undisciplined, and outrageous, 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 elseHeaven knows what! I am afraid you will think I am very

ungrateful, for I certainly have received a great deal of attention. The last time I was here, a lady sent me a

"You are deliciously naive, 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 secondrate society provided here for

strangers. Merci! I don't want any superior secondrate society. I want the society that I have been

"Oh, I am accustomed to you," said Mrs. Westgate. "Do you know that you English sometimes make the

most wonderful speeches? The first time I came to London I went out to dineas 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 soandso; 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

"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

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

"Pour vous autres. I never said the contrary," Mrs. Westgate retorted. I make use of this expression, because

both interlocutors had begun to raise their voices. Percy Beaumont naturally did not like to hear his country

"Hallo!" said Lord Lambeth; "what are they up to now?" And he came away from the window, where he had

"I quite agree with a very clever countrywoman of mine," Mrs. Westgate continued with charming ardor,

though with imperfect relevancy. She smiled at the two gentlemen for a moment with terrible brightness, as if

to toss at their feetupon their native heaththe 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."

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 afterward 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 offense. I have a

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

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

"It wouldn't be Iit would be you. It would frighten them to think that you should absorb his lordship's

Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still overshadowed by her dark brows, continued to interrogate. "Why

Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with a smile before delivering it. "Because they think you are not good

enough. You are a charming girl, beautiful and amiable, intelligent and clever, and as bienelevee as it is

Bessie Alden was decidedly disgusted. "Where do you get such extraordinary ideas?" she asked. "You have

said some such strange things lately. My dear Kitty, where do you collect them?"

Kitty was evidently enamored of her idea. "Yes, it would put them on pins and needles, and it wouldn't hurt

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 mama may worry her son's life

It has been intimated that, as regards certain disagreeable things, Bessie Alden had a fund of skepticism. She

abstained on the present occasion from expressing disbelief, for she wished not to irritate her sister. But she

said to herself that Kitty had been misinformedthat this was a traveler's tale. Though she was a girl of a

lively imagination, there could in the nature of things be, to her sense, no reality in the idea of her belonging

to a vulgar category. What she said aloud was, "I must say that in that case I am very sorry for Lord

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."

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

Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, but after a moment's reflection she also faced her sister again. "It

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 inclosure; 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 armories and prisons. He delivered his usual peripatetic discourse,

and they stopped and stared, and peeped and stooped, according to the official admonitions. Bessie Alden

asked the old man in the crimson doublet a great many questions; she thought it a most fascinating place.

Lord Lambeth was in high good humor; he was constantly laughing; he enjoyed what he would have called

the lark. Willie Woodley kept looking at the ceilings and tapping the walls with the knuckle of a pearlgray

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 questionschiefly

on collateral points of English historythe 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.

"Women always know more than men about names and dates and that sort of thing," Lord Lambeth rejoined.

"There was Lady Jane Grey we have just been hearing about, who went in for Latin and Greek and all the

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

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

He went with the ladies a couple of days later to Hampton Court, Willie Woodley being also of the party. The

afternoon was charming, the famous horse chestnuts were in blossom, and Lord Lambeth, who quite entered

into the spirit of the cockney excursionist, declared that it was a jolly old place. Bessie Alden was in

"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 bellwether, but are left to

browse at discretion upon the local antiquities. It happened in this manner that, in default of another

informant, Bessie Alden, who on doubtful questions was able to suggest a great many alternatives, found

herself again applying for intellectual assistance to Lord Lambeth. But he again assured her that he was

"Ah, now don't say that," he cried. "That's the worst thing you could possibly say."

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

"Well," said Bessie Alden, "that you would be more what I should like to be what I should try to bein

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

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

"I have often thought about it," she went on after a moment. "I have often thought about your being a

hereditary legislator. A hereditary legislator ought to know a great many things."

"But you do legislate; it's absurd your saying you don't. You are very much looked up to hereI am assured

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

"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.

"Well, if your own people are content with you," said Bessie Alden, laughing, "it is not for me to complain.

But I shall always think that, properly, you should have been a great minda great character."

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

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

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

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

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 extreme, so that, one thing leading to another,

she began, as the phrase is, to go out. Bessie Alden, in this way, saw something of what she found it a great

satisfaction to call to herself English society. She went to balls and danced, she went to dinners and talked,

she went to concerts and listened (at concerts Bessie always listened), she went to exhibitions and wondered.

Her enjoyment was keen and her curiosity insatiable, and, grateful in general for all her opportunities, she

especially prized the privilege of meeting certain celebrated persons authors and artists, philosophers and

statesmenof 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 sidereal bodies.

Bessie, who knew so many of her contemporaries by reputation, had a good many personal disappointments;

but, on the other 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 expensionersgentlemen who, as she

said, had made, in New York, a clubhouse 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 everyone else. He drove them in the park, he took them to visit private collections of

pictures, and, having a house of his own, invited them to dinner. Mrs. Westgate, following the fashion of

many of her compatriots, caused herself and her sister to be presented at the English court by her diplomatic

representativefor 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

Lord Lambeth declared that he hated Drawing Rooms, but he participated in the ceremony on the day on

which the two ladies at Jones's Hotel repaired to Buckingham Palace in a remarkable coach which his

lordship had sent to fetch them. He had on a gorgeous uniform, and Bessie Alden was particularly struck with

his appearanceespecially when on her asking him, rather foolishly as she felt, if he were a loyal subject, he

replied that he was a loyal subject to HER. This declaration was emphasized by his dancing with her at a

royal ball to which the two ladies afterward went, and was not impaired by the fact that she thought he

danced very ill. He seemed to her wonderfully kind; she asked herself, with growing vivacity, why he should

be so kind. It was his dispositionthat seemed the natural answer. She had told her sister that she liked him

very much, and now that she liked him more she wondered why. She liked him for his disposition; to this

question as well that seemed the natural answer. When once the impressions of London life began to crowd

thickly upon her, she completely forgot her sister's warning about the cynicism of public opinion. It had given

her great pain at the moment, but there was no particular reason why she should remember it; it corresponded

too little with any sensible reality; and it was disagreeable to Bessie to remember disagreeable things. So she

was not haunted with the sense of a vulgar imputation. She was not in love with Lord Lambethshe assured

herself of that. It will immediately be observed that when such assurances become necessary the state of a

young lady's affections is already ambiguous; and, indeed, Bessie Alden made no attempt to dissimulateto

herself, of coursea certain tenderness that she felt for the young nobleman. She said to herself that she

liked the type to which he belonged the simple, candid, manly, healthy English temperament. She spoke to

herself of him as women speak of young men they like alluded to his bravery (which she had never in the

least seen tested), to his honesty and gentlemanliness, and was not silent upon the subject of his good looks.

She was perfectly conscious, moreover, that she liked to think of his more adventitious merits; that her

imagination was excited and gratified by the sight of a handsome young man endowed with such large

opportunities opportunities she hardly knew for what, but, as she supposed, for doing great thingsfor

setting an example, for exerting an influence, for conferring happiness, for encouraging the arts. She had a

kind of ideal of conduct for a young man who should find himself in this magnificent position, and she tried

to adapt it to Lord Lambeth's deportment as you might attempt to fit a silhouette in cut paper upon a shadow

projected upon a wall. But Bessie Alden's silhouette refused to coincide with his lordship's image, and this

want of harmony sometimes vexed her more than she thought reasonable. When he was absent it was, of

course, less striking; then he seemed to her a sufficiently graceful combination of high responsibilities and

amiable qualities. But when he sat there within sight, laughing and talking with his customary good humor

and simplicity, she measured it more accurately, and she felt acutely that if Lord Lambeth's position was

heroic, there was but little of the hero in the young man himself. Then her imagination wandered away from

himvery 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 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

werethan 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 fortunebeing liked for himself. It is true that a cynical

counselor might have whispered to him, "Liked for yourself? Yes; but not so very much!" He had, at any rate,

It may seem, perhaps, a trifle singularbut 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 because she reflected that it was no more

than fair that she should think as well of him as he thought of her. This effort was possibly sometimes not so

successful as it might have been, for the result of it was occasionally a vague irritation, which expressed 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 potentially 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 consequenceshe used to enumerate to the young man these objects of her admiration.

"You seem to be awfully fond of those sort of people," said Lord Lambeth one day, as if the idea had just

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

"Not only in Boston; everywhere," said Bessie. "We hold them in great honor; they go to the best dinner

"I daresay it would," said Lord Lambeth very humbly. "But I must say I don't like the looks of some of

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

"I have talked with two or three of them," the young man went on, "and I thought they had a kind of fawning

"Well, of course," rejoined her companion, "that's a kind of thing that can't be proved."

Bessie was silent a moment. "That is one of the things I don't like about England," she said; "your keeping the

On another occasionjust after a dinner partyshe told him that there was something else in England she

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

"I never saw such a young lady for discussing things! Has someone had the impudence to go before you?"

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

"I never saw such a young lady as you are for not 'recognizing.' I have no doubt the thing is BEASTLY, but it

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

"If those are your first principles, no wonder some of your arrangements are horrid," observed Bessie Alden

with a very pretty ferocity. "I am a young girl, so of course I go last; but imagine what Kitty must feel on

being informed that she is not at liberty to budge until certain other ladies have passed out."

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

"She is made to feel it," the young girl insisted"as if they were afraid she would make a rush for the door.

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

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

"I don't care to be a witness of youryour 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

"I don't want to know anything about itnothing whatever," said Beaumont. "Your mother asks me

everytime she sees me whether I believe you are really lostand 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

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

cautiously, and, somewhere or other, they get their 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

"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 thinkvery

naturally, as it seems to methat when you take to visiting the sights of the metropolis with a little American

girl, there is serious cause for alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this intimation by scornful laughter, and

his companion continued, after a pause: "I said just now I didn't want to know anything about the affair; but I

will confess that I am curious to learn whether you propose to marry Miss Bessie Alden."

On this point Lord Lambeth gave his interlocutor no immediate satisfaction; he was musing, with a frown.

"By Jove," he said, "they go rather too far. They SHALL find me dangerousI promise them."

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

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

Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, and his companion watched him take twenty steps and then slowly

return. "I have invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to Branches," he said, "and this evening I shall name a

"That will set the duchess off," said Percy Beaumont. "I suspect she will come."

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?"

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

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

"She's not afraid, and she says things out, and she thinks herself as good as anyone. She is the only girl I have

"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,

"Information? Aye, I'll warrant she wanted it. Depend upon it that she is dying to marry you just as much and

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

Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to say to her sister about the rarity of Mr. Beaumont's visits and the

nonappearance 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 ladies of his immediate family

were to Mrs. Westgate's sense a sense possibly morbidly acuteconspicuous 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

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 annoyancehowever

"No, not that. I want to go to the National Gallery again; I want to see StratfordonAvon and Canterbury

"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

"I know him better, certainly, if you mean that," said Bessie. "And I like him very much. But I don't like him

enough to make trouble for him with his family. However, I don't believe in that."

"I like the way you say 'however,'" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "Come; you would not marry him?"

The morning after Lord Lambeth had had, with Percy Beaumont, that exchange of ideas which has just been

narrated, the ladies at Jones's Hotel received from his lordship a written invitation to pay their projected visit

to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday. "I think I have made up a very pleasant party," the young

nobleman said. "Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have so long been

regrettably prevented from making your 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

"Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate. "And if she is to meet us at her son's house the

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 ladiesone 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 color; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.

The duchess looked about her as she sat downlooked not especially at Mrs. Westgate. "I daresay my son

"You are very kind," said Mrs. Westgate, vaguelyher conscience not allowing her to assent to this

propositionand, indeed, not permitting her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.

"We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to have been able to make him a little morea little lessa

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

"Oh!" said the duchess; and she continued to look at Bessie, who was engaged in conversation with her

"Do you like London?" Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie, after looking at her a good dealat her face and

"I am very fond of traveling," Bessie answered, "and I suppose hotels are a necessary part of it. But they are

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

"Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate, who perceived that her visitor had now

begun to look at her, and who had her customary happy consciousness of a distinguished appearance. The

only mitigation of her felicity on this point was that, having inspected her visitor's own costume, she said to

"He has asked me to go, but I am not sure I shall be able," murmured the duchess.

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

"It's charming," said Mrs. Westgate. "But we only go to see a few people whom we like."

The Duchess meanwhile had addressed herself to Bessie. "My son tells me the young ladies in America are

The Duchess was not smiling; her large fresh face was very tranquil. "He is very susceptible," she said. "He

The duchess looked at her a little and then went on; "Lambeth is very susceptible, but he is very volatile,

"Ah," said Bessie, "I don't recognize that description. We have depended on him greatlymy sister and

Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused at the duchess's persistency. "I suppose it will depend on

The duchess for a moment was silent, though she appeared to have more to say. "Lambeth says he has seen so

"I daresay you are used to that. I am told there is a great deal of that in America."

"We certainly don't always understand each other," said Mrs. Westgate, the termination of whose interview

"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 doalmost!" Lady Pimlico declared. "What 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 traveler. She

writes down all the curious facts she hears in a little book she keeps for the purpose."

The duchess was a little flushed; she looked all about the room, while her daughter turned to Bessie. "My

"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.

"I shall expect to see a great deal of you," the duchess continued. "When I go to Branches I monopolize my

"I want immensely to see itto see the castle," said Bessie to the duchess. "I have never seen onein

"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

"It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied almost grimly. "They meant to overawe us by their fine

"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

"I saw no attempt to 'overawe' us," said the young girl. "Their manners were not fine."

Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she observed that she had a very good theory. "They came to

look at me," she said, as if this had been a very ingenious 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 skepticism, or

her charity, or, as she had sometimes called it appropriately, her idealism, was proof against irony. Bessie,

however, remained meditative all the rest of that day and well on into the morrow.

On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had occasion to go out for an hour, and left her sister writing a

letter. When she came back she met Lord 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

"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. "Goodbye, Mrs. Westgate," he said. "You have been very kind to me." And with

what she thought a strange, sad look in his handsome young face, he turned away.

She went in, and she found Bessie still writing her letter; that is, Mrs. Westgate perceived she was sitting at

the table with the pen in her hand and not writing. "Lord Lambeth has been here," said the elder lady at last.

Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious face. She bent this face upon her sister for some time,

confessing silently and a little pleading. "I told him," she said at last, "that we could not go to Branches."

Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation. "He might have waited," she said with a smile, "till one had

seen the castle." Later, an hour afterward, she said, "Dear Bessie, I wish you might have accepted him."

"If it is only," her sister added, "because those women will think that they succeededthat they paralyzed

Bessie Alden turned away; but presently she added, "They were interesting; I should have liked to see them

"And I should have liked to see the castle," said Bessie. "But now we must leave England," she added.

Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beaumont that the contingency he was not prepared at all to like had

occurred; but Percy Beaumont, on hearing that the two ladies had left London, wondered with some intensity

what had happened; wondered, that is, until the Duchess of Bayswater came a little to his assistance. The two

ladies went to Paris, and Mrs. Westgate beguiled the journey to that city by repeating several times "That's

what I regret; they will think they petrified us." But Bessie Alden seemed to regret nothing.