Lady Betty Across the Water

by C. N. Williamson · English · Gutenberg #23441 · 529,526 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Lady Betty Across the Water

Author: C. N. Williamson
A. M. Williamson

Illustrator: Orson Lowell

Release date: November 10, 2007 [eBook #23441]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER

[Illustration: "_I found myself chatting away with those cadets as
if I had grown up with them_"]

LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER

Edited by

C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

Authors of My Friend the Chauffeur

Illustrations by Orson Lowell

[Illustration]

New York
McClure, Phillips & Co.
MCMVI

Published, May, 1906
Second Impression

_To
the people of that great, delightful, and hospitable
land which gave Lady Betty the time of her life
and inspiration, this story of her visit is admiringly
Dedicated by Betty Bulkeley
and C. N. and A. M. Williamson_

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. ABOUT BEING BANISHED 3

II. ABOUT CROSSING THE WATER 20

III. ABOUT NEW YORK 50

IV. ABOUT SHOPPING AND MEN 83

V. ABOUT WEST POINT AND PROPOSALS 101

VI. ABOUT THE PARK AND LOVE STORIES 118

VII. ABOUT SKY-SCRAPERS AND BEAUTIFUL LADIES 133

VIII. ABOUT NEWPORT AND GORGEOUSNESS 141

IX. ABOUT BATHING, A DRESS, AND AN EARL 156

X. ABOUT A VIOLET TEA AND A MILLIONAIRE 170

XI. ABOUT A GREAT AFFAIR 180

XII. ABOUT A WEDDING AND A DISASTER 200

XIII. ABOUT RUNNING AWAY 211

XIV. ABOUT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY LIMITED AND CHICAGO 223

XV. ABOUT SEEING CHICAGO 227

XVI. ABOUT THE VALLEY FARM 238

XVII. ABOUT COWS AND NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 253

XVIII. ABOUT SOME COUNTRY FOLK, AND WALKER'S EMPORIUM 272

XIX. ABOUT GETTING ENGAGED 289

XX. ABOUT JIM AND THE DUKE 297

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"I found myself chatting away with those cadets as if I had
grown up with them" _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE

"He turned around quickly, glanced up and caught my eyes,
as I was looking down, quite distressed" 34

"When I turned to speak to him he was gone ... and I
was immediately surrounded by other men asking me for
dances" 196

"I swept past him with my nose in the air, trying to
look like mother" 206

"Mr. Trowbridge took me to the beehives to get some
honey and show me what a queen bee is like" 258

"Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least apparent
effort" 302

LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER

ABOUT BEING BANISHED

I don't know yet whether I'm pleased or not, but I do know that I'm
excited--more excited than I've ever been in my life, except perhaps
when Miss Mackinstry, my last governess, had hysterics in the
schoolroom and fainted among the tea things.

I suppose I shan't be able to decide about the state of my feelings
until I've had more of them on the same subject, or until I've written
down in this book of mine everything exactly as it's happened. I like
doing that; it makes things seem so clear when you try to review them
afterwards.

The excitement began at breakfast by Mother having a letter that she
liked. I knew she liked it by the way her eyes lighted up, as if they
had been lamps and the letter a match. All the other letters, mostly
with horrid, tradesmanny-looking envelopes, which had been making her
quite glowery, she pushed aside.

Mother won't have a crown on her envelopes; she thinks it's vulgar;
besides, putting it only on the paper saves expense. This envelope had
a great sprawly gold crest, but she didn't seem to disapprove of it.
She read on and on, then suddenly glanced up as if she would have said
something quickly, to Victoria; she didn't say it, though, for she
remembered me. I am never taken into family conclaves, because I'm not
out yet. I don't see what difference that makes, especially as I'm not
to be allowed to come out till after Vic's married, because she was
presented four years ago, and isn't even engaged yet; so for all I
can tell I may have to stay in till I'm a hundred, or leak out slowly
when nobody is noticing, as Vic says girls do in the middle classes.
This time I didn't mind, however, for I couldn't see how the letter
concerned me; and as I was dying for a sight of Berengaria's puppies,
which were born last night, I was glad when Mother told me not to
fidget after I'd finished breakfast, but to run down to the kennels if
I liked.

Soon I forgot all about the letter, for the puppies were the dearest
ducks on earth (can puppies be ducks, I wonder?), and besides, it was
such a delicious June morning that I could have danced with joy because
I was alive.

I often feel like that; but there's nobody to tell, except the trees
and the dogs, and my poor pony, who is almost too old and second-childish
now to understand. She was my brother Stanforth's pony first of all,
and Stanforth is twenty-eight; then she was Vic's, and Vic is--but
Mother doesn't like Vic's age to be mentioned any more, though she is
years younger than Stan.

I took a walk in the park and afterwards went through the rose-garden,
to see how the roses were getting on. There were a lot of petals for my
_pot-pourri_, and gathering them up kept me for some time. Then, as the
jar stands in Vic's and my den (she calls it her den, but it has to be
part mine, as I have no other), I was going in by one of the long
windows, when I heard Mother's voice. "The question is," she was
saying, "what's to be done with Betty?"

I turned round and ran away on my tiptoes across the lawn, for I didn't
want to be an eavesdropper, and it would be nearly as bad to have
Mother know I had heard even those few words; she would be so annoyed,
and Mother chills me all the way through to my bones when she's
annoyed. It is wonderful how she does it, for she never scolds; but the
thermometer simply drops to freezing-point, and you feel like a poor
little shivering crocus that has come up too soon, by mistake, to find
the world covered with snow, and no hope of squeezing back into its own
cosy warm bulb again.

I stopped out of doors till luncheon, and played croquet against
myself, wishing that Stan would run down; for although Stan rather
fancies himself as a Gorgeous Person since poor father's death gave him
the title, he is quite nice to me, when it occurs to him. I'm always
glad when he comes to the Towers, but he hardly ever does in the
Season; and then in August and September he's always in Scotland. So is
Vic, for the matter of that, and she hates being in the country in May
and June, though Surrey is so close to town that luckily she doesn't
miss much; but this year we seem to have been horribly poor, for some
reason. Vic says it's Stan's fault. He is extravagant, I suppose.
However, as everything is really his, I don't see that we ought to
complain; only, it can't be pleasant for him to feel that Mother is
worrying lest he should marry and make her a frumpy dowager, before we
two girls are off her hands.

At luncheon, Mother mentioned to me that she had wired to ask Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox and her cousin, Miss Sally Woodburn, down for dinner
and to stay the night. "You will be pleased, Betty, as you like Miss
Woodburn so much," she said.

"I like her, but I don't like Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and I don't know how
to pronounce her," said I.

"For goodness sake, don't call her Mrs. Ess Kay to her face again," cut
in Vic.

"I didn't mean to; it slipped out," I defended myself. "Besides, it was
you who nicknamed her that."

"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a very charming person, and a thorough woman
of the world," Mother asserted, in that way she has of saying the word
which you had better leave for the last if you know what is good for
you.

I did leave it for the last so far as _answering_ was concerned, but
inside, where, thank goodness, even her eyes can't see, I was wondering
hard when Mother had formed that flattering opinion. A fortnight ago I
heard her announce that Americans "got upon her nerves," and she hoped
she would not soon be called upon to meet any more. As she had made
this remark directly after bidding Mrs. Ess Kay good-bye, I naturally
supposed that lady to be the immediate cause for it. But now, it
seemed, this was not the case.

"You would be very ungrateful if you disliked her," Mother went on, "as
she took such a tremendous fancy to you."

"Dear me, I didn't know that!" I exclaimed, opening my eyes wide. "I
thought it was Vic she----"

"You are her favourite, as you are with Miss Woodburn, also," said
Mother, who gets the effect of being so tremendously dignified partly,
I believe, from never clipping her words as the rest of us do. "I am
asking them down again especially on your account, and I want you to be
particularly nice to them."

"It's easy enough to be nice to Sally Woodburn, but----"

I caught a look from Vic and broke off my sentence, hurrying to change
it into another. "As they're sailing for the States so soon, I shan't
have time to spread myself much."

"Don't be slangy, Betty; it doesn't suit you," said Mother. "You pick
up too many things from Stanforth."

"Trust him not to drop anything worth having," interpolated Vic, which
was pert; but Mother never reproves her.

"Perhaps Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn won't come," I said,
for the sake of getting on safer ground.

"Not come? Of course they will come. It is short notice, but if they
have other engagements they will break them," returned Mother; and
though it would be as impossible for her to be vulgar or snobbish, as
it would for a tall white arum lily to be either of those things, still
I couldn't help feeling that her unconscious thought was: "The
invitation to a couple of unknown, touring Americans, from the Duchess
of Stanforth, is equivalent to my receiving a Royal Command."

She was probably right,--anyhow, so far as Mrs. Ess Kay is concerned:
as for Sally Woodburn, I don't think she has a drop of snobbish blood
in her veins. She's Southern--not South American, as I was stupid
enough to think at first; but from some Southern State or other;
Kentucky, I believe it is. She's short and plump, and olive and smooth
as ivory satin, with soft, lazy brown eyes, a voice like rich cream, a
smile which says: "Please like me"; and pretty, crinkly dark hair that
is beginning to glitter with silver network here and there, though she
isn't exactly old, even for a woman--perhaps about thirty.

I knew that Miss Woodburn rather fancied me, and I was quite pleased to
take her up to her room, when she and her elder cousin arrived, about
an hour before dinner. I stopped for a few minutes, and then left her
with her maid, while I went to help Vic, and get myself ready. We've
only one maid between the three of us, nowadays; which means (unless
there's some reason why Vic should be made particularly smart), that
Mother gets more than a third of Thompson's services. That's as it
should be, of course, and we don't grudge it; but Vic's rather
helpless, and I always have to hurry, to see her through.

This evening, though, I found Thompson in Vic's room, next to mine; and
just as I scientifically dislocated my arms to unhook my frock, which
does up behind, Mother came in. "Betty," she said, quite playfully for
her, "I have a very pleasant surprise for you. You would never be able
to guess, so I will tell you. I have consented to let you go and visit
Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn in America. Aren't you
delighted?"

I felt as if the wall of the house were tumbling down, and I would
presently be crumpled up underneath.

"My goodness gracious, Mother!" I managed to stammer, forgetting how
I've always stood in awe of her, since I could toddle. "How--how
perfectly extraordinary! _Why_ am I going? And is it all decided,
whether I like or not?"

"Of course you will like. To travel with pleasant companions and see a
great, new country under such charming auspices, is an immense
privilege, a very unusual privilege for a young girl," Mother replied
promptly. "As for the 'why,' you are going because you have been
cordially invited; because I think the experience will be for your
advantage, present and future; because also it will be good for a
growing girl like you to have the bracing effect of a sea voyage."

"Mother, I haven't a thing the matter with me, and I haven't grown the
eighth of an inch this whole last year; you can see by my frocks," I
protested, more on principle than because it would be any use to
protest, or because I was sure that I wanted Mother to change her mind.
Naturally the protest had no effect, but Mother's mood mercifully
remained placid, and she didn't give me a single freezing look.

"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a woman of good family and position in her own
country," she went calmly on. "I have satisfied myself on those points
beyond doubt, or I should not dream of allowing you to be her guest.
She has a cottage at Newport, and will take you there, as summer, it
seems, is not the Season in New York. You may stay with her through
July and August,--even for September, if you are amusing yourself.
Later, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox will send you home with friends of hers,
who can be trusted to take good care of you. She knows several people,
she tells me, who are crossing in the autumn, to winter abroad; and
they would bring you to me. Of course, I should have to be nice to
them, by way of showing my appreciation of any trouble you had given;
but a dinner, and a Saturday to Monday at most, would be quite enough."

So it was all arranged, even to the details of my home-coming, and the
price to be paid for returning me, like a parcel, to my owner! Suddenly
I remembered the words I had overheard at the window of the den. "The
question is, what is to be done with Betty?"

Mother had evidently been so anxious to have the question answered,
that she had at once taken measures to settle it. But why should
anything be done with me? Nothing ever had been, so far, except when I
was sent last autumn to stop with my aunt; and she was so much annoyed
because my cousin Loveland came home unexpectedly, that after that I
could do nothing to please her, and was packed back to Battlemead
Towers in disgrace, I never could understand for what crime.

"How did Mrs. Ess--I mean, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox happen to ask for a
visit from me?" I ventured to wriggle out, like a worm who isn't sure
whether it had better turn or not. I was certain that for some reason
of her own, Mother had suggested the idea, if only hypnotically; but
she seemed almost too frank as she answered, and it was frightening not
even to be snubbed.

"I told you to-day that she had taken a fancy to you, my dear. Of
course, she could not hope to secure Victoria, even if she preferred
her, for Victoria has important engagements which will carry her
through the season, and afterwards to Cowes and up to Scotland for the
shooting at Dorloch Castle. But you are still almost a child; and
children do not have engagements. Nevertheless, you are Lady Betty
Bulkeley, the Duke of Stanforth's sister, and as such, though in
yourself you are an unimportant little person, it's not impossible that
as a member of your family, these Americans may think you worth
cultivating. One hears that they worship titles."

"I'm sure they can't worship them as much as some people in our own
country, who haven't got them, do," I cried, defending Americans for
Miss Woodburn's sake. "Vic says----"

"Never mind what Victoria says," returned Mother. "The less you think
on these subjects, the better, my dear Betty. I merely hinted at a
possible and partial incentive to these people's friendship for you, so
that you need not feel it incumbent to be oppressively grateful, you
know. I should wish you to keep your dignity among foreigners, even
though you would, of course, look upon Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox as, in a
way, your guardian. Now I must call Thompson, and have her put me into
my dinner dress, as there is no more time to waste. When Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox speaks of your visit, you will know what to say."

I mumbled something vaguely dutiful, and began to dress as quickly as I
could; but the more I thought of it, the more I felt that I hadn't been
fairly treated, to be disposed of in such an offhand way. After all, I
_am_ eighteen; and a person of eighteen isn't a child.

I'm not sure I wasn't pouting when Vic came in, ready for dinner,
asking if she should fasten up my frock. I had nearly finished it, for
practice has made me almost as clever as a conjurer about manipulating
my hands behind my back, but when Vic flew at me and began giving
useless little touches, I guessed that she wanted to whisper something
in my ear without Mother seeing, if she should happen to prance in at
the wrong moment--as she often does.

"Look here, Betty, are you going to be a good little girl, and do what
you're bid, without making a fuss?" she asked, in a quick, low voice.

"I'm not certain yet," said I. "I'm thinking it over. I don't see why I
should be sent off across the water with strangers, at a moment's
notice, and I----"

"'Tisn't a moment's notice. It's five days. They're not sailing till
Wednesday, and as they've a suite engaged,--the best on the ship, Mrs.
Ess Kay says,--your going won't put them out a bit, and they'll _love_
having you. As for the whys and wherefores, Mother's been telling you,
hasn't she?"

"She talked about my health and valuable experiences, and a lot of
things in the air, but I feel there's something behind it, and I hate
mysteries----"

"If I can convince you it's for the good of the family in general, if
not yours in particular, will you be a nice, white, woolly lamb, and go
with your kind little American friends?" Vic broke in, with her head on
my shoulder and an arm slipped round my waist.

"Mrs. Ess Kay's neither little nor kind," said I, "but, of course, I'll
do anything to help, if only I'm treated like a rational, grown-up
human being."

"And so you shall be. I told Mother it would be much better to be frank
with you, if you _are_ a Baby. It's too late to explain things now, but
if you'll be sweet to Mrs. Ess Kay, and agree with everything everybody
says about your trip, when we come up to bed and Mother's door's shut,
I'll make a clean breast and show you _exactly_ how matters stand."

With this, we separated, for we could hear Mrs. Ess Kay's voice in the
corridor, talking to Sally Woodburn on the way downstairs. Her voice is
never difficult to hear; rather the other way; and Miss Woodburn's soft
little drawl following it, reminded me of a spoonful of Devonshire
cream after a bunch of currants.

Mother was with them both in the oak drawing-room when Vic and I got
down, and I found myself staring at Mrs. Ess Kay with a new kind of
criticism in my mind; indeed, it hadn't occurred to me before to
criticise at all. I'd only felt that I didn't want to come any closer
to her. Now I was to come much closer, it seemed, and I looked at the
glittering lady, wondering how it would feel to be so close--wondering
what _she_ herself was.

Outside, she's more like the biggest and most splendid dressmaker's
model ever made for a Paris show-window than anything else I can think
of; at least, she is like that from under her chin down to the tips of
her toes. I say under her chin, for that feature, as well as all the
others above it, are miles removed from a pretty, wax lady in a
show-window.

I never supposed till I met Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, that a live woman
could have a figure exactly like the fashion-plates, swelling like a
tidal wave above an hourglass of a waist, and retreating far, far into
the dim perspective below it, then suddenly bulging out behind like a
round, magnificent knoll, after a deep curve inward under the
shoulders. But Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's figure does all these things even
when she stands still, and a great many more when she walks, which act
she accomplishes in a grand, sweepy kind of a way, with her head a
little thrown back, as if she wants everybody to know that she is
tremendously important in the scheme, not only of the world, but of the
universe.

Yet in spite of all, in the end it's her face which impresses you even
more than her figure--which is a real triumph, as the figure is so
elaborate and successful. On top of her head is a quite little coil of
hair that lifts itself, and spirals up, like a giant snail-shell. A
dagger keeps it in place, and looks as if the point plunged into Mrs.
Ess Kay's brain, though I suppose it doesn't. Over the forehead is a
noble roll which has the effect of a breaker just about to fall into
surf, but never falling. It's a black breaker, and the straight, thick
eyebrows an inch below it are black too; so are the short eyelashes,
also thick and straight, like a stiff fringe, but the eyes are
grey--grey as glass, though not transparent. Sometimes they seem almost
white, with just a tiny bead of black for the pupil. I never saw
anything so hard (except the glass marbles I used to play with): and
they look at most people as if something behind them were doing a
mental sum in arithmetic, for the Something's own advantage. They don't
look at Mother in that way; no eyes in the world would dare; but I'm
talking about ordinary people, who are not tall white arum lilies, with
the air of having grown in kings' gardens.

Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's nose is well-shaped and rather large; so is her
mouth, with a "thin red line" of lips; but somehow it's the chin--the
feature you simply take for granted and hardly remember on most
faces--which dominates the rest. It comes rounding out under her lips,
making them seem to recede, though they don't really; and it's square,
with an effect of the skin being laid on over some perfectly hard
material, like marble, or the same ivory her teeth are made of. Besides
all this,--as if it weren't enough--she's a widow; one of those women
who look as if they had been born widows; anyway, I'm certain that Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox can never have been a child.

Sally Woodburn's chin is rather full, too. I wonder if, in spite of her
lazy ways, and slow, soft speech, she is very decided, like her cousin,
who is so much older and bigger, and apparently able to make the gentle
little Southern relative do as she wills?

Mrs. Ess Kay, terribly glittering this evening in a gown contrasting
strongly with our simple things, was almost too nice to me, saying
several times over how glad she was that I was going to visit her. At
dinner, she painted word-pictures of the "good times" she would give
me, and though I've never been able to care for her, and don't a bit
more now, I began to be rather excited by her talk, for she made things
seem so interesting and new. Besides, it appears that Sally Woodburn
will be at Newport most of the summer, so I shall have her to fall back
upon.

As for me, I was good as gold, and Vic threw me approving glances, for
which I was grateful, for I like being in Vic's good graces. She
doesn't often bother with me much, but when she does, she is so sweet
it makes up for everything--and she knows that well.

I could hardly wait to hear her "explanations," and so I was glad Mrs.
Ess Kay and Miss Woodburn were hypnotised by Mother into thinking they
wanted to go early to bed. Mother is very clever about such things.

She didn't come again to talk to me in my room; I suppose she thought
it best to let the new ideas simmer. Anyhow, she sent Thompson away,
and shut the door between Vic's room and hers sooner than usual.
Presently Vic slipped quietly in to me, in the new blue dressing-gown
which was to have been mine, only when she saw it finished, she wanted
it, and had four inches taken up above the hem.

"Well, how are you feeling about things now?" she asked, sitting down
in front of the mirror, with her hairbrush in her hand.

"I'll tell you after you've told me why I ought to feel one way more
than another," I said with prudent reserve.

"Then, like a good child, brush my hair. I wouldn't let Thompson do
anything, because I knew you'd be dying to have me, and I can talk so
beautifully while my hair is being done. It makes me wish I were a
pussy cat, so that I could purr."

"I hate having mine touched by anyone," said I.

"Well, perhaps I should hate it too, if mine were curly and about six
inches thick, and came down to my knees; I should be afraid of being
pulled to pieces. There! That's heavenly. Well, now I can begin. You
know, Baby, this isn't a _quite_ new idea about your going to America.
Mrs. Ess Kay _did_ say something on the subject when she was staying
here before."

"Oh, yes, when she was going away she said how much she would like to
have either of us visit her. Is that all?"

"It's something, isn't it? Enough to make a handle of, when a handle's
needed."

"But why is a handle needed?"

"I'm going to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Mother had a letter from Sir Gilbert Mantell this morning."

"Oh, that big, splashy crest was his, then. It _looked_ like him, now I
come to think of it. Nobody but a brand-new knight, with piles and
piles of money, would need one more than half the size."

"Don't sneer at his money, my good child. We want it badly enough in
this family."

"Not his."

"Yes, we do. And I see a reasonable prospect of our getting it, if
you'll go to the States with Mrs. Ess Kay."

"What can that have to do with it? I don't know one bit what you mean."

"That's because you're such a great baby. If you _must_ have every t
crossed and every i dotted, Sir Gilbert has apparently conceived a
patronising toleration for your Victoria, which is likely, if properly
fostered and encouraged, to develop into something more satisfactory."

"Patronising, indeed! That dull elephant!"

"Elephants are not, as a rule, dull. And forty thousand a year in any
form can afford to patronise a daughter of a hundred dukes without a
penny, whereas I'm merely the granddaughter of three. In fact, my dear,
I'm humbly anxious that Sir Gilbert should propose; and as he's been
rather nice, and as he's written almost asking for an invitation to
come down with Stan, from next Saturday to Monday, although he
carefully states he's been invited for the same time, by Princess Paul
of Plon, things look hopeful. The only trouble is--you."

"Me!"

"Yes, you. The one time he ever saw you, was when you had that
frightful cold, and looked hideous, with your poor dear nose twice its
size, and your eyes half theirs. But--well, Betty, you're a beauty, and
I'm not, though I do flatter myself I'm not bad looking. I'm 'penny
plain,' and you're 'tuppence coloured'; and the Mantell man can afford
tuppence for a wife. You are so frightfully, luridly pretty that it's
almost improper, and if he comes down and sees you, he'll probably
think you better worth his money than I am."

"What nonsense! And if he were such an idiot, of course I should refuse
him."

"You would. That's one of mother's difficulties. Even you must see that
would do no good from the family point of view."

"I could keep out of the creature's way."

"You couldn't, without Stan making some blundering remark, or some
_contretemps_ happening; it would be sure to. It's much safer to have
you absolutely out of the way; and it was when we were talking it over
this morning, that Mother hit upon the plan of sending you to the
States. You know how prompt she is, once she's made up her mind? Mother
is really a wonderful woman. Twenty minutes later she sent a telegram
to Mrs. Ess Kay, asking her to come down, and certain, under
Providence, that she would; for an intimate sort of invitation like
this, when we're alone (especially after the Great Disappointment),
would be too flattering to a woman of that type not to be snapped at,
no matter if a dozen engagements had to be trampled in the dust."

"What Great Disappointment are you talking about?"

"Infant in Arms! Why, Stan and Miss Woodburn."

"I--didn't know--nobody told me----"

"Fancy needing to be told! As if that weren't the only reason why
Mother smiled on Mrs. Ess Kay in the beginning. It was because she
thought Miss Woodburn might do for Stanforth, who _must_ marry money,
and is too poor, horribly poor, to be much of a catch with most English
heiresses, who aren't as keen on titles as they used to be, unless
there's some solid foundation for them to stand on, and not wobble.
Everyone says Miss Woodburn's a great heiress, and though she's a few
years older than Stan, she's a lady, a charming creature, and not bad
looking. Mother thought all that out, the day they were introduced to
her at the Northminster's concert, so she invited them here. But Stan
and the Woodburn wouldn't _look_ at each other. It was useless even for
Mother's genius to attempt the impossible, so she resigned herself to
the inevitable, and gave the thing up. She meant to drop the Americans
gently--which she could easily do as they were going home soon--when
this new idea popped up. It's really important for me, dear. I do want
you to see that. It will be so much better all around if you are out of
the way, anyhow until I'm safely engaged, and the wedding-day fixed.
Then, you know, if you haven't meanwhile picked up an American
millionaire on the other side--don't look so horrified!--Mother will be
able to devote herself to you, heart and soul, as she has to me. Next
spring you can be presented----"

"Don't bribe," I said, feeling as if I wanted to cry. "If you want to
get rid of me, I'll go without that. But I should have thought I might
be sent again to Aunt Sophy's."

"Not again till our magnificent cousin's safely married. She wouldn't
have you there. Remember how she sent you home, last time. Poor
Loveland! He too, must think about collecting honest gold (somebody
else's), to brighten up his coronet. We're a poverty-stricken lot, my
child, and it's for me, with your help, to retrieve the fallen fortunes
of this branch of the family."

"That's settled then," said I, as drily as I could with wet tears in
the background. "And now, let's go to bed, please. I'm sleepy."

I wasn't; but my eyes were hot, and there was a lump in my throat. I
was homesick--dreadfully homesick, for something--I don't know what,
but it seemed to be something I've never had yet and probably never can
have. That is why I wanted to be alone, and write everything down
exactly as it has happened.

ABOUT CROSSING THE WATER

Only ten days have passed, but I feel as if they were a hundred, I have
lived so much. I've heard people near me in deck-chairs saying that
it's been a "dull voyage," but whatever else it has been for _me,_ it
hasn't been dull.

In the first place, I've never been on the sea before, except crossing
the Channel, which doesn't count, of course. And now that I've been
thrown with so many people--all sorts of people--I realise how few I
have known in my life, so far. If I had about twice as many fingers and
toes as I have, I believe I might tick off every human being I've ever
met as actual acquaintances, outside my own relations.

I've lived always at dear, beautiful old Battlemead (it seems doubly
beautiful as I think of it now, from far away); and till last year most
of my time was spent in the schoolroom, or walking, or pottering about
in a pony carriage with one of the governesses I used to drive to
distraction. When we had house parties I was kept out of the way, as
Mother said it spoiled young girls to be taken notice of, and I should
have my fun later. When the others went up to town for the Season, as
they often did, I was left behind, and though Battlemead is within
five-and-twenty miles of London, I suppose I haven't been there more
than two dozen times in my life. When I did go, it was generally for a
concert, or a matinee, and, of course, I enjoyed it immensely; but I
don't know that it taught me much about life. And the one time I was
taken abroad we had nothing to do with anyone we met at hotels. Being
on this big ship seemed at first exactly like being at a play when I
had been brought in late, and found it difficult to know which were the
leading actors, which the villains and villainesses, and what the plot
was about.

Now, though, I've been through so many experiences, I feel as if I were
_in_ the play myself, not watching it from outside.

Everything was very nice, though very strange, to begin with.

Dear old Stan came out of his shell and actually travelled all the way
to Southampton to see me off, which was good of him, especially as Vic
explained that he and Sally Woodburn had been thrown at each other's
heads, in vain.

He'd brought me a great box of sweets, a bunch of roses, and several
magazines; and just as we were starting he slipped something small but
fat into my hand.

"That's to help you keep your end up, Kid, in case you're imposed on,"
said he. "You _are_ only a kid, you know; but all the same, don't let
them treat you like one, and if you get the hump over there, just you
cable me. I'll see you through, and have you back again with your own
sort, Mater or no Mater, hanged if I don't."

Stan never made me such a long speech before, and after we sailed and I
got time to look at the fat thing he'd put in my hand, I found it was a
lot of goldpieces bundled up in two ten-pound notes. The gold made
twelve sovereigns more, so Stan had given me altogether more than
thirty pounds. All that money, with the twenty pounds Mother had told
me to use only "when strictly necessary," made me feel a regular
millionaire. I've never had a sixth part as much before, in my life.

Stan's kindness was just like a cup of something warm and comforting
when you're tired and cold, so that I began to brighten up and feel
happy.

I liked our suite, with two staterooms, a bath, and a dear little
white-and-blue drawing-room, about as big as the old dolls' house I
inherited from Vic. I was thankful to find I was to chum with Miss
Woodburn, not Mrs. Ess Kay, for I _never_ could have stood that. It was
fun finding places to hang up our things when they were unpacked, and
Mrs. Ess Kay's French maid, Louise, helped me get settled, paying me so
many compliments on my hair, and my eyes and my complexion, that I grew
quite confused; but perhaps that's a habit in which American ladies
encourage their maids.

"But the marvel that is Miladi's hair! It is of the colour of gold, and
with a natural curl. It will be so great a joy if I may dress it. And
her complexion! It is beyond that of any English demoiselle I have
seen, yet all the world knows they are the best on earth. With such
eyes, no doubt Miladi can wear any colour; and she has the figure for
which the make of corsets is of no import."

If it had been in English, I should have wanted to order her out of the
room; but things like that don't sound so objectionable in French.

Miss Woodburn's, and especially Mrs. Ess Kay's clothes looked so
exquisite that I was mortified to have Louise unpack mine, though I
have brought my smartest things, and Vic had two or three pretty
blouses of hers altered in a great hurry, for me. Besides, Mother said
my outfit was quite good enough for a young girl in England, and that I
was not to let myself feel dissatisfied if in another country they
chose to overdress.

Anyhow, I will say for Mrs. Ess Kay that she didn't appear to be
ashamed of me at first. On the contrary, she had a way of seeming to
show me off, almost as if she thought I did her credit.

When we had unpacked, we three went to luncheon, and took the first
seats which were vacant. But presently Mrs. Ess Kay sent for the chief
steward or someone important. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox," said she, in
a haughty voice, "and I have as my guest Lady Betty Bulkeley, daughter
of the Duchess of Stanforth. You must give me three of the best seats
at the Captain's table."

I couldn't help hearing, and my ears did tingle, but Miss Woodburn only
smiled and looked down, with a funny twinkle under her eyelashes, which
curl up so much that it always seems as if she were just going to
laugh.

I thought, if I were the steward, I would give us the worst seats on
the ship, to teach us not to be proud; but he didn't do anything of the
sort; he was as meek as a lamb, so I'm sure he can't have any sense of
humour. He said Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox might count on him, and she and
her party should have places on the Captain's right hand.

Mrs. Ess Kay was as bad with the deck steward. She found that he hadn't
put our chairs (which she had brought on board herself) in the right
place, and she had him called up and made a great fuss. The cards of a
Reverend Somebody, his wife and daughters, were on chairs in the
position which she had made up her mind to have, exactly amidship and
on the shady side.

"I must have my chairs changed and put here," she said. And then--oh,
horror!--I'm certain I caught her repeating the formula she'd used at
luncheon. "I am Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, and I have as my guest, etc,
etc." To be sure, she had walked off to a little distance with the
deck-steward, where our chairs were, and I might have been mistaken;
but two or three people who were standing near looked suddenly very
hard at me, and I know I turned scarlet with annoyance, to be labelled
in that way, as if I were a parcel marked "glass" and to be handled
with care.

Afterwards, when I came to read the passenger-list, I found that there
was nobody else on board with any sort of title, not even an Honourable
Anybody; otherwise, of course, Mrs. Ess Kay's little manoeuvre (which
I'm afraid must have been meant for snobbishness) wouldn't have excited
the slightest notice.

"Now," said Mrs. Ess Kay, when we were settled in our places, "I know a
good many people on the ship, but most of them are Nobodies, and I do
_not_ intend to be troubled with them, nor do I think that the Duchess
would care to have me let Betty mix herself up with anybody and
everybody. I shall do a great deal of weeding and select her
acquaintances carefully."

"Betty," indeed! I'd never told her that she might call me Betty; and I
hate having persons I don't care for take hold of my name, without
using a handle to touch it. It makes me feel as I did when I was a
child, and Mother commanded me to let myself be kissed by unkissable
and extraneous grown-ups.

Thank goodness, Vic and I have come into the world with something of
poor Father's sense of humour. My share often serves me as well as balm
on a wound, or as a nice, dry, crackly little biscuit which you're
enchanted to find when you're hungry, and thought you had nothing to
eat; and I got a good deal of quiet comfort out of it during Mrs. Ess
Kay's "weeding" process, which otherwise would have done nothing but
make me squirm.

When we had been on deck for a short time, a number of people came up
to speak to Mrs. Ess Kay, and some to Miss Woodburn. The water was as
smooth as the floor of a ballroom when it's been well waxed for a
dance, and there was no excuse for the most sensitive person to be ill;
consequently the deck was something like a kaleidoscope, with all its
moving groups of men and women, girls and children. Most of the
best-looking and best-dressed ones were Americans, and a great many
seemed to know each other. Some of them laughed a good deal, and talked
in high voices, putting emphasis on prepositions, which Miss Mackinstry
and the others would never let me do in writing compositions. Somehow,
though, when these people spoke it sounded very nice and cordial, more
so than it does when English people greet each other, though the voices
weren't so sweet--except a few that drawled in a pretty, Southern way,
like Sally Woodburn's.

I could tell which were the poor things that Mrs. Ess Kay wanted to
weed out of her acquaintance-garden for next season, by the way she
acted when they came to say "How do you do?" to her. She screwed up her
eyes till they looked hard and sharp enough to go through you like a
thin knife--(or more like a long, slender hatpin jabbing your head),
and having waited an instant before returning their greeting, slowly
answered; "Very well, thank you. Yes, I _am_ going home rather early.
I'm due at Newport as soon as possible"; then fingered her open book
(which she hadn't peeped into before) and made a little, just
noticeable gesture with her lorgnette.

Then the poor people were too much crushed to stop and try to talk to
Miss Woodburn, though she always looked at them sweetly, as if she
would make up for her cousin being a dragon if she could.

By and by, somebody else would sail up, perhaps not half as nice to
look at as the one who had gone. But lo, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox would be
suddenly transformed. She would smile, and hold out her hand. To their
"How do you do?" she would respond "How do you do?" and though I don't
think she's really much interested in anyone but herself, she would ask
where they had been, what they had been doing, and how it happened they
were going back so soon. The next thing, she would say to me: "Betty,
dear, I should like you and Mrs. or Mr. So-and-So to know each other,
as I hope you'll meet again, while you're staying with me. Lady Betty
Bulkeley, etc., etc. I wonder if you have ever met her brother, the
Duke of Stanforth, and her cousin, the Marquis of Loveland, over in
London?"

Loveland would have had a fit if he could have heard her, for, of
course, at home only the lower middle classes and such people hurl a
Marquis's title at his head in that fashion; but I suppose foreigners,
unless they've been in England a long time, don't know the difference.

When I got a chance, I asked Sally Woodburn how Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox
made her distinctions in snubbing some people and preening herself to
others.

"My deah," said Sally (I'm to call her "Sally" now; it's been
understood between us for some time), "my deah, you're a poor, innocent
child, and I reckon you've been brought up in darkness, without even so
much as hearing of the Four Hundred."

"What are the Four Hundred? Are they a kind of Light Brigade, like the
Six Hundred?" I asked. "Or is it a sort of governing body like--like
the Council of Three?"

She laughed so much at this, with her charming, velvety laugh, that I
grew quite nervous, for it's embarrassing to have said something funny
when you've meant to be rather intelligent. But soon she took pity on
me. "You perfect love," she said; "that's really too sweet. It deserves
to be put into _Life_, or something. And yet you're not so far wrong,
when one comes to think of it. The Four Hundred _is_ a kind of
governing body; only I believe it's really reduced to Two Hundred now.
They govern New York; and Newport; and Lennox; and Bar Harbour; and
several other places which are considered very nice and important."

"Oh! Are they Republicans or Democrats?" I enquired, sure that I really
was being intelligent at last, for I'd heard Stan say that, in America,
the Republican party was rather like our Conservatives, and the
Democrats like the Liberals; and I'd remembered because I believe I
should be very much interested in politics if only I understood more
about them. But Sally seemed to think that question funny, too.

"They can be either, my poor lamb," she exclaimed; "and they can be
almost anything else they like, if only they're just awfully,
dreadfully rich, and can manage to scrape up a family crest. It used to
be the crest that counted, with the man who invented the Four Hundred;
but since his day, that idea has got buried under heaps and heaps of
gold, and pearls and diamonds; especially pearls. In those places I was
telling you about, you don't exist unless you're in the Four Hundred,
which is now being sifted down to Two Hundred, and will probably be
Seventy-five in a year or two. You may have the bluest blood in America
in your veins; you may be simply _smeared_ with ancestors, but if you
haven't managed to push forward in a clever, indescribable way, neither
they nor you will ever be noticed, and your grey hairs will go down to
the grave in the Wrong Set. _Now_ do you understand why my cousin
Katherine makes narrow eyes for some people, and broad smiles for
others?"

"Ye-es, I suppose I do," I answered. "Only--we are quite different at
home. I haven't been about at all yet, but I know; because some things
are in the air. How did Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox ever have the poor Wrong
Setters for acquaintances, though?"

"Because (she'd kill me if she heard this) she has only lately got into
the Right Set herself, and after trouble enough to give an ordinary
woman nervous prostration. That kind of thing _does_ give it to a lot
of women--especially if they fail. But Cousin Katherine very seldom
fails. She almost always carries things through. If you knew anything
about America in general, and New York in particular, you'd be able to
realise what a hard time she's had, when I tell you that till her
husband died she lived west of Chicago. To get into the Four Hundred if
you've lived west of Chicago, (unless you're Californian, which is
getting to be fashionable), is just like having to climb over one of
those great, high walls of yours in England, bristling with nails or
broken glass."

"My goodness!" I exclaimed. "How funny! Fancy if people who live in
Surrey should glare at people who live in Devonshire."

"That's different. You see, Chicago is _new_."

"But so is all America, isn't it?" I asked, stupidly. "What difference
can a hundred or so years make?"

"We haven't begun to think in centuries yet, on our side of the water,
my deah." (She has the most delicious way of saying "my deah," and all
her "r's" are soft like that; only it's too much trouble to write them
for nobody but myself to see.) "Anyhow, it _is_ so, between New York
and Chicago people--that is, the people who count in Society with a big
S: and it was a great triumph for my cousin to become the
Three-Hundred-and-Ninety-Ninth in the Four Hundred. She did it by
buying a Russian Prince."

"_Buying_ a----"

"Yes, love, he was going to the highest bidder, and she bought him.
That is, she entertained him so gorgeously and did so many nice things
for him, that he posed as her property; and as everyone was dying to
meet him, it _made_ her. She'd been working killingly hard before that,
for a whole year after taking her house on Fifth Avenue and building
her cottage at Newport, but it was buying the Prince which did the
trick. On the strength of that episode and its consequences, she went
to Europe with very nice introductions, and as you know, deah, she has
made some valuable as well as pleasant friends. To live up to them and
her reputation, she will have to be busy for a while dropping a lot of
old acquaintances."

"How horrid!" I couldn't help exclaiming, though Mrs. Ess Kay was going
to be my hostess.

"Yes, it seems rather miserable to me, because I'm a weak, lazy,
Southern thing, who would be right down sick, if I had to hurt any
human being's feelings. Yet perhaps it looks fair to her. She's so
ambitious, and she's worked so hard, she _has_ deserved to succeed. As
for poor me, she just regularly mesmerises me all through. She
mesmerised me into coming up from Kentucky and visiting her this
spring; then she mesmerised me into going with her to Europe. But I'm
not sorry I went, for I've had a _right_ good time."

"I'm so glad you went," said I, "because if you hadn't I shouldn't have
met you. I'm sure I should love Kentucky if all the people there are
like you. But these things you've been saying seem so odd. Do you mean
to tell me that the people who lead Society in New York want to keep
their set limited to a certain number, and refuse to know others, even
if they're extraordinarily clever and interesting?

"They don't like them to be too clever, because they call such people
'_queer_'--that is, unless they happen to be 'lions' of some sort from
England or other places abroad. Then, so long as they're not
_American_, they welcome them with open arms."

"I'm glad Society isn't like that in England," I said. "There the
_real_ people--the people who have the right to make social laws, you
know--are delighted with anyone who can amuse them. Of course, deep
down in our hearts, we may be proud if we have old names, which have
been famous for hundreds of years in one way or another; but we are so
used, after all those centuries, to being _sure_ of ourselves, that we
just take our position for granted, and don't think much more about it.
If people who haven't got quite the same position are gentlefolk, and
amusing, or clever, or beautiful, or anything like that which really
matters, why, we're only too pleased with them."

"That's all the difference in the world! You've been 'sure of
yourselves for centuries.' You've said the last word, my deah. 'Out of
the mouths of babes'--but Cousin Katherine's finished gushing to that
silly old Mrs. Van der Windt. We mustn't dare discuss these things from
our point of view any more. I reckon she would faint."

There are a good many young men on board, and some of them seemed to be
quite devoted to Mrs. Ess Kay the first day out; but she was cold to
them all, I couldn't think why, as some of them seemed very nice, and
she had always appeared rather to like being with men. I asked Sally
about it, but she laughed, and said I might perhaps solve the mystery
for myself when we were at Newport, if I remembered it then.

I never heard of such breakfasts and luncheons as they have on this
ship, and the first menu I saw surprised me so much, that I couldn't
believe they really had and could produce all those things if anybody
was inconsiderate enough to ask for them. I hardly supposed there were
so many things to eat in the world. But the captain heard me exclaiming
to Sally, so he smiled, and told me to test the menu by ordering a bit
of everything on it; he'd guarantee that nothing would be missed out.
This was at breakfast the second day; and when he saw that I ate
several dear little round things, shaped like cream-coloured doyleys,
which are called pancakes (though they aren't a bit like ours) with
some perfectly divine stuff named maple syrup, he said my taking such a
fancy to American products was a sign that I should marry an American.
What nonsense! As if I would dream of marrying, especially a foreigner.
But for all that, pancakes and maple syrup are delicious. I've had them
every day since for breakfast, after finishing a great orange four
times the natural size, which isn't _really_ an orange, because it's a
grape fruit. You have it on your plate cut in two halves, with ice in
each, and you scoop the inside out of a lot of tiny pockets, with a
teaspoon. You think when you first see it, that you can't eat more than
half; but instead, you eat every bit, and sometimes if the morning is
hot, you even wish you could have more; though of course you wouldn't
be so greedy as to ask.

It was on the second day out, too, that all my troubles began--and in a
queer way which nobody could have guessed would lead to anything
disagreeable.

In the afternoon I was reading in my deck-chair, drawn close to Mrs.
Ess Kay's side, when that Mrs. Van der Windt whom Sally called a silly
old thing, toddled up and spoke to us. "Do come and watch them dancing
in the steerage," she said. "It's such fun."

Mrs. Ess Kay likes sitting still on shipboard better than anything
else, but it seems that Mrs. Van der Windt is so important that if all
the Four Hundred Sally told me about were pruned away, except about
twenty-five, she would be among the number left; so probably that is
the reason why Mrs. Ess Kay takes long walks up and down the deck with
her, though it makes her giddy to walk, and Mrs. Van der Windt is not
in the least entertaining.

She got up now, like a lamb about to be led to the slaughter, except
that she smiled bravely, which the lamb would not be able to bring
itself to do. "Come, Betty," she said to me, "it will amuse you."

"Yes, do come, Lady Betty," repeated Mrs. Van der Windt; whereupon I
obeyed, little knowing what I was laying up for myself.

Our deck is amidships. Aft, on a level with ours, is the second-class
deck; and for'rard, down below, like looking into a pit, is the
steerage. We walked to the rail, over which quite a number of men were
leaning, to see what was going on, and several moved aside to give us
room. I didn't like to take their places away, especially as they were
laughing and enjoying themselves, and I could hear the sound of dance
music coming up from below (such odd-sounding music!), but Mrs. Ess Kay
murmured to me that I mustn't refuse. "American men are never so
happy," she said, "as when they're giving up something for a woman.
They're used to it."

And evidently she, as an American woman, was used to taking it. She and
Mrs. Van der Windt slipped into the vacant spaces with a bare "thank
you," and I had to follow their example. We peered down over the rail;
and there was a sight which would have been comical, if it hadn't been
pathetic.

On rather a rough-looking deck, about twelve feet or more below us, a
dense crowd was collected round two small squares, which they purposely
left open. Besides those little squares, every inch was occupied. There
wouldn't have been any more room for even a baby to sit down than there
was in the Black Hole of Calcutta. In the crowd were old men, young men
and boys, all poorly dressed; and old women, young women and girls, big
and little. They wore crude, vivid colours, and more than half of them
had bright handkerchiefs tied over their heads. They scarcely took any
notice of the first-class passengers staring down superciliously or
pityingly at their poor amusements; they were far too much absorbed in
the dancing which was going on busily--I can't say gaily--in the two
hollow squares. In one of these an elderly, pinched little man who
looked almost half-witted, was monotonously scraping a battered fiddle,
for two solemn couples to dance round and round, always on the same
axis. But the other "dancing salon" was more lively. There a man
dressed like a buffoon, with a tall hat, a lobster claw for a nose, a
uniform with big red flannel epaulettes and pasteboard buttons covered
with gold paper, was pretending to conduct the band. And what a band it
was!

It consisted of four sailors, rather sheep-faced and self-conscious.
One musical instrument was a wooden box rigged up with strings and a
long handle; another was formed from a couple of huge soup-spoons tied
together, on which the player beat rhythmically with a smaller spoon;
the third was a poker, dangling from a string, banged heartily with an
enormous nail as it swung to and fro; the fourth was a queer, home-made
drum, which looked as if it had been made out of a wooden bandbox.

Somehow they contrived to coax out music of a sort, and a few young men
and girls were solemnly gyrating to it in a way to make you giddy even
to watch. When a man thought he had had enough, or wanted to dance with
another girl, he dropped his partner with alarming suddenness, bowed
stiffly without smile or word, and left her _plante la_. It was
evidently etiquette not to speak to your partner. At the end of a
dance, the conductor with the lobster-claw nose looked up to our deck,
bowing low with his hand on his heart, and then all the audience
leaning over the rail began fumbling in their pockets if they were men,
or opening their purses or gold bags if they were women. Down poured a
shower of small silver and copper, little boys scrambling to pick it
up, and hand it to the conductor, who would, Mrs. Van der Windt said,
divide the money among the members of his quaint band.

I had a few shillings with me, and I'd been so much amused that I felt
like being generous. Luckily, Mother couldn't see me, and scold! I took
half a dozen coins--shillings and sixpences--and wrapping them
hurriedly up in half the cover torn off a magazine I was reading, I
aimed the little parcel to fall at the comic conductor's feet.

Generally I can throw fairly straight, for Stan took some pains with
that part of my education when I was a small girl; but just at that
instant someone standing next me moved, knocked me on the elbow, and
spoilt my aim.

Instead of falling in front of Mr. Lobster-Claw, the parcel hit the ear
of a very tall young man among the crowd below, who had been standing
with his back to me. He turned quickly, not knowing what had happened,
glanced up and caught my eyes, as I was looking down quite distressed.

[Illustration: "_He turned around quickly, glanced up and caught my
eyes, as I was looking down, quite distressed_"]

I had noticed his figure in the crush, because he towered nearly a head
over everyone else, and I had a dim impression that he had good
shoulders; but seeing his face gave me a great surprise.

It was as different from all the rest of the steerage faces as day is
from night, and somehow it gave me quite a shock that such a man should
be among those others, as if something must be wrong with the world, or
it could not happen. I had even a guilty sort of thrill, as if I had no
right to be well-dressed and prosperous, staring at him and his
companions as though they were a show which we others paid to
see--daring to amuse ourselves with the hard, strange conditions of
their lives.

I've heard Mother say that good blood is sure to prove itself; that a
gentleman can't look like a common man, even in rags. Stan disputes
that theory with her, when he isn't too lazy, and wants to bet he could
so disguise himself that she would take him for a green grocer or a
fishmonger, who have the air of being commoner than other men, I
think--at least in our village at Battlemead--because they wear fat
tufts of curls frothing out over their foreheads from under their caps,
which are always plaid and made of cloth.

Anyway, if Mother is right, this man in the steerage must have the
bluest of blood in his veins, for I never saw one with clearer, nobler
features. And yet, he doesn't give the impression of a broken-down
gentleman who has gone the pace and paid for it by stumbling into the
depths. I thought, as he looked up straight into my face that first
time, (and I think still) that no face could be finer or more manly
than his. Brown--deep brown it is, like bronze, and clean-shaved (not
rough and scrubby), with dark grey eyes (I knew at once they were grey
because the light struck into them) rimmed with black lashes, so long
you couldn't help noticing them; black eyebrows and hair short and
sleek like Stan's, or any other well-groomed man one knows. Besides,
commonness shows in people's mouths more than anywhere else; it's hard
to define, but it's there; and this man's mouth is the best part of his
face--unless it's the chin; or perhaps the nose, I'm not quite sure
which, though I've thought a good deal about them all, because of the
mystery of finding such a man in such an unsuitable place. It would be
just the same if you saw a tall palm suddenly shooting up in the
kitchen-garden, and couldn't find out how it had been planted there.

I'm afraid I must have shown how surprised I was, and admiring, too,
maybe (how can one keep from admiring what is fine and noble, whether
it's a strange person's face, or the profile of a mountain against a
sky at sunset?) for the handsome steerage passenger looked at me a
long, long instant as if he were as much astonished as I was; and yet
with such a nice look, that instead of being annoyed, I couldn't help
being pleased.

In the meantime the little packet of money had fallen on the deck; but
though it had struck him from behind, he seemed to realise exactly what
had happened, and stooping down, he picked it up. Then he raised his
hand high, so that I could see he had the crumpled ball of paper in it;
and edging his way determinedly but not at all roughly, through the
crowd, he opened the parcel and gave the money to the conductor.

"What a splendid-looking man!" I said in a low voice to Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Isn't it extraordinary that he should be in the steerage?"

"Come away, my dear child," she answered. "I can't have you standing
here to be stared at by low creatures like that. The fellow's not in
the _least_ splendid-looking. He's only a big, hulking animal. Don't
take to making up romances about the steerage passengers, my love.
They're not worth bothering your little head about, because if they
weren't born for that sort of thing, they wouldn't be there, I assure
you."

I didn't say anything more, though I was vexed with her, both for being
so stupidly conventional, and for speaking to me in such a loud tone
that she attracted people's attention.

We went back to our deck-chairs, and there was nothing to remind me of
the little episode except the torn cover of my magazine, on which, I
now remembered, Sally Woodburn had scrawled my name over and over again
in pencil, just in idleness, while she and I had been talking that
morning. If Mrs. Ess Kay had known, no doubt she would have been
furious that a piece of paper with my name on it should have gone down
into the steerage. But I didn't mind, for I remembered that the young
man had opened the parcel, given the money to the conductor, and kept
the cover, which probably he had soon after thrown overboard, or
twisted up to light a pipe.

Nothing more happened that day; but there are two nice American girls
on board, about my own age or a little older (they _seem_ years older,
for they are so charming and self-possessed) and Mrs. Ess Kay encourages
me to like them, as they are in Mrs. Van der Windt's party. I grew
quite well acquainted with them the third day out, and they asked me to
go and watch the people in the steerage, who had a little trick dog
which was lots of fun. I went, and saw the bronze young man again. He
was standing with his arms folded across his blue-flannel-shirted
chest, leaning against one of the supports of a kind of bridge, looking
up towards the first-class deck. Our eyes met as they had before, and I
was so absurd that I felt myself blushing. I could have boxed my own
ears; and though the trained dog really was a pet, I didn't stay long.

It is strange how certain kinds of eyes haunt one. You, see them in the
air, as if they were really looking at you--especially when you are
just dropping off to sleep. I think grey ones do this more than others.
Perhaps it is because they are more piercing.

But it was on the fourth day that the climax came,--the climax which
has ended by upsetting me so much, and has made everything so
uncomfortable.

The weather was glorious--all blue and gold after a sulky, leaden
day--and there was dancing down on the steerage deck again. Though it
was so fine, the water was not smooth like a floor as it had been at
first, but broken into indigo waves ruffled irregularly with silver
lace and edged with shimmering pearl fringe.

The same performance was going on, down there on the crowded deck, that
I'd seen the first day, and Sally Woodburn and I, who had been
walking--counting the times we went round, to make two miles--stopped
to glance at the show.

"There's that good-looking man Cousin Katherine classifies as a hulking
animal," said Sally. "I must really consult the dictionary for a
definition of the word 'hulking.' I don't know whether it's a verb or
adjective, do you?"

"No, I don't," said I. "But whichever it is, I'm sure he doesn't or
isn't. He's a gentleman, and something strange has happened or he
wouldn't be there. I do think it's a shame. It must be horrible."

"Don't you think Cousin Katherine knows more about such persons than
you?" asked Sally, and there was such a funny quaver in her voice that
I turned to see what it meant. She was laughing, but whether at me or
at Mrs. Ess Kay, or at the man with the Lobster-Claw nose, I couldn't
tell; and before I could answer her question by asking another,
something happened which put the whole conversation out of my mind.

The ship curtseyed to a wave of more importance than any that had gone
before, then righted herself quickly. We slid a little, everybody who
could catching hold of the rail or of some friend's arm, laughing; but
down on the steerage deck there rose a cry which wasn't laughter.

"Child overboard!" someone screamed. And I realised with a horrid
feeling like suffocation, that a tiny boy down below, who had climbed
up on the rail to watch the dancing, was missing.

It was a woman who had screamed, and everything followed so quickly
that my mind was confused, as if a whirlwind had rushed through it and
blown all the impressions on top of one another, in a heap. There was a
babel of voices on the steerage deck, more cries, and shouts, and
screams, and people surged in a solid wave toward the rail to look
over. But out of that wave sprang one figure separating itself from the
other atoms; and then I heard myself give a cry, too, for the man who
had been in my thoughts had thrown off his coat and vaulted over the
rail into the sea.

"Jove! he'll be caught by the propeller!" I heard somebody near me say.

I turned sick. The thought of his life being crushed out while we all
looked on, helpless, was awful. The sea was terrible enough in
itself--the great, wide, merciless, blue water, which sparkled so
coldly, and laughed in its power--but to be crunched up by the jaws of
a monster--I shut my eyes, and couldn't open them until I heard men
saying the strong wind to starboard might save him. I believe I must
have been unconsciously praying, and my hands were clasped so tightly
together that afterwards my fingers ached.

People on our deck made a rush towards the stern, on the port side, for
the ship had been steaming so fast that already we were forging away
from the child who had fallen and the man who had jumped after him.
Sally and I were carried along with the rush. She seized me by the
hand, but we didn't speak a word. If dear friends, instead of two
strangers in a far remote sphere of life, had been in deadly danger, I
don't think the sickness at my heart could have been worse. I would
have given years if at that moment I could have had the magical power
to stop the ship instantly, with one wave of my hand.

But it was being stopped, by another power than mine. I felt the deck
shiver under my feet, like a thoroughbred horse, pulled on to his
haunches. The accident had been seen from the bridge; an order to stop
the ship had been telegraphed down to the engine-room, and obeyed.
Still, when Sally Woodburn and I had been carried by the crowd far
enough towards the stern to look out over the blue wilderness of water
we were leaving behind, the ship's heart hadn't ceased its throb,
throb, to which we had all grown so accustomed in the last few days.

"He's got the child!" exclaimed Sally. "See, he's hauling the little
creature on to his back with one hand, and swimming with the other.
Glorious fellow!"

Yes, there were the two heads bobbing like black corks in the tossing
waves, close together. I pictured so vividly what my sensations would
be, if I were down there, a mere speck in that vast expanse of blue,
that I almost tasted salt water in my mouth, and felt the choking
tingle of it in my lungs.

Then, suddenly the ship's heart ceased to beat; and the unaccustomed
stillness was as startling as an unexpected noise. A boat shot down
from the davits, with several sailors on board; a few seconds later
they were rowing away towards those two bobbing black corks, and I
loved them as they bent to their oars.

I can't remember breathing once, or even winking, until I saw the child
being lifted into the boat, and the man climbing in after. What a shout
went up from the ship! Sally clapped her pretty, dimpled hands, but I
only let my breath go at last, in a great sigh.

There was such a crush that I couldn't see them when they came on
board, but there was more shouting and hurrahing, and men slapped each
other on the shoulder and laughed.

Throb, throb went the machinery again, and there was no sign that
anything out of the monotonous round had happened, except in the
excited way that people talked. Several men we knew paid a visit to the
steerage, and came back with stories which flew about from group to
group in the first-class cabin, and no doubt the second too.

It seemed that the little boy who had fallen into the sea was the only
son of his mother, a widow. They were Swedes, and the woman, who is on
her way to the States to try and find a place as a servant, was quite
prostrated with the agonising suspense she had suffered. As for the
little boy himself, he was not seriously the worse for his experience.
The doctor was with him, and said that he would be as well as ever in a
few hours. A subscription for the mother and child had already been
started among the first-class passengers, and would probably be made up
to quite a good sum.

"But what is going to be done for the one who saved the little boy's
life?" I asked the man who was telling me the news, a Mr. Doremus, who
is a cousin of Mrs. Van der Windt's, very full of fun, and good
natured.

"A nice little pedestal, labelled 'Our Hero,' will be built out of the
ladies' admiration, and given to him to pose on," said Mr. Doremus.
"However, I must say for the gentleman,--though I've only seen him
dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,--he didn't give me
the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the
perch."

"Of course he isn't!" said I. "But I do think it's a shame if he's left
out when subscriptions are going round. Of course he must be poor, or
he wouldn't be travelling in the steerage. Something ought to be done
to show him that the passengers admire his bravery--not anything
_fulsome_, but something _nice_."

"I guess you don't know the American disposition yet, as well as you
will after you've wrestled with it on its native heath for a few
months," remarked Mr. Doremus in his quaint way. "That chap down in the
steerage _is_ an American, whatever else he may be, or I'll eat my best
hat; and I wouldn't for five cents be in the deputation to present him
with the something 'not fulsome but nice' on a little silver salver. I
should expect him to give me the frosty mitt."

This expression struck me as being so funny that I burst out laughing,
though I had to stop and think for a second before I could quite see
what Mr. Doremus really meant; but I wouldn't forget my point in a
laugh.

"Perhaps it wouldn't do to offer money," I went on. "Suppose we got up
a subscription to buy him a second-class passage for the rest of the
way. That would show appreciation, wouldn't it?"

"It would," replied Mr. Doremus, gravely, "and if you'll start the
subscription, Lady Betty, it'll go like wildfire."

"Very well, then, I will," said I. "Though I'd rather someone else did
it."

"It wouldn't be so popular from any other quarter. I'll help you. We'll
go floating around together and pass the plate; and if you like, I'll
do the talking."

I agreed to this, and if I'd thought about it at all, I should have
supposed that Mrs. Ess Kay would be as pleased as Punch with such an
arrangement, because Mr. Doremus, as a relative of Mrs. Van der
Windt's, is the only man on board to whom she makes herself agreeable.
It appears that he has started several fashions in New York, the most
important being to drive in some park they have there, without a hat.
But probably if the truth were known, he lost it, like the fox that
tried to make his friends chop off their tails.

Mrs. Ess Kay had gone to her stateroom soon after lunch, as the motion
of the ship had given her a headache, and I didn't happen to be near
Sally Woodburn; so I said "yes" to Mr. Doremus on the impulse of the
moment, without stopping to think whether I ought to ask permission
first.

We had great fun going about, for Mr. Doremus was so witty and said
such amusing things to the people he begged of, that I could hardly
speak for laughing, and everyone else laughed too. I wished that he
wouldn't put me forward always, and say it was my idea, and I had
started the subscription; but he argued that I must sacrifice myself
for the success of the Charity, just as I would at home, if I had to
work off damaged pincushions or day before yesterday's violets at a
bazaar. Of course, not being out, I've never sold anything at bazaars,
but Victoria is continually doing it in the Season, and she makes quite
a virtue of forcing perfect strangers to "stand and deliver," as she
calls it. This seemed much the same sort of thing to me, and so I felt
nice and virtuous, too, as Vic does when she comes home with a new
frock torn and stepped on, and lies in bed late next day, with Thompson
to brush her hair, and me to read to her.

People were very kind, and though they laughed a great deal, they gave
so much that before we'd been half the rounds, Mr. Doremus said we had
more than enough for our friend. He wanted to know if I would like to
"hit the nail on the head" and settle matters at once, by arranging
with the purser for a second-class cabin to be put at the hero's
disposal. I wanted him to do that part alone, but he pretended to be
shy, and said he had grown to depend so entirely on my co-operation,
that he felt unequal to undertaking any responsibility without it. He
told the same story to the purser that he had told others, about my
being the one to start the subscription, and he wanted me to sign a
kind of letter which he wrote, to the effect that the passengers had
chosen this way of testifying their appreciation of a gallant deed, and
so on; but I wouldn't, and he stopped teasing at last, when he saw that
I was going to be vexed.

After the business was what Mr. Doremus called "fixed up," he took me
back to my chair on deck. Sally wasn't in her place, and as I was
wondering what had become of her, the dressing-for-dinner bugle went
wailing over the ship like a hungry Banshee. I said to myself that
Sally must have gone early because her frock was to be particularly
elaborate. I felt conscious of having heaps of interesting things to
tell, and I understood exactly what Victoria means when she says she's
in one of her "pretty and popular moods."

I danced into our stateroom, where only a drawn curtain covers the open
doorway. No one was there, and the cabin was so quiet that it seemed to
greet me with a warning "S-sh!"

Down fell my spirits with a dull thud, though I didn't know why. My
joyousness changed to what storybook writers describe as a "foreboding
of disaster"; but when I have it, it's generally connected with a
lecture from Mother, so I know it only as a sneaky, "I haven't eaten
the cream" sort of feeling.

Just as I had begun to take off my frock, Louise appeared at the door
which leads into the little drawing-room. She said that if I pleased,
Madame would be glad to see me in her cabin. I hurried across to the
other state-room opposite ours, and there found Mrs. Ess Kay, in a
gorgeously embroidered pink satin Japanese thing, which she calls a
kimona. She was sitting in a chair in front of the makeshift
dressing-table, putting on her rings, and clasping bracelets on her
wrists with vicious snaps. Sally, who hadn't begun to dress, was
standing up, looking almost cross; that is, with different features
from hers, she might have succeeded in looking cross.

"Sit down, Betty, please; I want to talk to you," said Mrs. Ess Kay.

Somehow, it always makes me feel stiff when she "Betty's" me, as my old
nurse says it does with your ears if you eat broad beans.

"If I do, I shall be late for dinner," said I, just as if a minute ago
I hadn't been dying to pour out my news.

"Never mind dinner, my dear girl," replied Mrs. Ess Kay, with an air
which I do believe she tried to copy from Mother. "What I have to say
is more important than dinner. I hope what I have been hearing isn't
true."

"That depends upon what it was," I retorted, disguising my pertness
with a smile.

"Don't think I've been tattling," said Sally. "Whatever my faults may
be, _I_ haven't a Rubber Neck."

I didn't know in the least what she meant; but afterwards she explained
that if your neck is always pivoting round, to pry into other people's
affairs, it is a Rubber Neck, and I shall remember the expression to
tell Stan when I go home. He will like to add it to his collection of
strange beasts.

Mrs. Ess Kay partly turned her back upon Sally. "The dear Duchess" (she
always speaks of Mother in that way,) "the dear Duchess has entrusted
you to my charge, Betty, and I don't know what I shall do if you take
advantage of me by playing naughty tricks whenever I am incapacitated
from chaperoning you for half an hour."

One would have thought I was a trained dog! I simply stared with saucer
eyes, and she went on. "Mrs. Collingwood came in to enquire for my
headache, and she told me that you have been running about begging for
money to give to a common man in the steerage. I sent instantly for
Sally, but she either knows, or pretends to know nothing."

I rushed into explanations, sure that when Mrs. Ess Kay understood, I
should be pronounced "not guilty." But to my surprise, her chin grew
squarer and squarer, and her eyes harder and lighter, till they looked
almost white.

"I don't want to be harsh," she said at last, in the tone people use
when they're walking on the ragged edge of their patience, "but for the
Duchess's sake, I must be _firm_. It was very wrong of Tommy Doremus to
let you make yourself so conspicuous. This may lead to your being
dreadfully misunderstood and putting yourself and all of us in a false
position. The man may be a _butcher_ for all you know."

"His complexion isn't pink and white enough for a butcher's," said I.
"Besides, I thought that in America one man was as good as another."

"You were never more mistaken in your life, my dear girl; and the
sooner you correct such an impression the better, or you may get into
serious trouble from which I can't save you. If the steerage man isn't
a butcher, he's probably a professional swimmer, and the whole thing
was a _scheme_, to advertise himself. In fact, I am pretty certain from
what Mrs. Collingwood said, it _was_ that. And I want you to promise me
solemnly that you will _not_ go around helping to advertise the
creature any more. If you say you admire such a person, people will
think you're like the Matinee Girls, who wait at stage doors and run
after actors."

I was so angry, that I "talked back"; and it finally ended in our
relations being somewhat strained at dinner, which ruined my appetite,
until a peculiarly soothing iced pudding came on.

Afterwards, Mrs. Ess Kay was cool to Mr. Doremus, and would have been
cold, I think, if he weren't Mrs. Van der Windt's cousin. He lounged up
to our place on deck to give me the news that the Third Class Hero (as
he calls the bronze young man) refused to be Second Class. He had asked
permission to give the cabin offered him to the child whose life he had
saved, and the mother.

"It's for you to say yes or no, Lady Betty," announced Mr. Doremus,
"because it's your show; you set the top spinning."

"She is to have nothing more to do with the affair," Mrs. Ess Kay
answered for me quickly. "She is very sorry she commenced it, and has
lost the small interest she felt in the beginning. I do hope that
tramp, or beggar, or whatever he is, hasn't gotten it in his conceited
head that Lady Betty Bulkeley has bothered herself about his
insignificant affairs, or he'll be thrusting himself upon her notice in
some way which will be very disagreeable for _Me_, as her guardian."

"Well, he has sent a message of thanks to everyone concerned," said Mr.
Tommy Doremus. "I don't know whether he put Lady Betty at the top of
the list or not, and if that's the way you feel about our nice little
stunt, I expect it's just as well not to enquire further."

All the rest of the trip has been spoiled for me, by the hateful way in
which the excitement of that day ended, and it does seem too bad, for
everything might have been so nice.

Whether people really do make ill-natured jokes or not, I don't know;
but anyhow, Mrs. Ess Kay keeps hinting that they do, which is almost as
disagreeable for me. She says that they have nicknamed the bronze man
"Lady Betty's Hero"; and this has made me so self-conscious that I
can't bear to go near the part of the deck where you look over into the
steerage, for fear some silly creatures may think I'm trying to see
him. I feel as if I had been a conspicuous idiot, and I'm so
uncomfortable with Mrs. Ess Kay now, that I expect to be wretched in
her house. I can't talk it over even with Sally, because, after all,
she's Mrs. Ess Kay's cousin. I wish I had a nose two inches long, and
green hair, and then perhaps Mother and Vic would have let me stop at
home.

Still, I can't help taking an interest in ship life, and now that it's
the morning of the last day on board, I look back on it all as if it
ought to have been even more fun than it was.

I enjoyed hearing about the Marconigrams when they came; it seemed like
living in a tale by Stan's favourite, Jules Verne, to have messages
come flying to us in mid-ocean, like invisible carrier pigeons. I
enjoyed having Mr. Doremus tell me about his luck in the big pools,
when the men bet on the day's run; and I'm afraid I rather revelled in
seeing a row on deck one evening, when one man accused another of being
a cheat and a professional gambler, and almost cried about some money
he'd lost. If I had been the first man, I wouldn't have trusted the
other in the beginning, because he had fat lips, greasy black curls,
and wicked eyes so close together you felt they might run into one, if
he winked too hard on a hot day. But if I _had_ been so stupid as to
trust him, I would have been ashamed to make a fuss afterwards. I think
people ought to be sporting.

I liked the "Captain's dinner," too, in honour of the last night on
board, with the flags and paper-flower decorations, the band playing
military music, the dishes on the menu named after famous generals, and
the stewards filing in, in a long procession, when the salon had been
darkened, each carrying a bright-coloured, illuminated ice, and cake
with tiny English, and American, and German flags stuck into the top.

Yes, I liked everything, except--but now it is nearly over. America is
just round the corner of the world.

III

ABOUT NEW YORK

After you have seen nothing but water for days, it's odd how excited
you are on seeing a little land. Just a little, little land, and not at
all interesting to look at; a strip of grey sand, or a patch of green
grass; and you have been only a few days away from such things, yet
somehow you want to jump up and down and shout for joy.

More than half the first-class passengers on our ship were Americans,
coming home, and I suppose they had gone away because they wanted to
go. If they had liked, they could have stopped in their own country as
well as not; and I heard some of them saying during the voyage that if
they could, they would spend nine months out of the year in Paris; but
they made as much fuss over the first lump of sand we saw as if we were
discovering the North Pole. Some of them had taken this trip a dozen
times or maybe more, but anyone would have thought it was as new to
them as to me.

It seemed as if I were sailing, in a dream, to a dream land, and
everything would be a dream, till I found myself waking up at home. If
anyone had pinched me, I hardly believe I should have felt it, as I
stood by the rail, while we steamed towards New York. We passed a big
fort, and some neat little houses, which looked like officers'
quarters. There were Long Island and Coney Island, which Mr. Doremus
said I must be "personally conducted" to see, some day when I felt
young and frivolous; and by and by I heard people exclaiming "There's
Liberty--there she is! Bless the dear old girl!"

While I was wondering whether they were talking of a lady, or a ship, I
caught sight of a majestic giantess, obligingly holding a torch up to
light the world. Then I knew it was the Statue which I had read about.

"What do you think of her?" asked Mr. Doremus.

"She's a _grande dame_," I said. "Now I know why your girls hold
themselves so well. They're trying to live up to the Ideal American
Woman. But she isn't as big as I thought she would be. Nothing ever is
as big as you think it's going to be, especially when Americans have
told you about it; for one has been brought up to believe that their
big things are bigger than anybody else's in the whole world."

"So they are," said Mr. Doremus, "only where all the things are big,
you don't notice them, for the high grass. And over there's some of the
grass."

He pointed, and I saw a great number of enormous objects, shaped like
chimneys, and apparently about a mile high, scattered aimlessly along
the horizon, which was a brilliant, limpid blue.

"What are they?" I asked. "Great, strange, factories of some sort?"

"No. Houses where pretty women live, and offices where men make the
money for them to live on."

"You must be joking. Women would be afraid to perch up there in the
sky. Besides, it would take too long to go up and down."

"Nothing takes long in America. And it comes natural to our women to
perch up high. Statues aren't the only things we buy pedestals for,
this side of the porpoise-tank. You just wait and see."

"I don't need to wait to see that American men are nice to women," said
I; "perhaps no nicer than Englishmen, really, only you seem to take a
great deal more trouble. Fancy all the men at Mrs. Van der Windt's
table drawing lots every night for the right to sit by her and the two
Miss Eastmans; I don't believe it would have occurred to Englishmen.
The ones who _really_ wanted to sit there, would have tried to get to
their places first, that's all. I do think it was pretty of you."

"Wasn't it? especially supposing none of us particularly wanted--but
never mind. Talking of pretty things, here are the docks."

They were big enough to satisfy even my expectations, and I wished that
I'd insisted on being taken by someone long ago, to visit the London
docks, so that I might know whether ours were better or worse. One
never thinks of going to see things at home; but I began to suspect
that I might some day be stabbed with jealous pangs and need to be
stuffed with a lot of facts about England--though until I knew
Americans I've been in the habit of thinking facts the least
interesting things in the world. They seemed like chairs to sit on or
floors to walk on without noticing what you were doing; but I suppose
it might be awkward without chairs and floors.

Soon we were near enough to New York to see the tremendous chimney
things clearly, and they sharpened the impression that I was sailing
straight into a dream. There could be no such things in the real world;
they wouldn't be possible. But the dream felt very interesting and
intense all of a sudden, and I didn't want to wake up from it just
then, in spite of Mrs. Ess Kay.

The tall shapes were bright and vivid now, as giant hollyhocks growing
in irregular rows. Still, they did not look one bit like houses, or
offices where people could work without going stark, staring mad. I got
a queer idea in my head that the houses themselves must be buried deep
underground, like bulbs, with only their towers sticking up.

The next thing that happened in the dream, was slowing majestically
into our own dock, and that was wonderful. The whole place was alive
with faces, mostly pretty girls' faces, under fascinating hats, gay as
flowers in a flower-show; parterre above parterre of brilliant
blossoms; and they had all been grown in honour of us.

There was a wild waving of handkerchiefs on the ship, and a frantic
fluttering of white among the flowers, as if a flock of butterflies had
been frightened up into the air. Still we were a long time getting in,
and I grew quite impatient; but finally Louise, who had attended to my
packing, took charge of my handbag, my sunshade and coat, with her
mistress's and Miss Woodburn's things. The moment had come to bid the
ship good-bye.

"Now," said Mrs. Ess Kay, slipping her arm into mine, "I wonder, dear
child, if you would mind being left alone to deal with the custom-house
people? You'd stand under your own letter 'B,' of course."

"Oh, Katherine, do you think even Letter B, which sounds so like a
warning to young men, a proper chaperon for a Duchess's daughter?"
exclaimed Sally Woodburn.

I laughed, but Mrs. Ess Kay didn't. She evidently considers things
connected with the American Custom House no fit subject for frivolity.
She went on, without answering; "I'm under 'K,' and Sally 'W.' We'll
both have all we can attend to wrestling with our own Fiends, and
Louise will be just as busy. But you're a British subject, on a short
visit to this country, and they won't be as diabolical to you, dear. I
did all the swearing necessary for you in the saloon, with my own, when
the tiresome man came on board, and there's really nothing left for you
to bother with on the dock, except to open your boxes and say you have
nothing to declare."

I was glad that since profanity had been called for in the saloon,
owing to the tiresomeness of a man, it had been Mrs. Ess Kay who was
obliged to give vent to it, not I; but I felt rather defrauded that I
couldn't have heard, and I wondered if she had gone so far as to
mention "damn." All I said out loud, however, was that I was sure I
could manage very well in the docks, and Mrs. Ess Kay appeared much
relieved. "That's perfectly sweet of you, Betty," she said, launching a
daggery glance at poor, inoffensive Sally, for some reason which I
couldn't understand. "I hope you won't think I'm horrid not to have
asked you to label your baggage 'K,' so it could go with mine. It's
better not, for _everyone_ concerned; I'll explain afterwards _why_;
and Louise shall take you to 'B.'"

Louise did take me to "B," which they had thoughtfully printed very
large and black on a wooden wall of the dock, in a row with all the
other letters of the alphabet. A good many people from the ship were
collecting beneath theirs, as if they were animals getting ready to
join the procession for the ark, under the heading of Cat or Elephant,
as the case might be; and they all seemed worried and apprehensive, as
you do at the dentist's, even when you try to distract your mind by
looking at the pictures in _Punch_.

Louise put my bag on the wooden floor, and folded my coat on it.
"Miladi will do well to sit down," said she. "It may be that the
baggage do not come _immediatement_." With this she bustled away to the
Louise rabbit warren, wherever it was, leaving me to the tender mercies
of fellow "B's," who began to swarm round me and buzz distractedly.

I subsided on the bag, which was very like sitting on the floor; but it
was stifling down there among people's feet; besides, mine soon got
"pins and needles"; so presently I popped up like a Jack out of his
Box, and almost knocked off a man's nose with the crown of my hat.

I said "I _beg_ your pardon!" though what the nose was doing so near
the top of my head I couldn't conceive, until its owner (fumbling with
one hand for his handkerchief to staunch a drop of blood, and snatching
off his straw hat with the other, already full of notebooks and things)
blurted out abruptly: "Are you Lady Bulkeley?"

I _was_ surprised!

"No," said I. "I'm Lady Betty Bulkeley."

"That's all right," said the nose man, as if he forgave me for being
myself. "I didn't know but you'd want to be called Lady Bulkeley by
strangers."

"It isn't my name," I said, more puzzled than ever. I would have tried
to be dignified, as he was a perky-looking young man in an alpaca coat;
but when you have just made a person's nose bleed with your hat, it
would seem unfeeling to be too frigid,--though I believe an application
of ice is supposed to be beneficial.

"Shall I call you Lady Betty then?" asked the man, patting his nose
with his handkerchief, which luckily for my nerves had already a
pattern of pink dots on it.

"I don't see why you should call me anything," said I.

With that, he produced a card, with a whole string of words printed on
it, and poked it under my eyes. "I was just going to introduce myself,"
he said. "I represent _The New York Flashlight_, and I've been sent by
my paper to get something from you, if you'll oblige me."

"Something from me?" I repeated, bewildered. "Is it anything to do with
the Customs? I've nothing to declare."

"Just tell me, please, something about your family. Your brother's the
Duke of Stanforth, isn't he?" (He pronounced it "Dook.")

"Yes, but----"

"Thanks. Young and unmarried, isn't he?"

"Yes. But----"

"Ever been on this side?"

"No. But----"

"He'll come some day, won't he? Most unmarried Dukes do."

"I don't know, I'm sure. Really, I think----"

"Excuse me. You're going to stay with Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, I believe.
Will you make a lengthy visit?"

"I don't----"

"You must have met one or two of our smartest young men on board. What
do you think of them as compared with Englishmen?"

Long before this I had made up my mind that he couldn't have anything
to do with the Customs, or if he did, that it was no wonder Mrs. Ess
Kay had been driven to swearing in the saloon. I was glad now that his
nose was bleeding, and I turned my back upon him, because it was the
most emphatic gesture I could think of. But as I faced round the other
way, wondering if my luggage would ever come, another man pushed
through the "B's" who had got their boxes, and almost bounded into a
foot of unoccupied space in front of me.

"Lady Bulkeley?" he shot at me, like history repeating itself; only he
pronounced me as if my name were founded on my size and weight.

This time I didn't answer. I simply stood at bay, and stared, trying to
look as much like Mother as possible. But the new man didn't seem to
mind this in the least, so apparently my effort was not a success.

"I'm _The Evening Bat_," he remarked hurriedly, with an air of valuing
his time at so much a second.

I was sorry he was a bat, for I've always been fond of bats, they are
such soft, grey, velvet things; and I should have liked to tell him
that he was much more like a chicken hawk, only that would have been
vulgar; and, besides, I didn't intend to pose as chicken to his hawk.
By way of not letting myself be gobbled up, I remained silent; but I
couldn't help starting when a voice behind me exclaimed: "Ah, there, my
chappie. You're welcome to the milk. I've skimmed off the cream. Ta,
ta."

It was the _Flashlight_ flashing at the _Evening Bat_.

The creature was not blinded, however. He seemed difficult to
disconcert. The only response he made was to grin, and push his hat a
little farther back on his head. An inch more, and it must have slid
down over his collar--which was so low in the neck in front that it
gave me the creeps.

"There's plenty of milk and roses, too, I guess," said he, staring in
such a way that I blushed, and was vexed with myself for blushing. I
peered anxiously about, hoping to see a face I knew, even ever so
slightly, which might be summoned to the rescue. But all the "B's" were
passionately minding their own business, and while I was wishing that
Mr. Doremus began with a "B" instead of a "D," I caught the eyes of
a man looking straight at me. The very nicest eyes, and with an
expression in them that filled me with joy!

They said: "Do let me come and get rid of that fellow for you," and
mine said: "Yes--yes--yes. Please come at once."

So the Eyes came, without waiting for more; and it was the Hero of the
steerage who brought them. That was the reason I'd telegraphed "yes,
yes"; for I thought: "He saved a little boy, why shouldn't I trust him,
without an introduction, to save me?"

"Look here," said the bronze man to the _Evening Bat_, "I've got just
five minutes to spare. You can have them if you like."

The _Evening Bat_ looked at him, crossly at first; then his sharp
little face seemed turning into a point of admiration. "By
Je_hos_aphat!" he ejaculated. "Home-made goods will get the preference
over British this time, duty or _no_ duty."

I couldn't think what either of them meant, though at first I was
afraid my man intended the other to understand that the five minutes
would be devoted to knocking him down, or something else violent, as a
punishment for impertinence to a defenceless foreigner. But my mind was
almost instantly relieved, for the two men walked off together quite
amicably, and stood talking at a distance.

A moment later, one of my boxes went by, looking very fat and friendly,
on the shoulders of a porter, who apparently had no head. I rushed out,
and seized it--not the head, but the box; so there was something
encouraging; but I had two pieces of luggage to wait for still.

Most of the other "B's" were more fortunate about getting their things;
nevertheless, they seemed far from easy in their minds, and though they
protested almost tearfully that they'd nothing whatever to declare,
stern persons in uniform stirred up their boxes as I used to do with
the nursery pudding, when all the plums had sunk to the bottom.

I was very tired and very hot, hotter than I'd supposed people could
be, except in a Turkish bath; and I was beginning to be hungry too, for
I'd lunched principally off the Statue of Liberty and Sky-scrapers,
which were more filling than lasting, as a meal.

I fanned myself with my handkerchief as well as I could, and felt sure
I was slowly getting appendicitis; because whenever Americans feel
uncomfortable in any way, it seems almost certain to turn eventually
into that, probably on account of the climate. Would my other boxes
_never_ come? I thought. Most of the "B's" were going home. They had
homes, lucky people, and if they liked, they could presently have tea.

"World without tea,
Ah me!"

When I was small, and my nurse talked on Sundays about heaven and hell,
making the one sound incredibly dull, the other incredibly painful, I
used to think that I'd rather go to neither, but just be stuffed, like
Mother's Blenheim, Beau Brummel, whose soul I fancied had leave to stop
in his body so long as moth and rust did not corrupt. He seemed rather
out of things, though, poor dear, standing forever in the same position
in a glass case, with one paw up begging for something which nobody
gave, while the years dragged on; and I'd begun to feel as if I were
falling into his state, when I was roused from a stupid dream by the
man of the steerage suddenly looming over me.

"I beg your pardon," said he, taking off his hat, and speaking in a
nice American voice, as nice for a man as Sally Woodburn's is for a
woman. "Please don't suppose I mean to be rude or intrusive, but I
wanted to tell you that I think you won't be annoyed again; and--just
one thing more. May I thank you for your goodness on shipboard? It
brightened what would otherwise have been a grim experience."

Blind Mrs. Ess Kay to pronounce this man not a gentleman, just because
some strange circumstances had forced him to travel in the steerage! I
did wish that, without his knowing it, I could have slipped into his
pocket my thirty pounds!

"Oh, I did nothing," I answered. "It was the other people who did
everything--the little that was done. It's I who have to thank you, for
taking that person away. He and the other, who came just before, were
so rude."

"They didn't mean to be rude," he said. "They wanted you to tell them
something which they could put into their papers, and they live by
doing that kind of thing. I did the best I could with them, but I wish
I could have saved you from being annoyed in the beginning. I hesitated
at first, for fear you might misunderstand, and think me as bad as they
were; but I wish I hadn't now."

"After what I saw you do, at sea, I couldn't possibly have
misunderstood," I said.

"Thank you for saying that," he returned, "though for what I did then,
I don't deserve any praise. It was done on the impulse; and I'm used to
salt water. As a child, I lived close to it for a time, in California,
and swimming came almost as natural as walking. But I'm not here to
talk about myself. It was only to tell you how grateful I was, and am,
and shall continue to be, for your kindness on the ship. I couldn't go
without speaking of this; and there's something now I'd like to ask.
You won't be offended?"

"If it's something you want to tell me, I know it isn't the sort of
thing which could offend," I said; but I didn't say it as calmly as it
looks when written. I stammered a little, and got the words tangled up;
and I felt my face growing hotter than ever.

"I thank you again. It's only this. If, while you're over on this side
the water, there's ever any way in which a man--a man who'd be as
respectful as your footman, and loyal as your friend--could possibly
serve you--I wish you would let me be that man. I know it seems now as
if such a thing couldn't happen; but nothing's quite impossible in this
queer world, and--and anyhow I shall always be ready. You could trust
me----"

"I know that!" I couldn't resist breaking in.

"I'm--employed for the present at a club in New York. If you'd send
word to Jim Brett, at the Manhattan Club, there's nothing under the sun
that Jim Brett wouldn't do for you, from finding a lost dog, to taking
a message across the world."

"First I must catch my dog before I can lose him," I answered,
laughing. "But if I do, or--or there's anything else, I shan't forget."

"That's a true promise, then; and I have to thank you for the third
time. Now, I'm not going to trouble you any longer. Good-bye."

Without stopping to think who he was, or who I was, I held out my hand,
and his good-looking brown face grew red. He took the hand, pressed it
hard, once; dropped it abruptly; turned on his heel and walked away,
without looking back.

I was so interested in going over the conversation in my mind, that I
forgot to feel like Beau Brummel with one paw up in his glass case; and
though I daresay ten minutes had passed, it hardly seemed two, when a
wonderful little black image in the shape of a boy came sidling up to
me, all rolling white eyes, and red grin, like a nice Newfoundland
puppy. He had some newspapers tucked under his arm, but in his hand was
a small basket of peaches almost too beautiful to be real. But then,
weren't they--and wasn't he--part of my dream?

He grinned so much more that I was afraid his round black face would
break into two separate halves, and looking at me with his woolly head
on one side, he thrust out the basket.

"Fur you, missy," said he, with a funny little accent, for all the
world like Sally Woodburn's.

"They can't be for me. There must be a mistake," said I, wishing there
wasn't, for the peaches did look delicious; and there were two rosebuds
lying on top of the basket; one pink, the other white. "I don't know
anyone who could have sent them."

"The gent knows you, you bet, missy," replied the image. "He guv me a
quarter and axed if I know'd my alphabet 'nuf to find letter 'B,' an'
tote dese yere to the prettiest young lady I'd ever seed. Most wite
ladies, dey looks all jes' alike, to me, but you's different, missy;
an' I reckon de tings must be fur you."

I had a horrible vision of this compliment proceeding from _The
Flashlight_ or _The Evening Bat_. "What was the gentleman like?" I
asked.

"Like mos' any gent, missy, 'cept that he was powerful tall, an' I
reckon if he keeps right on like he's doin' now, he'll get mos' as
brown as me some day."

Then I knew that I was safe in taking the present; so I did, and gave
the comical black image two or three little round white metal things
I'd got from the purser when I changed some English money. I didn't
know how much they were, and they looked ridiculously small, but he
seemed pleased.

When he had run off, I turned my attention to the peaches. They were so
big that there was room only for four in the basket, and they seemed
dreadfully pathetic considering from whom they had come.

That poor fellow must be almost penniless or he wouldn't have been in
the steerage; yet he had bought peaches for me, and given a
"quarter"--whatever that was--to his quaint black doll of a messenger.
I could have cried; nevertheless, I ate two of the peaches, and
reluctantly presented the other two, which I couldn't possibly eat, to
a gloomy "B" child, sitting on a shawl-strap.

As if for a reward of virtue, just as I had disposed of my leavings,
and stuck the roses into my belt, the last of the luggage arrived.
There were two Custom House men near to choose from, and as I've heard,
in choosing between two evils it's better to choose the less, I smiled
beseechingly at the smaller man who had just crammed a pile of lace
blouses into the box of a lady with nervous prostration.

Whether he was sated with cruelty, or whether he was naturally of an
angelic disposition, I shall probably never know now; but the fact
remains that, instead of turning out the Fiend I'd been led to expect,
he was one of the most considerate men I've ever met. He wouldn't even
let me unlock my own boxes, but took the keys and opened them for me
himself. (Didn't an executioner braid the hair of some queen whose head
he was going to chop off? I must look the incident up, when I have
time.) Anyway, I thought of it when the Custom House man was being so
polite; but the analogy didn't go any farther, for my head never came
off at all, and two of the boxes remained unopened.

"You're English, aren't you?" he asked, and when I said yes, and that I
was only on a short visit, he treated my belongings as if they were
sacred. If he disturbed anything, he laid it back nicely, keeping up a
running conversation as he went on. I told him that Englishwomen might
bring home all the pretty clothes they liked from other countries, and
that I considered it most ungallant in such a chivalrous nation as
America to deny ladies a few Paris dresses.

"Do you happen to know, miss, what's the income-tax in your country?"
he asked, tenderly putting back some yellow hairpins which had fallen
out of a box of mine.

"Dear me, no," I exclaimed. "But I think it's sometimes more than a
shilling in the pound; I've heard my brother say so; and as for the
death duties, it's more than your life's worth to die."

"A-ah!" said the nice man. "We haven't got any income-tax on this side,
and folks can die in peace, whenever they please. I guess that kind of
evens things up, don't it?"

I didn't know what to answer, so I thanked him for his kindness, and we
parted the best of friends.

Mrs. Ess Kay appeared so quickly afterwards, that it almost seemed as
if she must have been lying in wait. She was looking pale and
shattered, and Louise, following close behind, was positively haggard.
Only Sally had weathered the storm without being outwardly the worse
for wear; but even she didn't look as good-natured as usual.

"How have you got along, you poor, deserted darling?" affectionately
enquired Mrs. Ess Kay, undismayed by a fixed gaze from Sally, which
apparently signified reproach.

"It wasn't very bad, and I've quite enjoyed myself," I replied,
forgetting some tedious moments in the light of others not tedious, and
hoping that the roses in my belt might pass unnoticed.

Fortunately they did, otherwise I should have been in a difficulty; for
I should have hated to vulgarise the little episode by putting it into
story form for Mrs. Ess Kay; and presumably roses have not been taught
to grow wild on the New York docks, although they say Americans are so
very luxurious in their tastes one would hardly be surprised at
anything.

A beautiful electric carriage, bigger than a brougham, was waiting for
us, and we left Louise, with a butler or some other man servant out of
livery, to wrestle with the luggage, and bring it in cabs (which they
called "hacks"), up to Mrs. Ess Kay's house in New York, where I knew
she meant to stop for a few days before going on to Newport.

The minute we drove away from the Docks I began to notice dozens of
things which made me tremendously conscious that I was in a foreign
country. One would think, as so many of these people were English, or
anyway, British, before they were Americans, that their buildings and
everything else would be enough like to remind one of home. But each
street we turned into showed me that this isn't at all true in New
York. There are bits like Paris--at least you think so, on a
superficial glance--but nothing in the faintest degree like London.

Something in the air too, made me feel excited, as it does in Paris.
Sparks of electricity snapped in my veins, and I had a presentiment of
interesting things that must surely happen.

I've always been very sensitive to smells, which can make me joyful or
miserable, just as music does. Vic says I oughtn't to tell people this,
as it signifies I'm still in close touch with brute creation. But I
don't much mind if I am, for so many animals are nicer than we are;
dogs and horses, for instance; and then one has to acknowledge, whether
one likes or not, that a monkey is a kind of poor relation. Each place
I've ever visited has its own smell for me, and even houses and people.
I would know the smell of Battlemead towers, if I were taken there by
winding ways, with my eyes blindfolded. It's the smell of old oak, and
_potpourri_, and books and chintz, and autumn leaves and pine trees,
mixed together. Mother smells like a tea rose, and Vic like a wax doll.
London has a rich, heavy scent, which makes you feel as if you had a
great deal of money and wanted to spend it, but not in a hurry. The
smell of Paris makes you want to laugh, and clap your hands and go to
the theatre. The smell of Rome makes you feel as if you wished to be
very beautiful, and move to the slow accompaniment of a magnificent
church organ, with the Vox Humana stop drawn out. But New York--the
smell of New York! How shall I describe the sensation it gave me, as
Mrs. Ess Kay's electric carriage smoothly spun me up town? The heavy
feeling of homesickness which I had had on the ship for the last few
days was gone; and instead I felt a wild sense of exhilaration, as if
I'd come dashing home after a glorious run with the hounds, and plunged
into a cold bath with two bottles of Eau de Cologne poured into the
water.

It was amazingly hot, but the breeze gave a hint of the sea, and every
shop and house we passed seemed to keep spices stored away, for the
breeze to blow over.

Even the old-fashioned houses, no higher than those in London, were as
different from ours as possible; and it was extraordinary to see
people--nicely dressed women, and pretty girls--perched on the front
steps under awnings, without so much as a pocket-handkerchief lawn
between them and the street. Persons of that class at home would be far
too shy to lounge about and be stared at, not only by the neighbours,
but by twenty strangers a minute; yet here they sat on rugs, and read,
or did embroidery, or swung back and forth in chairs that rocked like
cradles, paying no more attention to the passers than if they had been
flies.

By and by we came out of the quiet streets walled in with monotonous
rows of red brick or brown stone houses, into a scene of terror. It was
a street, too; but what a street! I thought that I'd grown accustomed
to motoring through traffic, for once Stan took me in his Panhard, all
the way from Battlemead to Pall Mall, where he stood me a very jolly
luncheon at the Carlton Hotel, but that experience was nothing to this.
I felt a little jumpy with Stan when we shot between omnibuses in a
space which looked twice too narrow, and once when I thought a
frightfully tall horse was going to bite off my hat; but I soon got
used to it.

If I were driven every day of my life for a year, through this terrible
street in New York, though, I should be no more used to it on the last
day than on the first. The only change in me at the end of that time
would be in my hair, which would have turned snow white, and be
standing up permanently all over my head like Struempel-Peter's, only
worse.

London roars--a monotonous, cannon-balls-in-the-cellar roar, with just
a light tinkle of hansom cabs sprinkled over the top of the solid
sound; but that great straight street into which we suddenly flashed
had no solid sound. It shrieked in short, sharp yells, made up of a
dozen distinct noises, each one louder and more insistent than the
other.

There were trams and tram bells, and motors and carriages, and over all
an appalling thunder of trains rushing to and fro above our heads, on
lines roofing the entire street, built upon iron stilts. Every minute
they swooped by, running north and south, and I trembled lest they
should leap their tracks and crush us into powder.

"It's only the Elevated, deah," said Sally, pitying my agitation, "and
it's never fallen down yet, so I don't believe it will to-day. You
shall take a ride with me if Cousin Katherine will let you, which she
probably won't. You can't think what fun it is shooting past the
windows of the houses; just like glancing into an exciting story book
you know you'll never have a chance to finish. You do get a peep into
tragedies and comedies, sometimes."

"My goodness!" I exclaimed. "I'm thankful I don't have to live in one
of those houses. It must be impossible ever to take a bath, or to get
engaged, properly."

Fortunately for my peace of mind, we didn't stop very long in that
fierce street, but cut across again, and came out in Fifth Avenue, of
which one seems to be born knowing a little more than of other streets
in America. Just as almost everyone in English novels lives in Park
Lane, so all the New Yorkers you read of live in Fifth Avenue; and I
should have been disappointed if Mrs. Ess Kay hadn't, because in that
case I should eventually have to go home without studying home life in
the States from the right standpoint.

At first, I didn't see where the grand houses I'd heard of, kept
themselves, for everywhere were smart shops, and public buildings,
and--so close now that we could put down our sunshades--mountainous
"sky-scrapers." The shops were beautiful, though Mrs. Ess Kay
apologised for them by saying that it was out of season, and I'd never
seen so much brilliance of colour or variety in a street. I tried to
search for the cause of this effect, but I couldn't define it. Perhaps
it was partly the clearness of the atmosphere, but there was a great
deal more than that. Everything you passed seemed to be pink, or pale
green or gold, or ivory white, or ultramarine blue; yet when you really
thought it out detail by detail, it wasn't. And though I'd considered
the sky-scrapers awful, from a distance, spinning along at their feet I
couldn't deny them a fantastic kind of attractiveness.

At our rate of speed, I hadn't to wait many minutes for the grand Fifth
Avenue houses; and oh, poor London--poor, dear London! I wanted to fly
back and tear down Buckingham Palace.

Mrs. Ess Kay had always talked about her "New York home," which made it
sound rather small and modest, so I was surprised when we stopped
before a huge, square pile, built of rich-looking, rough brown stones,
so nearly the colour of a Christmas plum pudding that it made me
hungrier than ever to look at it. The house is trimmed with three wide
bands of carving, made of the same kind of stone; and there are carved
bronze railings and lamps on the porch; and the front door is carved,
too, like the door of a cathedral.

We were let into a vestibule, all coloured mosaic and things; and that
opened into a big, square, glassed-over garden, with a great marble
fountain playing in the middle. I never saw such a wonderful place in
my life, but until I got used to it, I couldn't help feeling that it
was more like a splendid foreign hotel, than a mere house. The garden
isn't a real garden, when you come to examine it, for it's paved with
rare stones of different colours, like the jewels in Aladdin's Cave;
but all round the fountain beautiful flowers are growing, and pink and
white water lilies float in the marble basin. There are orange trees in
pots, and a forest of tall palms, all of which are reflected and
repeated over and over again in the mirrors of which the walls are
made; and on the little tables standing about here and there among
groups of inlaid chairs are bowls overflowing with roses. The roof is a
skylight, over which creepers have been trained, so that the light
which filters through is a lovely green. No doors are visible at first
glance, but when you are initiated, all you have to do is to walk up to
the mirror-wall, find a gold button, press it, and a door opens into a
room as marvellous as the fountain court, round which, it seems, all
the rest of the house is built.

"We'll have something to drink here," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "before we
take off our things." So we all sat down, among the palms and orange
blossoms, and a delicious sense of peace after storm stole over us with
the coolness and the green dusk, and the perfume of flowers.

I supposed that "something to drink" at this time of day meant tea; but
almost immediately a footman came through the glass wall, carrying a
tray with nothing on it except tall tumblers. There were straws
sticking out of the tumblers, and as the man moved, I could hear a
faint tinkle of ice.

For a minute, I was bitterly disappointed, because the thought of tea
had supported me for hours. But when I tasted the stuff in my glass I
wasn't disappointed any longer. It had two or three strawberries, some
bits of pineapple, and a white grape bobbing about on top, and it was
full of chopped ice. I don't know what it was, for nobody mentioned
it's name, and I was ashamed to ask, lest it might seem too ignorant;
but it was good, and tasted as if it might have a little wine in it,
mixed with fizzy water and other things. When I had drunk mine, I felt
a different girl; quite merry, and so friendly towards Mrs. Ess Kay. I
had never thought her such a nice woman. I laughed at almost everything
that she and Sally said, and I said some rather funny things myself.
Still, I'm not sure that as a regular thing, I wouldn't rather have
tea.

We sat resting for some time, though I wasn't tired at all now. I could
have run a mile, but suddenly I felt a little sleepy, and I was glad
when Mrs. Ess Kay proposed to go to our rooms. Leaving the fountain
court, we came into a hall, hung with tapestry; and from it a wide
stairway led us up to a gallery, lighted from the top, which runs all
round the house, with the doors of the bedrooms opening off from it.

Mine is so gorgeous that I haven't known one thoroughly comfy moment in
it, since I came, except at night when I'm asleep.

One would think, as Battlemead is ranked among the finest old Tudor
places in England, and people come on Thursdays and give shillings to
see it (a very good thing for us, though it's extremely inconvenient,
as it pays for all the gardens and all the servants' wages) that it
would be grander than quite a new house, in a country like America. But
Battlemead, in its palmiest days, must have been _shabby_ beside Mrs.
Ess Kay's "home" in New York.

Our grandest bedroom,--the one where Queen Elizabeth slept--is quite a
dull old hole compared to Mrs. Ess Kay's splendid room. Mine, at home,
has all the furniture covered with faded chintz, and the curtains are
made of plain white dimity. But I love the deep window seats where I
can curl up among cushions, with a cataract of roses veiling the
picture of the terrace with its ivy-covered stone balustrade, the
sun-dial, the two white peacocks, and far away, the park with a blue
mist among the trees. And I haven't learned yet to love my beautiful
room at Mrs. Ess Kay's, though I admire it immensely--admire to the
verge of awe.

It's pink and white and silver. The carpet is pink, and feels like
moss, as you step. The wall is covered with pink and silver brocade,
except where there are panels with Watteau-like pictures. The curtains
are foamy lace, with the pink and silver brocade falling over them. The
furniture looks as if it were made of ivory; there's a mirror in three
parts, reaching from the floor half way to the ceiling, so that you see
yourself in front, and two profiles, like astral bodies, things which
I've always wanted to cultivate, as they would be so nice for trying on
dresses, or making calls on dull people. On the dressing-table is
another mirror, an oval one, framed with pink roses, each of which has
an electric light hidden in its heart; and the bedspread is of pink and
silver brocade to match the hangings, with a large, hard roll like an
ossified bolster, at the top.

I believe it's that bed more than anything else, which makes me feel
that it's always Sunday in my room at Mrs. Ess Kay's. I'm used to
old-fashioned, ruffly pillows and a plain white coverlet smelling of
lavender, on which I can flop down whenever I like, to read a novel or
to have a nice little "weep." But there's no flopping on this gorgeous
pink and silver expanse, and it's small consolation to know that no
queen of England ever had one as handsome.

Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally escorted me to my room, when I came to it first.
After I'd admired everything enough to satisfy them, I was taken to see
the bathroom adjoining, and then a kind of wardrobe room opening out of
that. I was almost prostrated by the magnificence of both, which
pleased Mrs. Ess Kay very much; and in the grand wardrobe room,
smelling deliciously, though faintly, of cedar, my poor boxes--already
arrived--looked mean and insignificant. Mrs. Ess Kay's and Sally's huge
"Innovations" would have been much more appropriate than my
dress-baskets, which had been squashed into lop-sided deformity under
heavier things, in the hold.

Louise was on the scene armed with my keys and Mrs. Ess Kay wouldn't
hear of letting me do anything myself. "_Now_, I'll explain why I had
to desert you on the dock," she said. "Or perhaps I needn't explain. If
you watch Louise unpacking for a few minutes, you'll see for yourself.
And I do hope, sweet child, that you'll excuse my taking a liberty."

This made me curious. Louise opened one of my boxes which had been
labelled "Not Wanted," and I could hardly believe my eyes when she
lifted out an exquisite poppy-coloured chiffon, embroidered with sprays
of golden holly and berries made of some gleaming red jewel.

"Why, there's been some extraordinary mistake!" I exclaimed. "That
can't be my box. I've no such dress."

"I know, love, but I _have_," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "and thanks to you,
I've got it, and several others, through without paying duty. I thought
you wouldn't mind, you're such a dear pet, and it's been _such_ an
accommodation. Not that I care about the money, but I do love to get
the best of those Fiends at the Custom House, and I _have_, for once.
You see, it was like this. When Louise went to the baggage room to get
out some things for you, I had them put in my trunks, afterwards, and
some of my dresses changed into yours, as your frocks had all been worn
and mine hadn't. I told Louise to put my things down at the bottom,
some in each of your trunks, and I was pretty sure the man wouldn't
touch them, as you're a British subject. I trusted to luck that you'd
be too 'cute to say anything and give me away, if you saw the dresses
while your trunks were being examined, but I just _hoped_ he wouldn't
dig down to them. I dared not tell you what was going on, as Sally said
I ought to, because if I had you might have refused, or else spoiled
everything by being self-conscious. If you'd been with me, the Fiends
might have caught on to our little game, they're so suspicious; but
where you were, they never suspected any connection between us. You're
just a _Dear_."

I had been a Dear in spite of myself, but there was no use in making a
fuss now the Dearness was all over, whatever I might have done if I'd
known beforehand that I was to be a cat's-paw. Perhaps, if I hadn't
been given the iced stuff with the strawberries, I might have been
crosser; but fortified by that, I lived up to my reputation as a Dear,
during the half hour of the unpacking.

When my frocks all hung in a row like Bluebeard's wives, in the cedar
wardrobe, and I was left alone with them at last, my first thought was
to plunge my imprisoned roses in water; my second, to do the same with
myself.

The hope of tea (which hadn't been fulfilled) and a bath had kept me
alive through those two hot hours on the dock; and now I could choose
between several kinds of bath, each one more luxurious than any I had
ever known. At home there's either the big bath, in the bathroom, or
there's a tub in your bedroom, so it doesn't take you long to make up
your mind which you will have. But here there were so many things I
could do, that I grew quite confused among them.

There was the big bath, so big that two of our big ones at Battlemead
could have gone into it; and instead of climbing ignominiously in, in
the ordinary way, you walked down several glittering white marble
steps. It was very alluring, but as the marble tank was so vast, I
feared I might have to spend all the rest of the afternoon in getting
it full of water. It seemed impertinent to make a convenience of such a
splendid, early Roman sort of receptacle for a mere five minutes'
splash; a bath of such magnificence ought, I felt, to be what Americans
call a "function"; a ceremony for which you would prepare with perfumed
ointments and ambergris, and protract for half a day, at least, not to
be wasteful. Then there was the vapour bath, which you took in a kind
of box, with a hole for your head to stick out; a porcelain sitz bath;
and a mysterious shower bath into which you secretively retired behind
canvas curtains, shaped like a sentry box.

I dared not try the vapour, for fear I should be steamed, like a
potato; the sitz seemed as inadequate as a thwarted ambition; and to
turn on the shower without knowing how much it could do, or how soon it
could be stopped, appeared a desperate adventure. After all, I thought,
it was less worrying with us. Here, whichever thing you chose, you
would probably wish you had had the other, whereas at home you did what
you could, and were perfectly satisfied.

I decided that I would toss up a coin; heads, the big marble tank;
tails, the shower. It came tails, and I had a dreadful qualm, but
_noblesse oblige_; one must be sporting. So I was; only the hot water
wouldn't come, and apparently there was ice in the cold, which wouldn't
stop coming, and it was very violent. I screamed once, and Mrs. Ess Kay
and Sally and Louise ran to the door, which was embarrassing; but
fortunately, I'd locked it, and they told me how to stop the iced
water. When it was all over, I felt like a marble statue for hours.

Dinner was at half past seven, which seemed odd in such a grand palace
of a house, because, of course, at home, for some extraordinary reason
unless you are in the middle classes, you never have an appetite before
eight, at the very earliest. If you're in France, or other countries on
the Continent, you can be hungry sooner, and evidently it is the same
in America. Perhaps, if I were scientific, I should be able to classify
these differences as natural phenomena.

I had dressed myself early, and was ready a little after seven, because
I thought it would be nice to sit in the fountain court; but just as I
was going down Louise knocked at the door.

"I have come to help Miladi, and to bring her these flowers," said she.
"They are with _mille compliments_ from Monsieur the Lieutenant Parker,
the brother of Madame."

"But I have never met him," I said, gazing with wonder upon a group
(bunch is too mean a word) of mammoth pink roses, with thickly leaved
stems, longer than walking sticks. There were at least a dozen of these
splendid creatures, loosely held together by trails of pink satin
ribbon, wide enough for a sash. I had never dreamed of such roses. I
almost expected them to speak.

"Miladi and the Lieutenant will meet at dinner," explained Louise. "It
is an American custom that the Messieurs send always flowers to the
ladies. Madame, and Mademoiselle Woodburn have received bouquets also,
but these roses for Miladi are the most beautiful. Is it Miladi's wish
that I untie the ribbon, and take out one or two for her to carry?"

I was on the point of saying "yes," because the flowers were so lovely,
and because it would please Mrs. Ess Kay; but on second thoughts, I
said "no," thanking Louise, and asking her to put the creatures' feet
in water. Perhaps it would be as well, I reminded myself, to see this
brother of Mrs. Ess Kay's (of whose existence I'd never heard) before I
went about armed with his roses. I had already tucked the white bud,
which had come to me on the dock like a dove with an olive branch, into
the low neck of my frilly white muslin frock, and I gave it no rivals.

"Has Madame gone down?" I asked; for it occurred to me that it would be
awkward to find myself alone for nearly half an hour with a strange
man.

"I think Madame will be in the hall," said Louise, and satisfied, I
descended in a stately way suited to the house, into the fountain
court. Nobody was there, however, except a young man in evening dress,
who jumped up from a chair, and set down a small glass out of which he
had been drinking.

"Allow me to introduce myself," said he. "I know you must be Lady Betty
Bulkeley. My name is Potter Parker."

I couldn't help wondering whether his friends called him "Pot," for
short, and the thought made me smile more than I would have smiled at a
stranger if it hadn't popped into my head. This seemed to encourage
him, which I regretted; because you can see at once by his face that he
isn't the kind who needs encouragement. It is something like Mrs. Ess
Kay's face, only younger, with her square chin, and bold blue eyes as
pale as hers. The likeness is all the stronger because Mr. Parker wears
no moustache or beard, and his dark hair, which falls in two straight,
thick blocks over his forehead, is parted in the middle. You would
know, if you saw him riding a white bear at the North Pole, that he was
an American young man. Why, or how, I'm not experienced enough in
Americans to tell, but I'm beginning to think that all American men,
and all American women, have a dim sort of family likeness to each
other. With the girls, it's their chins and the way they do their hair;
but with the men it's more mysterious. They look less lazy and more
feverish than our men, yet at the same time more humorous; and their
clothes seem always to be new.

Mrs. Ess Kay's nose turns down, and her brother's turns up, which is
the principal difference in their features, and his makes him look very
impudent, though rather clever and amusing.

"My sister wrote me about your dimples, Lady Betty," said he, when I
smiled; and I screwed my mouth into prunes and prisms as quickly as I
could.

"I should have thought such things were hardly worth writing about,"
said I.

"My impression is that they're worth about a million dollars an eighth
of an inch," he replied, "and I bet they'd fetch that in a bear
market."

I began to wish that Mrs. Ess Kay or Sally would come, for I'm not used
to having persons who have just introduced themselves make remarks on
my dimples or other features.

"Don't be mad with me," he went on, "or I shall think I've estimated
them too low. On mature consideration, as we soldier chaps say at a
court-martial, I should be inclined to set them higher. If you'll just
show them again----"

"I think, if you don't mind," said I, "that I'd rather speak of the
weather."

"I'm afraid you're not used to Americans," said he.

"I've met several, crossing, but none of them talked to me about--such
things," I replied, rather primly.

"If they had, I should have challenged them," he retorted. "While
you're staying with my sister, I consider myself a sort of guardian of
yours, and part of my duty will be to keep off men--other men--with a
stick, you see."

"No, I don't see," said I. "Not that there will be the least necessity
for you to do anything of the sort."

"Oh, won't there? Well, you just wait till you get to Newport, and
you'll find out differently. I've applied for leave on purpose to help
Kath protect you, and I expect to put on a suit of chain armour under
my clothes. But first, you're coming to visit me, at West Point."

"I don't think I am," I said.

"Oh, but you are. It's a promise of Kath's. And shan't I be proud to
show you around? You shall see Flirtation Walk the first thing. It's
what the ladies admire the most, at the Point. Perhaps you've heard of
it?"

"No," said I. "And I never heard of West Point. Is it a suburb of New
York?"

"Not much. It's our American Sandhurst. But you English people don't
know anything about this side. I guess, now, you think that Florida is
in South America?"

"I haven't thought about it yet," I replied.

"That's right. I don't ask anything better than to teach you the
geography of the United States. We'll begin with Flirtation Walk. But
see here, Lady Betty, that rose you've got on isn't a good sample of
what we can grow over here. Didn't that maid of my sister's take you
something a little better from me?"

"Something much bigger and grander," I said, feeling loyal to my poor
white bud. "I was meaning to thank you."

"Don't do that; the things aren't worth it. I only wanted to know
whether that French female had played me false or not. But here comes
my sister. I wish she'd taken longer to do up her back hair. Now, I'll
give you your wish, and talk about the weather. Mighty hot day, isn't
it? Won't you have a cocktail? I'd just finished mine when you came
down."

"Of course Betty will have a cocktail; we all do before dinner," said
Mrs. Ess Kay, sailing towards us in a trailing white film of lace.

But Betty didn't have one, though at this moment several little glasses
appeared on a tray. I was sure that Mother would not approve of
cocktails for me, as it sounds so fast for a young girl who isn't yet
out. When I excused myself, Mrs. Ess Kay laughed, and said, "Then what
about that sherry cobbler?"

While I was trying to think what she meant, Sally came into the hall,
and immediately after I was surprised by a kind of musical moaning
which began suddenly and kept on for a long time.

"That's the Japanese gong," said Mrs. Ess Kay, when I looked round to
see where the sound came from. "It's for dinner. Potter, give Betty
your arm."

I was glad she didn't use that nickname I'd been thinking of, for if
she had, I should certainly have laughed.

We began dinner by eating pinky-yellow melons cut in half and filled
with chopped ice. I thought at first that it must be a mistake, and
they ought to have come in at dessert, but everybody else ate theirs
without appearing disconcerted, so I did mine, and it was good. So were
all the other things that followed in a long procession, though they
were very strange and some of them I shouldn't have known how to eat if
Mr. Parker, whose place was next to mine, hadn't told me.

We had bouillon partly frozen, instead of soup; and then came the most
extraordinary little fried animals which quite startled me, they were
so like exaggerated brown spiders, done in egg and breadcrumbs. "Soft
shell crabs, dear child," said Mrs. Ess Kay, "and you eat every bit,
down to the tippiest end of his claw."

I should never have managed the green corn, which grows like lots of
pearls set close together in rows on a fat stick, if Mr. Parker hadn't
scraped all the pearls off for me, with a fork, and put butter and salt
on them. I liked him a little better after that, for he did the thing
with great skill. When I had got so far, nothing could surprise me, and
I didn't turn a hair when I found that I was expected to eat pears cut
up with salad oil. But they were alligator pears, and when you tasted
them, it appeared that they had nothing whatever to do with the fruit
kingdom. Best of all, I liked the watermelon which came at the end, cut
in little balls, looking like strawberry water ice, and soaked in
champagne. I hope that all the things to eat in America won't be so
nice, or I may grow stout before I go back; and Vic says it is better
for a girl to hang herself.

It was very trying, too, to find that I was keeping every course
waiting. I've never been accused of greediness at home, though I've
often been made to feel guilty of most other sins in the calendar, but
I did feel queer when I began to realise that everybody else had
finished what was on their plates, when I'd just about discovered what
the thing was. It made me so uncomfortable to see them all leaning back
waiting for me, after their plates had been whisked away, that I took
to bolting the rest of my food, and by the time we'd got rid of nine
courses in about half an hour I felt qualified to write the
autobiography of an anaconda.

As for the iced water, I had intended to refuse it at any cost, because
Vic and Mother both solemnly warned me that it made _all_ the
difference between a complexion and mere skin. But the minute I landed,
I began thinking hard about iced water, and I soon discovered that when
you are in America a comparatively small consideration like a
complexion would never keep you from drinking it. In fact, nothing
would. You feel as if you must drink iced water, pints of iced water,
in rapid succession, if not only your complexion, but your whole face
were to be swept away in the deluge. Once you have got the taste
nothing can quench it but iced water, more iced water, and still more
iced water!

After dinner, while we were having heavenly Turkish coffee in the
fountain court, who should come but Mr. Doremus. It seemed to me a
funny time to call, but apparently the others didn't think it out of
the way. He wanted us to go to some theatre on a roof, and I should
have loved it, especially when Mrs. Ess Kay said you didn't get smudges
on your nose as you would if you sat on a roof in London--a thing which
I never heard of anybody except cats doing. But she was tired, and I
suppose it would have been ladylike for me to be, only I was much too
excited. So Mr. Doremus stayed, and he and Mr. Parker talked more slang
in an hour than I think I ever heard in my whole life, though I have
always considered Stan talented in that way.

But Stan's slang, and Vic's, are quite different from American slang.
In America, you build up your whole conversation out of it, and it's
wonderful. I longed for a notebook while those two men were talking, to
put everything down, and I felt, if people were often going to be as
funny as that, I should need to go home soon to rest my features. I'm
not sure whether Americans really think funnier things than English
people do, but their funny ideas are startlingly unlike ours. Somehow
they seem younger and more bubbling. When I go home, I shall probably
have collected so much slang in my pores that I shall talk about
putting on my "glad rags" when I'm going to dress for dinner; my life
will be my "natural"; I shall call Stan's motor car the Blue Assassin
or the Homicide Wagon; I shall say my best frocks are "mighty
conducive"; I shall get bored by poor Mr. Duckworth, our newest curate,
and tell him he's "the limit"; I may even take to abbreviating my
affirmatives and negatives by saying "Yep" and "Nope" when I'm in a
hurry; but if I do fall into these ways, I tremble to think what may be
the effect on Mother.

ABOUT SHOPPING AND MEN

"Why, Betty, you never told me you were interviewed on the dock." These
were the first words Mrs. Ess Kay said to me as I walked in to
breakfast, a little late because of a wrestle I had had with a
different and even more exciting kind of bath.

"I wasn't," said I, on the defensive; though I couldn't be perfectly
sure what connection, if any, interviewing had with the Customs. "You
told me not to declare anything, and I didn't."

Mr. Parker, looking as if he had been melted, poured into his clothes,
and then cooled off with iced water, burst out laughing.

"You're a daisy, Lady Betty," said he.

"Is it invidious to be a daisy?" I asked.

"I guess I must look in the dictionary for 'invidious'; but a daisy's a
flower that has budded in the green fields of England, where there
aren't any newspaper reporters or other strange bugs."

"Potter!" exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay, "don't tease her; and when you've
been in the green fields of England you'll say _insects_, not--er--what
you _did_ say, if you don't want ladies to faint all around you on the
floor." Then she turned to me. "He means you're very innocent, because
you don't know what it is to be interviewed. But you must have _been_
it, all the same, for see here, in this dreadful _Flashlight_." And she
handed me a newspaper, with one page folded over, and huge headings
dotted about at the tops of paragraphs, like the lines of big print
that oculists keep to make you try your eyesight. In the middle column
I saw my name, but I couldn't believe it was really there, in an
American paper. I began to think I wasn't awake yet, and that this must
be part of the dream I was dreaming all yesterday.

"BONNY--BETTY--BULKELEY," I read out aloud. "A Duke's Daughter on the
Dock. Call Her by Her Front Name, Please. What Lady Betty Thinks of Our
Boys."

There was more, but when I had got so far, I simply gasped.

"How _dare_ they?"

"There isn't much they don't dare, except to go back without a
'story'," said Mr. Parker, laughing. But I didn't laugh. I was too
angry.

"If my brother were here, he'd kill them," I said.

"Then he hasn't got a sense of humour," replied Mr. Parker; "I don't
see how a Duke could have, and be a Duke nowadays; but I guess I
wouldn't mind swopping my sense of humour for a dukedom, all the same.
See here, Lady Betty, you'll get to like our newspapers before you've
been over here a month. They sort of grow on you. They're as
interesting as novels, and almost as true to life."

"This isn't true to my life, anyway," I said, not knowing whether I
wanted most to laugh or cry. "Oh, Sally, Sally _Woodburn_, will anybody
believe I said such things as these?"

"Give the _Flashlight_ to me and let me look," she said. And when she'd
taken the paper, she began to read the stuff that came under the big
headings, out aloud, in her pretty, soft voice.

"Yesterday was a blazer, but though it was hot enough on the docks to
roast a coon, when the Big Willie steamed in, that beautiful young
visitor to our shores, Lady Betty Bulkeley, managed to look like the
Duke's daughter and Duke's sister she is, and so far as a mere man
could tell, without the help of patent hair curlers, or other
artificial aids to personal pulchritude.

"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair, she sat
on a throne of ducal luggage, looking queenly in an elegant white shirt
waist, built mostly of holes and eminently suited to her style of
beauty as well as the weather. She also had on a picture hat, which was
superfluous as she would have been a picture without it, and below the
waist she was tailor made."

"I think it's most insulting!" I broke in. "And I was made at home, all
the way down."

But Sally went on: "I soon found [writes the representative of _The
Flashlight_] that the sister of the Duke of Stanforth, one of Britain's
eligibles, preferred to be addressed by her Front name of Lady Betty.
'I feel more at home,' said she, with a sweet voice, but a pronounced
English accent, 'when I am called Lady Betty. And I want to feel at
home in America, because I expect to be some time with my friend, Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox, who will show me society over on this side. I have
heard so much about Newport, don't you know? I fancy it will be too
utterly deevy.'"

"What's deevy?" I demanded with scorn.

"Oh, that's supposed to be what smart Englishwomen say for divine."

"_I_ never heard it," I sneered, "much less said it. I'm sure Mother
would consider it quite profane."

"Well, do be quiet, child, and listen to what _The Flashlight_ says you
said." "'What opinion have you formed of our society women and clubmen,
on board the Willie?' was the next question.

"'I think your ladies are better dressed than ours, and the gentlemen
are just lovely. They don't sit around and wait while we girls amuse
them, they hustle to give us a good time, and they know how to do it. I
shouldn't wonder if I should hate to go home and associate with lords
after being a summer girl in Newport. I don't see now why American
girls go out of their own country to marry.'

"'I suppose we shall be seeing your brother, the Duke, over here before
long?'

"'His Grace may come to fetch me back,' replied her ladyship. 'He has
never been to America, but it is one of the desires of his life to
come, and your American beauties had better look out, for he is a gay
young bachelor, and I shouldn't be surprised if he took a fancy to
carry home a Duchess. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox will entertain him also, and
maybe he will paint some of America red.'"

"That's all about you, I see," Sally finished up. "The rest is about
Cousin Katherine and me. It says we've come back with a touch of the
Piccadilly accent; and it criticises my nose, and the way Cousin
Katherine puts on her hat. It describes this house all wrong, and says
the Newport cottage 'knocks spots' out of Mrs. Van der Windt's cottage.
It also mentions Cousin Potter, and calls him 'one of our Army Dudes.'
But _we_ don't mind, and you mustn't. Everybody reads _The Flashlight_,
for the sake of the shocks, but nobody believes its flashes."

"Still, you must have said something to the man," remarked Mrs. Ess
Kay.

"I only said 'No, but--' or 'Yes, but--,'" I insisted. "Truly and truly
nothing else. And oh, there was a _Bat_, too, who tried to talk to me."

"Great Scott! the _Evening Bat_," chortled Mr. Parker. "Look out for
something rich to-night."

"Can't he be stopped?" I asked.

"Might as well try to stop Niagara--with a tin can; the less _you_
said, the more the _Bat_ will say. But it doesn't matter. Nobody'll
care. Reporters are paid by the yard for imagination; information's
gone out, though I do hear you use it still on your side."

I was just going to defend information (British) at the expense of
imagination (American), when I remembered that the "Army Dude"--which
sounds rather like something you might buy at the Stores--had sent me
up an enormous bouquet of violets as big as a breakfast plate, and that
I'd forgotten to thank him. I did so at once, but it seemed that I had
blundered.

"Violets?" he echoed. "Must have been some other fellow. I sent you
gardenias."

"Oh, then the cards got mixed," I said. "I thought the gardenias were
from Mr. Doremus. How kind of you both. I was so surprised to receive
such lovely flowers."

"Our American buds are surprised when they don't get them. They would
think it a cold day when they didn't have a slight morning haul of
flowers--must be out of season ones, or they're no use--new novels, or
candy. What do men over on your side of the water do to convince you
girls that they think you're as beautiful as you really are?"

I thought for a minute, and then I said that perhaps we weren't as hard
to convince as American girls. I don't know whether this was a proper
answer or not, but, anyway, Mr. Parker laughed, and then began to plan
what we should do for the day.

"Say, let's run her over to Coney Island," he said.

"Oh, my dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Ess Kay. "Not for anything. The
Duchess would have a fi--I mean, she would be horrified."

But when I heard that Coney Island was like a kind of glorified Margate
(which I've never been to, but only heard about) with switchbacks and
all sorts of shows, I said that Mother would consider it a chapter in
the liberal education of a respectable British tourist; and it was
decided that we should dine there. Mrs. Ess Kay had to do a lot of
things before she could go on to Newport, so we were to shop all the
morning, lunch at Sherry's, rest in the afternoon, and spend the
evening at Coney Island. Next day we were to go to West Point, where
Mr. Parker is stationed and stay there all night for a cadet ball.

Just as we had got this programme settled, and were making up our minds
to go out early, "while it was cool" (we should all have been lying
about with wet handkerchiefs on our foreheads at home, and there would
have been special prayers in church, if it had ever been what New
Yorkers seem to think cool) the butler came in leading by a leash a
perfect angel of a dog, a little French bull, with skin satiny as a
ripe chestnut, and eyes like rosettes of brown velvet, with diamonds
shining through them. He had on a spikey silver collar, fringed on each
edge with white horsehair, and he came trotting into the room with a
high action of his paws, dainty and proud, like a horse that knows he's
on show; and his tiny head was cocked on one side as if he were asking
us to please admire him and be his friends.

I supposed that the little fellow belonged to Mrs. Ess Kay, and that he
was being brought in to bid his mistress good morning, but she said
quite sharply, "What dog is that?"

"He's a parcel, ma'am," said the butler, "addressed to Lady Betty
Bulkeley. He was left at the door by a messenger boy, and the label's
on his collar."

In another instant that little live, warm bundle of brindled satin
sewed on to steel wires was in my lap, and it did seem as if he knew
that he was mine. The queerest thing was that he had no note with him.
On the label--just a luggage label tied on his collar--was my name, in
a strange, but very interesting looking hand, and these words besides:
"The Dog is now found. His name is Vivace."

"Who _has_ sent it to you, Betty?" asked Mrs. Ess Kay; and I could see
by her eyes that she was very curious.

I had just answered, "I don't know from Adam," when some words of my
own jumped into my head. I could hear myself saying, "I must first find
the dog," and then I knew that the giver of Vivace wasn't Adam. But
luckily I hadn't thought before I spoke, so it was no harm to let it
rest at that; and I just sat and played with my new toy while Mrs. Ess
Kay and her brother jabbered about him excitedly.

"It must be Tom Doremus," said she. "He's the only man I let you know
well enough on board to take such a liberty."

I thought of another man she hadn't wanted to let me know; but I rubbed
my chin on Vivace's ear, which felt like a wall-flower, and kept quiet.

"Cheek of Doremus," remarked Mr. Parker. "He's a Josher from wayback.
How does he know Lady Betty likes dogs? I should send the little brute
off to the Dogs' Home."

"If Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox makes me do that, I shall have to go with
him--and stop with him, too," said I. And I almost hated Mr. Parker for
a minute in spite of the walking-stick roses and the snowstorm of
gardenias upstairs.

"Of course, you shall keep the dog, if you want to," said Mrs. Ess Kay,
"unless we find out that he's been sent by someone undesirable, and
then of course the Duchess would expect me to see that you gave him
back."

"I _feel_ somehow that we shall never find out," I said, and I hugged
Vivace so hard, without meaning to, that he gave a tiny grunt. But he
didn't mind a bit, and licked my hand with a tongue that was like a
sweet little sample of pink plush.

I was suddenly so happy with my surprise-present that I forgave America
for having imaginative reporters, and wasn't homesick for the pony or
for Berengaria and her puppies, or anything.

Vivace went out with us in the electric carriage, and even Mrs. Ess Kay
had to admire him as he sat straight up in my lap, like a bronze statue
of a dog. "He's a thoroughbred, anyhow," she remarked. "He can't have
cost a penny less than five hundred dollars, so whoever the anonymous
giver is, he must be a rich man."

I'm rather hazy about dollars, still, but when I heard that, I felt
myself go red. I knew well enough that the giver--who wasn't Adam--was
very far from being a rich man, and I couldn't bear to think that he
had perhaps squandered some hard-earned savings on buying such an
extravagant present for me. But the more I thought of it--which I did
all the way down to the shops--the more I thought it impossible that a
man who had been obliged to cross the Atlantic in the steerage would
even have a hundred pounds in the world. Somebody had perhaps given him
the dog from a good kennel, when it was a wee puppy, I said to myself;
but this, though it eased my mind in one way, made the gift seem all
the more pathetic;--that that poor, handsome Jim Brett should part with
something he must have loved (for who could have Vivace and not love
him?) to please me. I should have liked to write a note to the
Manhattan Club, where he had told me he was employed, to thank him. But
he had sent the present anonymously, and I felt somehow as if he hadn't
meant or wished me to acknowledge it.

While I was wondering what I should do, the brougham stopped before a
shop even larger than Harrod's or the Army and Navy Stores. There were
lovely things in the windows, things that looked like American women,
and not like English or even French ones, though I couldn't define the
difference if I were ordered to with a revolver at my head.

The petticoats and stockings and belts and lace things and parasols,
and especially blouses, were so perfectly thrilling that my heart began
to beat quite fast at sight of them. I felt as if I must have some
immediately; and when Mrs. Ess Kay said that this was "quite a cheap
store," I said to myself that I would do something more interesting
than watch her shopping.

She had to buy handkerchiefs to begin with, for most of hers had
disappeared in the wash at foreign hotels; and Sally wanted veiling.
Those were not interesting to me, because they are necessary; and
necessaries, like your daily bread and such things, are so dull. I said
that I would just wander about a little, as they thought they would be
some time, and we made an appointment to meet in half an hour at what
they called the notion counter. I hadn't an idea what it was, and
didn't like to ask, because I had asked so many questions already; but
I knew that I could get someone to take me there when the half hour was
up.

When you want everything you see, but aren't sure which things you want
enough to buy and how many you can afford, it's less confusing to prowl
alone. Besides, there was an exciting feeling of independence in
strolling about unchaperoned in a shop as big as a village, in a
strange foreign city.

I really did need a sunshade to go with a blue dress of mine, because
my only light one (if I don't count rather a common white thing) is
pink. I saw some beauties, and I wanted to ask the price; but the
attendants,--who were girls, with lovely figures and their hair done in
exactly the same flop over their foreheads,--were so interested in
talking about a young man they all knew, that it seemed cruel to
interrupt them, especially as I mightn't buy the sunshade in the end.
However, I did venture to speak, in quite a humble voice, by and by,
but the girl couldn't understand a word until I'd repeated everything
twice. "A sunshade? Oh, you mean one of these parasawls," she said
then. "Excuse me, it's your English accent I didn't quite catch at
first. That one's ten dollars and forty-nine cents, and this is eight
dollars, eighty-nine."

While we were busy doing the dollars into pounds and shillings, we got
quite friendly, for she was a very obliging girl, and didn't bear me
any grudge for interrupting, though her friends were going on with
their conversation and telling such exciting things about the young man
that she must have been dying to listen.

However, my girl hardly paid any attention to them at all, except just
to get mixed up in her answers to me once or twice. She said it was
very difficult to understand English people on account of their not
opening their mouths much when they spoke, and their accent being so
strong. I found this odd, because we always feel as if, the English
language having been started by us, it is Americans who have an accent;
but it seems that a great many people in the States dislike the way we
talk, very much, and consider it extremely affected.

After all the trouble she had taken, I felt dreadfully not to buy
anything of her, but the sunshades were too expensive, though she said
they were marked down. I took a Japanese fan instead, which pops out at
you like a Jack-in-the-box, from a fat red stick; and even that was a
dollar and twenty-five cents when I thought it would be sixpence. On
the way to meet Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally at the notion counter, I
enquired the price of a good many other superlatively beautiful things,
but they were all superlatively high, as well; and by the time a very
dashing young man, who said he was a "floor-walker," had steered me to
the notions, I felt as if I were the only cheap thing in the whole
shop. To be sure, there were some embroidered collars and American
flag-headed hat-pins, and flowered muslin wrappers which I could have
had without ruining myself, if I had wanted them. But I didn't; and
what I should like to know is, what does a girl do, if she's poor and
has to live in New York? Mrs. Ess Kay had said the shop was a cheap
shop, so there must be others where even the flowered wrappers and
collars and hatpins are more. And besides, a girl couldn't go through
life dressed entirely in such things. However, judging from the girls I
have seen so far, they are all very rich, except the lower classes; and
of course, it's much simpler to do without things if you can just be
poor and give up to it comfortably, without thinking of appearances,
like us.

As soon as I saw the Notion Counter, I knew why they had named it that;
only it would be still more expressive if it were called the
Imagination counter. It was lovely, and looked like thousands of little
Christmas presents spread out for everyone.

There were a great many pretty people buying things at it, and in most
of the other departments where I went with Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally; but
when I admired them, and the sweet blouses they wore, and the way they
carried their shoulders and hips, Mrs. Ess Kay sniffed, and said there
was nobody in New York, now,--nobody at all who was worth looking at,
and wouldn't be till October, except those who were just in the city
for a day or two of shopping, like us. When I suggested that these
charming beings in white muslins and summer silks might be here in that
way, she did not think it at all probable.

"How can you tell?" I asked. "They look just as nice as we do."

Indeed, I thought some of them looked nicer, but I've been much too
well brought up to make such remarks as that.

"I can tell, because I don't know their Faces," said Mrs. Ess Kay,
decidedly, in a tone that gave a capital letter to her last word, and
yet intimated that the poor, unknown (by her) Things couldn't possibly
be worth a glance.

Now, Mother and Aunt Sophy are rather like that. It's almost terrible
when they say "Who _Is_ she?" But I shouldn't have expected it to be
the same in America, if Sally hadn't warned me. I suppose it's quite
easy to remember just Four Hundred faces, as you're sure there will
never be any more, even if they have children, because they're being
cut down instead of going up in number.

When we had been for about an hour and a half in the big shop, we'd
finished all we had to do there, and must motor to another farther up,
before meeting Mr. Parker, who was to give us lunch at a place called
Sherry's, at one o'clock. On the way, Sally suddenly exclaimed, "Oh,
Cousin Katherine, we must initiate this dear child into the mysteries
of ice cream soda water; and I'm just yearning for some myself,
anyhow."

"Huyler's," said Mrs. Ess Kay to her _mecanicien_, a very young man
with eyes that looked positively ill with intelligence, and a way of
snapping out "all right" when she spoke to him that would make Stan sit
up with surprise if his chauffeur did it.

Sally said that the nicest oasis in the desert of London was an
American place where you can get ice cream soda water; but I had never
had any, and in the burning heat of the New York morning--which flung
itself into the shop like a great wave in spite of fierce electric
fans--I could have purred in pure delight over the piled up, ice-cold
froth in that tall glass. It tasted like frozen velvet flavoured with
strawberries, and I should have loved to be an ostrich or an anaconda
so that the sensation might have lasted longer.

There were no men in the shop, only women, and so pretty that you
wondered if there were a notice posted up over the door forbidding
plain ladies to enter. Two or three had yellow hair, yellower than
mine, and Mrs. Ess Kay said they were actresses who always came back to
New York in summer to wait for Things to turn up, just as chickens come
home to roost; and that they were supposed to be Resting.

I had always thought that a banana made you feel more as if you had
eaten a large, elaborate dinner than any other one thing possibly
could; but I found that an ice cream soda is even more so; and it was
lucky for us that we had another hour's shopping to do (Mrs. Ess Kay
made it an hour and a half because Potter is only her brother) before
luncheon.

The next shop was even more wonderful than the first, and would have
been a great deal more solemn and dignified, and even conventional, if
the same kind of wooden balls hadn't gone tearing round like mad
squirrels in wire cages over the counters, with people's money shut up
inside them. There were very young youths sitting in tall pulpit
things, who caught the balls on the fly in a sporting way, and did
something to them, but I never could see what, and afterwards sent them
back, with the greenback bills inside turned miraculously into silver
and pretty miniature pennies.

When we got to Sherry's Potter was waiting for us, and looking cross. I
think persons with turned up noses show crossness more easily than the
other kind, and Potter had the expression in his eyes that Vic has when
her shoes are tight and Mother is in a trying mood at the same time. I
shouldn't be surprised if he has a horrid temper, although he thinks of
so many funny things. And though he is so nice to me, he can't help
saying things sometimes which show that he has a prejudice against
England. That seems extraordinary, and shows one how conceited we
English really are; for one is quite accustomed to the idea that there
may be people who don't care for Americans, but it is odd that
Americans may not like us. I suppose it's on a par with the sentiments
in our National Anthem, which when one comes to analyse them, don't
exactly suggest a sense of give and take--or, for that matter, a sense
of humour.

"Confound _their_ politics, frustrate _their_ knavish tricks," but
naturally bless everything in which We are concerned, as We are certain
to be above reproach. I'm afraid that's quite of a piece with the calm
confidence we have in our own superiority, although I daresay I should
never have realised it if it weren't for Mr. Potter Parker and his
perky nose.

It began to be less perky when we were all settled at a table in a
perfectly charming restaurant, the most restful place to eat in that I
ever saw. I can't imagine even a fiend being ill-tempered in it for
long; and it was deliciously cool, as if we had come into a shadowy
green wood after the blazing, brassy glare of the streets.

The big room really was rather like a wood, so the simile isn't
far-fetched;--an open space in a wood, ringed round with tall trees
bending their branches low over a still pool. The soothing brown of the
wainscoted walls gave the tree-trunk effect; the great hanging baskets
of ferns and moss that swung from the ceiling were the tree-branches;
and the many round, snow-white tables, with green velvet chairs grouped
closely round them on the polished floor were the water-lilies with
green pads floating on the surface of the pond.

Nearly everything we had for lunch was in a more or less advanced state
of frozenness, from the bouillon, ever so far along to the ices in the
shape of different-coloured fruits, toward the end. Nevertheless, all
of us, except Potter, drank iced water instead of wine whenever we
stopped eating for an instant, or couldn't think of anything particular
to say; and the more we had the more we seemed to want. There was a
kind of iced-water curse upon us.

It has never occurred to Vic or me to lie down in the afternoon, though
she tries to sleep a little sometimes if she's going to a ball. But
when we got home, Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took it quite as a matter of
course that we would lie down before going to Coney Island to dine and
see fireworks and other things. They were surprised when I didn't want
to, but Mrs. Ess Kay said in that case Potter would entertain me while
they rested. I told her it wasn't necessary, but Potter wanted me to
bet my sweet life that it was just the one Proposition on earth for
him, so he and Vivace and I sat in the fountain court while Mrs. Ess
Kay and Sally went upstairs.

Potter was suddenly a changed man, as soon as he and I were alone
together, becoming exactly what he had been yesterday when I first ran
downstairs, and he introduced himself.

He didn't chaff me about my country, and make fun of our government, or
hint that American men were the only men living who knew how to treat
women, as he seemed to delight in doing when his sister and cousin were
with us. He began by offering to teach me some of his best slang; but
as the lesson went on, it turned out to be rather more like a lesson in
flirtation.

I would have been even more startled than I was, if I hadn't already
had a little experience on board ship, with Mr. Doremus. At home I've
often thought it must be very pleasant to be out, and able to flirt;
but I never had a chance, because, as Vic said, it was her turn first,
and the only young man, not a relation, that I ever talked with alone
was the curate, who would as soon have tried to flirt with a Bishopess
as with one of Mother's daughters.

But I like Mr. Doremus' kind of flirtation almost better than Mr.
Parker's. Mr. Doremus makes you feel as if you were a beautiful young
heroine in a play, and you are almost sorry there is no audience to
applaud the witty things he says, and the smart answers he inspires you
to think of, just as if he were giving you a clue.

Potter is different, and instead of an audience you want a kind of
perpetual chaperon, not a Briareus creature with lots of hands to
applaud.

It is silly, I know, to blush and simper; but I couldn't think of
anything else to do, Potter was so alarming; and I wouldn't allow him
to tell my fortune by my hand, for it was much too hot. Even if it
hadn't been I shouldn't have wanted my hand held, for I do hate being
touched by anyone I'm not fond of. When I told him that, he said it was
very simple; what I had to do was to get fond of him, and then it would
be all right.

"I shan't have time," I said. "There'll be too much for me to think
about; and then I shall be going home."

"How long does it take an English girl to get fond of a man?" said he.

I told him I didn't know anything about that, as I wasn't out; but I
supposed it depended on the kind of girl.

"I guess it depends more on the man, in your climate, doesn't it?"
asked Potter. "But over here it's sometimes a question of hours, for
both sides. Why, a chum of mine went out to San Francisco on business
which was going to keep him just one day. He met a girl at dinner, fell
in love with her while she was eating her soup, and told her so before
dessert came along. She vacillated over the ice cream, but said yes
with the peaches and pears. Next day they got married and he brought
her back East for a wedding trip."

"What did they do about the Banns?"

"Oh, Americans have done away with Banns since the Revolution, I guess.
When we fellows fall in love we're in a hurry."

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure," I quoted primly.

"We don't repent. We just get a divorce. It saves worry.
Incompatibility of the affections, or fatty degeneration of the temper,
or something like that. But I don't need to talk of such things to you.
Nobody who got a prize-package like Lady Betty Bulkeley would part with
it while he had a button left on his coat."

"I don't see what buttons would have to do with it," I said, but as I
had always been sent out of the room at home directly anyone began even
to mention divorce, I thought I had better go upstairs and dress for
dinner at Coney Island. Mr. Parker begged me not, but I would; and
Vivace barked as if he were under the impression that he was a watch
dog; so thanks to him I got away without trouble.

ABOUT WEST POINT AND PROPOSALS

I could hardly have supposed that there were as many people in the
whole world put together, as at Coney Island; and most of them were in
pairs, like the animals on their way to the ark. They all seemed to be
engaged to each other, and delighted with each other's society, or else
married and dreadfully tired of it. Or else they had dyspepsia. Or else
they had brought too many of their children; for they had droves of
very small ones, who bellowed louder than any English children I ever
saw, and tyrannised over their parents in the most unbridled way.

But Coney Island was fun, and I felt more than ever that I was
dreaming; a long, long dream of sands, and huge hotels, and queer
little booths.

For dinner we ate nothing but fish, of so many different kinds and some
of them so strange, that I almost feared the dream might turn into a
nightmare afterwards. I found the clams rather like olives; you hate
the first, but when you have had three you feel you would like three
dozen; and they are not at all easy to forget.

We went down Under the Sea, and were introduced to horrific monsters,
sailed up and down on switchbacks, which made Mrs. Ess Kay ill, but she
nobly refused to desert me in such surroundings--a state of mind which
made her chin look incredibly square. Eventually, after many adventures
by the way, we arrived at the Moon, and not only got into the middle of
it, but made acquaintance with the inhabitants, none of whom appeared
to be over two feet high, or to have anything to speak of between their
chins and their toes. After that experience, minstrel shows and
concerts, and persons who told your fortunes with snakes, or ate glass,
were rather an anticlimax; still, I enjoyed them all so much that I was
incapable of extreme annoyance when we discovered that _The Evening
Bat_ had an "impressionist sketch" of me which made me look like an
elderly murderess.

We got back to New York almost indecently late, but in the meaner parts
through which we had to pass on the way to our gorgeousness the streets
swarmed with poor creatures, pallid with heat, evidently preparing to
camp out of doors till morning. It was a strange and interesting sight,
but made me feel guilty when I recalled it afterwards in my great cool
bedroom, with my five different kinds of baths.

Next morning I was waked early to find more presents of flowers in huge
stacks, and to get ready for West Point. I was a little tired from
yesterday, and the dry heat gave me rather the sensation of being a
scientist's field mouse in a vacuum, so that I should have dreaded even
a short journey if we hadn't been making it by water.

It was even better than if we had been ordinary tourists on one of the
big Hudson River boats I had heard about, for we were to travel
luxuriously in a little steam yacht of Potter's, which he calls "The
Poached Egg" because it can't be beaten. It is not a vulgar yacht, as
one might have thought from the name, but a dainty thing that ought to
have been "The Butterfly," "Ye White Ladye," or something of that sort.
When I said so, Mr. Parker insisted that he would at once re-christen
her "Lady Betty," which would have a prettier meaning than anything
else; and then I was sorry I'd spoken.

I had expected to be disappointed in the river, because nearly
everybody I met on board ship tried to impress upon me that we had
nothing half so good in England; while as for the Rhine, it wasn't a
patch on the Hudson. I even wanted to be disappointed, out of
patriotism or spite, which are much the same thing sometimes; but I
couldn't. I found the Hudson too grand for petty jealousy. It seemed to
me like a great, noble poem, rolling on and on in splendid cadences;
and I have heard some music of Wagner's that it reminded me of,
somehow.

The hills or mountains--I'm not sure which to call them--even the
Palisades which have been so dinned into my ears--were not high enough
to satisfy me at a first glance; but soon I saw that it was their
grouping and their perfect proportion in relation to each other which
made them so exquisite. As we steamed on, along the green and golden
flood, between banks that appeared to fall back in admiration, I began
to love the Hudson so much that I could have shrieked with rage at the
great staring advertisements on hoardings. What can the scenery have
done to Americans, that they should do their best to spoil it? No
wonder most of them come over to see ours, which we have the sense to
let alone, even if it crumbles.

Sally and Mr. Parker laughed at my fury, but I didn't see how they
could take it so calmly. "It isn't my scenery, so I don't trouble
myself," said Potter, when I asked why he didn't get up a secret night
expedition to burn or chop down all the hoardings. But I'm sure English
people aren't careless like that. Each person thinks the good of the
whole country is _his_ business; at least one would suppose so by the
way everybody who comes to Battlemead talks politics and affairs of
public interest, morning, noon and night. It seems, though, in America
only policemen and people who live in Washington care about politics
really, except to get benefits for themselves; and it isn't good form
to be too much interested in such things.

Victoria would like this rule, for she has confessed to me that
political questions bore her, and she would much rather be talked to
about love or motoring, or even bridge; but she always reads the
newspapers hard for fifteen minutes while Thompson does her hair, if
she's going out to a big lunch or dinner, so that she will be up in
everything and able to talk brilliantly to members of Parliament, or
stuffy old things in the House of Lords.

I calmed down somewhat after I'd recovered from the first shock of
seeing several islands entirely devoted to insisting that Uneeda
Biscuit, or a Cigar, or some other extraneous thing which you're sure
you _don't_ need in the least, and wouldn't buy even if you did when it
had been forced on you like that. There was so much to admire that it
seemed a shame to fret. Besides, it was soothing to sit on the yacht's
deck under a pale green awning, drinking what I call a lemon squash,
and Potter and Sally obstinately believe to be lemonade. While Mrs. Ess
Kay angrily read nasty paragraphs about herself, and hilariously about
her friends, in a regular highwayman of a paper, _Smart Sayings_, Sally
Woodburn told me charming legends of the Hudson; dear old Dutch things,
most of them, which had been made into plays and poems; and I was sorry
when we came to West Point at last.

But I wasn't sorry for long. The minute we got on shore at a quaint
little landing shoved incongruously in among beautiful wooded hills,
the most exquisite scents of ferns and trees, and sweet, moist earth
came hurrying down to welcome us. Eton is not more beautiful than West
Point; and as we drove up the hill under an arbour of trees, I saw that
the buildings cleverly contrived to look old and grey and picturesque,
like ours. The elms in a big green square past the top of the hill had
a venerable air, too, so they must have been precocious about growing,
for it doesn't stand to reason that West Point can be as ancient as
Oxford or Eton. But anyway, the elms were there, making an effect that
England couldn't improve on, and there were some grey stone barracks,
and a long line of officers' quarters built of wood and brick. I was
glad that we were to stop with Potter, instead of going to an hotel,
for I did want to see thoroughly what garrison life is like. Potter has
only half a house, though I suppose he's rich enough to buy up all West
Point if it were for sale; but he had got a chum of his, who lives in
the other half, to clear out of his part and give it to us for the day
and night.

Vic has been to Aldershot, and even to Malta and Gib. But I never have,
and I never saw any officers' quarters at home, so I don't know how
they compare with American ones. Potter's and his friend's are exactly
like a doll's house turned into a museum. The rooms are tiny, and most
of the furniture is made to fold up; but Stan would be green with envy
if he could see their Persian rugs, and their silver things, and their
dozens of Meerschaums, and their curiosities from all over the world.

I asked Potter what he would do when he was ordered away.

"That depends on where I'm ordered," said he. "If I don't like the
place, I'll resign, and be a mere cit. It would be easy to get back
again into the Army if there were any fun going."

"What kind of fun?" I wanted to know.

"A war with somebody, of course," said he. Men have the most
extraordinary ideas of fun. But they seem to be alike about that in
England and America. They are never so happy as when they are killing
something or in danger of being killed themselves. I can't imagine how
it would feel to be like that; but I know if they were different we
should hate them. And Potter looked so nice in his soldier clothes
(which he got into while we were making ourselves pretty for lunch)
that I couldn't help thinking it would be a pity for him to leave the
army.

His friend was invited to lunch with us, to make up for sacrificing his
house. He is nicer than Potter, or even Mr. Doremus; but not half so
handsome or brave looking, or with such a charming voice as poor Jim
Brett--who is not, I suppose, a gentleman except by nature; otherwise
he couldn't have been in the steerage.

I thought it was silly to have wire nettings in all the doors and
windows, just to keep away a few innocent midges, until we sat out
after lunch. There is a pleasant balcony with an upstairs and a
downstairs, which Potter and Captain Collingwood call the "piazza," and
it would have been delightful sitting there while the men smoked, if
appalling little animals with a ridiculous number of thin, stick-out
legs hadn't come buzzing round us. They were saucy-looking things, got
up in loud suits of black and grey stripes, not in the least like our
quiet, respectable midges at home; and they weren't even honourable
enough to wait until sunset before attacking you. They pricked
horribly, like pins your maid has stuck in the wrong places; and they
had a horrid _penchant_ for your ankles. I _was_ sorry I had on clocked
stockings! And I apologised heartily to Potter for poking fun at his
wire nettings.

Though it was so hot, the air was delicious. It smelt of new-mown grass
and lilies, with a sharp little spicy tang of the thick Virginia
creepers, which made a shadowy green room of the "piazza." Birds were
simply roaring with joy in the trees that overhung the house, and
Potter and I almost quarrelled because he would insist that some huge
creatures hopping about on the grass were robins. They would have made
three of ours, and were much more like quails that had spilt strawberry
juice on their breasts.

By and by Captain Collingwood asked if "Lady Betty didn't want to go
and see things."

"She's booked to me for Flirtation Walk," said Potter, before I could
answer. "Three's a crowd there, old chap." On which I regret to state
Captain Collingwood suggested that Potter should teach his own
grandmother something about nourishing herself with an egg diet.

"Anyhow, I suppose you don't object to a rearguard for inspection of
camp, and other features of public interest," he went on; and after
some hesitation Potter decided that this would be admissible.

Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally both wanted to lie down (it's strange the
fondness American women have for putting themselves in a horizontal
position in the daytime!) so Mrs. Ess Kay said that she would
commission her brother as chaperon; I needn't be anxious, she assured
me, it was quite _comme il faut_. As if I would have worried about a
thing like that!

I was delighted to go, because the most interesting groups had been
passing the house, and it was difficult to see all you wanted to
through the veil of creepers, without continually craning your neck.
Tall, brown-faced boys, got up much like glorified Buttons, were
sauntering about, holding sunshades over the heads of girls so young
that they would have been in short frocks with their hair down their
backs, in England. The girls were in white muslin or pale colours, with
charming, floppy Leghorn hats trimmed with flowers; and they looked
like the daintiest, prettiest of French dolls. But I was a great deal
more interested in the youths, who were the cadets--first classmen,
Potter said, and would be second lieutenants next year.

I never could take much interest in Eton boys, the few I have seen, for
they look such children that one would be positively ashamed to bother
with them; but the West Point cadets (though one couldn't exactly take
them seriously like regularly grown-up men, perhaps), fascinated me
from the very first glance through Potter's Virginia creeper. They
looked as if they thought a lot of themselves, and the girls they were
with had the air of encouraging them to think it. I wondered what kind
of things they said to girls and secretly longed to find out.

It seems that in summer the cadets leave their barracks and go into
camp, which is a time of year that the girls who visit West Point and
those whose fathers are stationed there, like very much. We had a
glimpse of the tents from the long street of the officers' quarters;
and after we had visited a few technical things in which I was too
polite to show that I was hardly interested, we strolled over to where
we could see the little white pyramids gleaming under the Stars and
Stripes.

I had been afraid that all the cadets would have gone away to
Flirtation Walk, with girls, but to my joy there were plenty left in
camp. On chairs under the trees near by two or three ladies were
sitting with some white-butterfly girls; and a crowd of cadets were
talking to them.

"There's a great pal of mine, Mrs. Laurence," said Captain Collingwood.
"She would love to know you, Lady Betty. Do you mind if I introduce you
to each other?"

"See here, that means we shall be hitched up with all that lot of
cadets," Potter objected, quite crossly. "What's the good of wasting
time?"

I hurried to say that I shouldn't consider it a waste of time, that I
should be delighted to meet Mrs. Laurence, and also a few sample
cadets, if any could be provided for the consumption of an enquiring
British tourist.

Captain Collingwood thought that one or two might be found who would
not object to the sacrifice; and five minutes later I was having more
fun than I had ever had before in my life.

Mrs. Laurence was sweet, and so tactful. She scarcely talked to me at
all, except to ask me how I liked America, and a few of the things
people are obliged to get off their minds when they meet a foreigner;
and then she introduced five cadets.

I was terrified for a minute, because until I left home my whole
(youthful) male experience consisted of one brother, three cousins, and
two curates, dealt with separately and with long sleepy intervals
between. I began to wonder how I could possibly manage five tall youths
at once, and to rack my brains for the right kind of conversation; but
before I should have had time to say "knife" to a curate, I found
myself chatting away with those cadets as if I had grown up with them.
I never once stopped to think what I should say next, and neither did
they.

Some girls were introduced to me, too, but luckily they didn't seem to
expect me to talk to them much, so I didn't. More and more cadets kept
coming over from camp, and joining our group, and being introduced in
agreeable droves, until I gave up even trying to remember their names.

There was one, though, in the first batch of five, whose name was easy
to get hold of and keep in mind, because it was Smith. Besides, he was
the best looking of all, which made classifying him a real pleasure.

The girls who spoke to Mr. Smith called him "Captain," perhaps
jokingly, and I asked how he could be a captain and yet a cadet, unless
it meant cricket. Then he explained that the cadets had all the
different grades of officers, from Adjutant and Captain down to
Sergeant, and wanted to know if there were any other questions I would
care to ask. I said that there were, lots, but I wasn't sure if I
might.

"I give you a permit," said he, in a military way.

So I began with the buttons. "I should like to know why you have so
many--all those rows on your jackets; and it's only the middle row you
seem to use for anything."

"We use the others to give away to girls, to remember us by," answered
my cadet. "It's forbidden, but that's a detail. Or rather it's why the
girls like to have them."

I stared. "None of yours are missing."

"Most of 'em are pinned on at present. It's that way with all of us.
Our Plebs sew 'em on for us at night, and use the door for a thimble."

"Oh, what are Plebs, if you please? Are you allowed valets?"

"I guess they call 'em fags in your country. There are a lot of them
lying around. Shall I have some caught and dragged here? They might
squirm a bit, as they aren't used to ladies' society, but----"

I hastily protested against such a cruel exhibition, and went on with
my questions. I asked what they did in winter, and how long they had to
be cadets, and whether they were in a hurry to be officers.

"Not as long as the girls can put up with us as we are," said my cadet.
"Some of them even pretend they like us better."

"I can quite understand that!" I exclaimed. And then they all laughed,
and some of them applauded.

"The _really_ important question is," said Captain or Mr. Smith,
"whether you are going to be an officers' or a cadets' lady."

I hadn't an idea what he meant, but I remembered Vic's saying that in
the lower middle classes they sometimes call a man's wife his "lady."
Perhaps, I thought, the expression had been brought over to the nicest
people in America, in the _Mayflower_, which they all talk so much
about; for certainly _some_ of the people in her must have been cooks
or in the steerage; there are too many descendants for the first class
passengers alone. After considering for a minute I said in rather an
embarrassed way that I wasn't "quite sure yet whether I would be
either."

"You must be one or the other, you know, or you'll be like the bat in
the fable who was neither bird nor beast, and so was out of all the fun
on both sides. I may be prejudiced, but I advise you to be a cadets'
lady. And you'd better decide now on account of to-night."

"To-night?" I repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, on account of making out your card. Say, Lady Betty, if you _are_
going in with us, can I make out your card?"

Then arose a clamour. It appeared that they all wanted to make out the
card--whatever it was. I asked if I couldn't have one from each, but it
appeared that you couldn't do that. My cadet had spoken first, so he
said that he would do it; but the others could give me bell-buttons and
chevrons, and decorate fans for me instead.

"Do you like hops, Lady Betty?" enquired a perfect pet of a cadet, who
looked like a cherub in uniform.

"Hops?" I wondered why he should ask me such an irrelevant question,
but I answered as intelligently as I could. "I don't know much about
them. I think they're graceful, but I don't like the smell."

He looked petrified. "The _smell_?"

"Yes. It makes one sleepy."

"I guess we won't give you much chance to be sleepy to-night," said he,
"at our hop."

Then I understood. But what a funny thing to call a ball; a "hop!"

They explained, too, when they saw how stupid I was, that you were an
"officers' lady" if you danced with them, and walked with them, and
flirted with them, and didn't bother with cadets; or vice versa. Then I
decided at once that I would be a cadets' lady, though I was sorry I
had only one night to be it in. They were sorry, too, and showed their
sorrow in so many nice ways that I enjoyed myself immensely, and quite
saw how nice it must feel to be out, if you are a success. They wanted
to draw lots for which cadet should take me to Flirtation Walk, but I
said I had to go with Mr. Parker.

He must have been listening from a distance, (though he ought to have
been talking with a pretty girl who had no hat,) for he came up to me
at once, and announced that it was time to go now. He rather put on
airs of having a right to tell me what I must do, and I didn't like it
much, especially before those dear cadets, but it would have been
childish to make a fuss. Besides, I was his guest.

I went, like a disagreeable lamb sulking on its way to the slaughter;
but, thank goodness, I was engaged already for nearly all the dances,
and most of them had to be split in two; there were so many cadets for
them. (I think, by the by, I shall try to get Stan to take me to
Sandhurst some day, to see if it is at all like West Point, and whether
they have hops.)

Potter made fun of the cadets, and called them "white meat," and
"little things that got in the way"; but when I asked a straight
question he had to confess that he had been one himself only six years
ago. "I was twenty-two when I graduated," he said. "One of the youngest
men in my class." Which was the same as telling me that he is
twenty-eight now. Ten years older than I am! It makes him seem quite
old.

Somehow, although he is so nice to me in most ways, he stirs me up to
feel antagonistic, as though I wanted to contradict him, and not like
things that he likes; and I believe it is the same with him about me,
for I make his eyes look angry very often. I felt he was disappointed
because I admired the cadets so much, and had promised so many dances,
and I was in a mood to tease him. But I fancy he isn't the kind who
would take teasing well; and the scenery he was showing me was so
beautiful that presently I resolved to be good.

We saw Kosciusko's monument, and I would insist upon his telling me
things about Kosciusko himself, though Potter didn't seem to think him
important; and then we began winding our way along a most exquisite
path overhanging the river, always shadowed by trees. Sometimes it was
cut through a green arbour, with a light like liquid emeralds;
sometimes it ran high on the rocks; sometimes it dipped down close to
the water; but invariably there was just enough room for two, and no
more, to walk side by side.

We met several couples--cadets and girls; young officers and
girls;--sauntering or sitting down close together in out of the way
places. But by and by we seemed to have passed beyond the inhabited
zone. Then Potter asked me if I were not tired from so much walking,
and if I wouldn't like to rest. I said no, and he promptly pretended to
be done up, which I thought very silly; but of course I had to sit down
by him on a rock with a green, moss-velvet cushion.

"This is what I've been longing for all day," said he.

I hadn't; and I was thinking about the cadets. But I agreed that it was
beautiful.

"Yes, it is," he answered, looking at me. "I never saw anything so
pretty. Say, Lady Betty, you're an awful flirt."

I did open my eyes at that. "A flirt!" I exclaimed. "I never had a
chance to try being it."

"I guess you don't need to try. There's some things girls like you are
born knowing. I've been miserable all the afternoon. Couldn't you see
my agony?"

"I didn't notice," said I.

"Ah, that's the trouble. You weren't thinking of me. Of course, I
oughtn't to have cared for those little boys," (some of them were
inches taller than he) "but I couldn't help it. I kept saying inside,
'This is a foretaste of what I've got to suffer when she's staying with
Katherine at The Moorings.' I don't know when I've been so unpopular
with myself. I don't see how I'm going to get along unless you'll be
nice to me; right now."

"I am nice to you," I said. "As nice as I know how to be."

"I could teach you to be a lot nicer. Say, Lady Betty, let me, won't
you?"

His eyes, though they are such a pale blue, had that silly, melting
look in them that my cousin Loveland's have when he talks to me. "Let
you do what?" I asked, almost snappishly, for a person sitting in such
a lovely place.

"Teach you to like me. I fell all over myself in love with you the
first minute I saw you."

"Day before yesterday!" I exclaimed. "What nonsense. You're poking fun
at me. I don't believe in love at first sight--at least, I don't think
I do. Anyhow, nobody could fall in love with _me_ in that way."

"Couldn't they, though? That's all you know about it, then. All
Americans will fall in love with you like that, and it's just what I
want to guard against. I want you to be engaged to me before you go to
Newport. Then I shall feel kind of safe."

"Dear me, are you really proposing, and it isn't in joke?" I asked. "I
do wish you wouldn't."

"Would I propose to Lady Betty Bulkeley in joke?" he reproached me.

"The idea of proposing to any girl when you've only seen her three
times!"

"What did I tell you about my friend in San Francisco? I was working
slowly up to this, even then."

"_Slowly!_"

"Yes, very slowly. I think I've shown a great deal of patience.
American girls--the beauties, I mean--are quite hurt if a fellow
doesn't propose somewhere along in the first day or two. They think he
can't appreciate their real worth, and that he deserves what he gets if
some other chap walks away with them. Now, I'm not going to sit still
on my perch and see anything else walking off with you."

I couldn't help laughing. "I'll call for help if I think there's any
danger," said I; "but I can't promise more than that. I didn't come
over to America to pick up a husband."

He looked at me rather queerly when I said that, almost as if he
thought I had come for that express purpose, and was trying to conceal
it. But, of course, he couldn't be so horrid as to suppose such a thing
really, and I must have imagined the strange expression. If he only
knew, I came away so that another girl might be sure to get a husband,
and I'm not allowed to go back until he has been got.

"They're just growing around on blackberry bushes and in strawberry
patches for you to pick and choose," said Potter, "and that's what
worries me. I'm a wildly jealous fellow. I've got two month's leave so
as to be with you at Newport, and I tell you I shall see a bright,
beautiful crimson, if too many dudes come fooling around the shanty.
Say, won't you just _play_ we're engaged, anyhow, and see how you like
it?"

But now I was really cross, and wouldn't hear a word more of such
nonsense, so I jumped up, and he had to scramble up, too.

"If you've really proposed--which I doubt--" said I, "you must please
understand that you've been formally refused. But I forgive you because
I believe you must have been chaffing, and because it's my first
proposal; so at all events I can't die without having had at least one.
Now, do be sensible and take me back, or I shall have to find my way
alone,--or else ask a strange cadet to pilot me."

That threat found a vulnerable spot; and he was not half bad on the way
home--perhaps no worse than the name of the Walk allowed.

I was a good deal excited about the ball, as it was my very first.
Sally Woodburn had looked at my things, and told me what to bring. Not
that it was a hard choice, for I have only four frocks with me, in
which I could go to a dance. The one Sally wanted me to wear at West
Point is a little white thing, of embroidered India muslin. Thompson
made it after one of Vic's, and it is a rag compared to Sally's and
Mrs. Ess Kay's gorgeous things. But when Sally had done my hair in a
new way, (they had left Louise behind, as there was no room for her),
and fastened round my throat a lovely string of pearls she brought on
purpose, I looked quite nice.

The "hop" was in a great big room which the cadets use for something or
other, I forget what; and it was decorated with quantities of American
flags. There were lots of girls--the youngest things! hardly any of
them could have been out--but there were even more men; counting
officers and cadets, at least two for each girl.

The card which my particular cadet had talked about making for me, was
a programme, with all the dances and the men's names, and illuminations
which he had put on himself. It was beautiful, and I told him that I
would always keep it. I danced every dance, with two partners for each,
and there was a cotillion afterwards with favours to remind the girls
who got them, of West Point; little flags, and buttons, and bits of
gold lace; but I was very lucky, for some of the friends I had made in
camp had smuggled me special things, and I shall have quite a
collection of sergeant's stripes and corporal's chevrons, belt buckles
and beautiful bright bell-buttons with initials

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