Think of what Harry will say when he hears! Isn't it too lovely? He will of course believe I made a rendezvous with him, considering the furious rage he was in when I got the Vicomte's letter. You remember, Mamma, he used to be in love with me at the Chateau de Croixmare, and always has been a red rag to a bull for Harry. When we met him by chance at Monte Carlo last year, the first time since my marriage, there was nearly a scene; and, as you know, his simple letter saying he would be in London, and might he see me, was the cause of Harry's and my quarrel. So now, when he finds poor Gaston is out here, he will be foaming with rage, and will of course come back from Africa at once, and probably beat me and shoot the Vicomte; so I had better have a little fun while I can. It has sent my spirits up to the skies; and I am so glad Agnes brought my loveliest garments here. You need not worry about me, Mamma, as I am sure you are beginning to! I really will be as good as gold, but I must amuse myself a little in this my only chance. I took such care dressing for dinner, and wore no jewels, because everyone here has such wonderful ones. And when I was going down the stairs I felt quite excited.

Gaston has not altered much, and I think I told you last year when we saw him his hair is not coupe en brosse now, so he is better looking, and he gets his clothes at an English tailor; and as Harry is not here to contrast him with, he really seemed very attractive and you couldn't for one instant feel he was your aunt or grandmother, or that you could go to Australia with him safely! And while all the nice American men—and Valerie only has the nicest—were saying bright pleasant things, he, who was behind my chair and apparently talking to Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield (she is here), managed to bend down and tell me he adored me, and had only come to America because he found I was not in London!

There was that lovely sense of having a secret, and although he sat on one side of Valerie, and Tom at the other, and I was miles away with the host—it was a huge dinner party—still his eyes said whatever eyes could say between bouquets of flowers. On my other hand was the father of one of the guests. Valerie had told us beforehand she considered him not of their world, but the daughter was charming and married to a youth who is one of their friends, so as he was staying with them she had to ask him too. Both Octavia and I wanted to have him next us because these characters are so much more interesting than just their world, who are the same as Englishmen, almost, with the sex taken out, and a more emphasised way of talking.

Octavia and I tossed up for him and I won and he was a gem,—a rugged powerful face and grey bushy hair and really well dressed. He had eyes that saw through one at once and beyond, and his hands were strong and well shaped, with the most exquisitely polished nails. He did not make horrid noises clearing his throat as lots of them do, and he was not the least deaf. Instantly we got on. He said if we were seeing America we were not to judge the nation by the men we should see in society in New York (each person we meet tells us this!); that we should go out West if we wanted to find the giant brains who make the country great.

"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said, looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own problem along that line."

"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."

Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that standpoint was the most satisfactory way. He said it was no use mixing up sentiment and what you thought things ought to be with what things really were. "We've got to see the truth Ma'am, that's all," he said. Then he said, "these cotton wool ba-lambs" never saw the truth of anything from one year's end to another, and, "it ain't because it's too difficult, but because they have not got a red cent of brains to think for themselves!"

While he was saying all this he never took his eyes off me, and he spoke with quiet force. He went on and was too interesting expounding his theories along every line (I am getting American), and I looked up and caught Valerie's eye, and she collapsed with laughter; she thought it quite funny that I should find him thrilling. Presently I asked him what his views were about us in England, we of the leisure class, and he said he thought most of us were pretty sound because we did our duties and generally kept our heads.

"Now, I guess, Ma'am, your husband has quite a lot of business to do in a year?" and I said yes, that of course there was endless work in the management of a large estate, and politics, besides hunting and shooting, which was stern business with us! Then he told me with them the leisured class had no responsibilities, except to keep an eye on their brokers, and so they got into mischief.

"'Tisn't in the American blood to be idle," he said; "they can't keep straight if they are." After that I asked him what he thought about the English and American marriages among our nobility, and he got so vehement that he brought his hand down on the table and made such a clatter everyone looked.

It would take too long, Mamma, to repeat all his words, which were too quaint; but the sense of them, was that he would forbid them by law, because American girls to begin with had been brought up with the idea they were to be petted and bowed down to by all men, and no Englishman in his heart considered a woman his equal! And then to go on with, they did not know a thing of the duties of the position, or the tenue which is required to keep up the dignity of an old title, so when it came to the scratch they were found wanting. "Which of 'em's got prestige, I ask you, Ma'am, in your country? They may rub along all right, and when it is a question of society I guess they're queens, but which of 'em acts like the real thing in the country, or is respected by the people?"

I really did not know what to say, Mamma, so he went on. "They're all right sometimes till the rub, and they may do better if they've been educated in Europe—they are so mightily adaptable; but just an American girl like my Lola there,—I'd rather see her dead than married to your greatest Dook."

I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said, "Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won't grin and bear it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and that is not good for prestige. You asked me about the thing in principle and I'm bound to tell you the truth. We aren't brought up on tradition in our country, and our girls don't know what noblesse oblige means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it's old fashioned anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won't work." I said I thought he held quite different views to the rest of his countrymen, who placed their women on a pedestal above the whole world. Then he blazed at me! "Don't you make any mistake about that. I'm with them there; I think our women are ahead, taking them all round, but that don't make them suited to old countries, any more than new wine in old bottles or new patches in old garments;—breaks the bottle and wears out the stuff."

I said I would not misunderstand him, but I was sure most of his own country-women at the table would be offended to hear his views, and again he said, "Maybe, maybe! Pretty empty heads; they can't reason; they only see what they want to, but I see the straight truth."

I am not clever enough to have argued with him properly, but I did ask him in his theorising if he did not think it was good for our old race to have the mixture of new blood; and he said no, that by the rules of breeding we wanted re-stocking from the primitive. "Your old families should take a strong country lass now and then. Let 'em marry their milk-maids and leave our hot-house plants alone. Have you read Burbank's books?" he added. "No? Well, read 'em; you'll understand then cause and effect; though his are all about plants. He's the greatest giant we've got in America, in my opinion."

You will think I am being a frightful bore, Mamma, telling you all this; and I can't give you the strange force and power of this man's personality, which made him so interesting; but I had to write it all because I am telling you everything which strikes me as American, and different to us, and we have nothing like this man at home; and when the lady at his other hand did claim his attention, Daniel Latour, after reproaching me for my shoulder being turned to him for so long, told me some of his history. Elias P. Arden, his name is, and he is a senator. He has had a remarkable career, rising from nothing, and being the bravest, coolest, hardest man in the mining camps. He is colossally rich, and his daughter Lola is perfectly lovely, and married to a silly young Vinerhorn, who has a country house close here.

It is so quaint how all the men stand in awe of their wives! Daniel Latour, even though he knows Valerie is a great friend of mine, and would not mind a bit, still kept glancing nervously across at her whenever he said anything a little go-ahead.

After dinner, of course, the Vicomte immediately came to me. Here the men leave the dining-room with us, like in France, and the Vicomte did not even go back with the others to smoke. But it was all done in such a clever way it attracted no attention.

Jack Brandon had turned up, you know, Lord Felixtowe's brother: he came with some people with whom he is spending the Sunday, and his methods to speak with the lady he admires were so different to the Vicomte's. Of course he had that extraordinary sans-gene of all those men, that absolute unselfconsciousness which is not aware there is anyone else in the room but himself and the lady he is bent upon; but instead of being discreet, and making a semblance of taking an interest in the rest of the company, as the Vicomte did, he just sprawled into a chair near her, monopolised her conversation, and stared blankly in front of him whenever she spoke to any one else. And Tom was doing almost the same by Valerie. It is undoubtedly this quality of perfect ease and unconscious insolence which for some unaccountable reason is attractive in Englishmen. If it were assumed it would be insupportable impertinence, but as you know, Mamma, it is not in the least. They are perfectly unconscious of their behaviour; it is just that there is one woman they want to speak to in a room, so that is all they see; the rest of the people are merely furniture. Now, American men are always polite and unselfish, and almost self-conscious where women are concerned, whereas the French have too polished manners naturally to allow them to forget the general company.

I tried to keep Gaston from making love to me, and when he would go on, I said it bored me to death, and if he wanted to remain friends with me he must simply amuse me; and then to tease him I got up and went and talked to the Western senator. He had such a quizzical entertaining look in his keen eye—he was being stiffly deferential to one of the ladies, a Mrs. Welsh, who was talking to him so brightly. It looked like a huge mastiff allowing a teeny griffon to play with it.

"They're bright as paint," he said to me when we sat down on a sofa, pointing to Mrs. Welsh. "Dainty, pretty creatures. I don't think women want brains, not man's brains, anyway." I am sure you would agree with this, Mamma, and I am sure he is right.

I said to him how extraordinarily generous all American husbands and fathers seemed to their women-kind, and what lovely clothes they had, and what heaps of money they must spend on them; and he said, "By the Lord, why shouldn't they? What's the use of money but to spend, and if that's what makes them happy, let 'em." Then he added, "I'm always grateful and kind of devotional towards women. It's only through them we ever get a taste of heaven on this used-up old earth, and it doesn't matter how low they've sunk, any of 'em would die for the man they really love. Whenever I hear a man speak a disparaging word of a woman, I know, no matter what his other qualifications are, he's a mean yellow dog underneath."

Did you ever hear of such a darling, chivalrous gentleman, Mamma? And his eyes got all soft, and I am sure, when he was younger, he had all the quality I told you of; and though it would have been safe to go to the moon with him because of his honour, he would have made you feel it would have been nice if he kissed you.

I told him I thought he was lovely, and he smiled rather sadly; and although he seems to have not much knowledge of literature in a dilettante sense, he has a great splendid mind; and if there are many more senators like him at Washington this country ought to be the best governed in the world. He makes you feel you are on a mountain top or in pine forests, or some vast space, and all the people of society such poor little things. But he is too kindly even to despise them really; and he looks at his daughter's weak, reedy husband with affectionate toleration as the last toy she wanted and had got. "Lola had a keen fancy for Randolph," he said. "She liked his being a swell, and if he's her joy, what's it to me that I could break his bones with one clasp of my hand?" And he put out his strong well kept fingers.

You know, Mamma, I do wonder if such a man could marry one of us, who understand that a really fine male creature is our superior and not meant to obey us, and who would appreciate all his splendid aims, and not think they were there just to buy us diamonds—I wonder what sort of children we should have? They ought to be absolutely superb, oughtn't they?

I was so thrilled with Mr. Elias P. Arden that I stayed on the sofa with him all the evening, and he told me every sort of interesting thing, and at last said he would like us to come and see the mining camps with him in the West. He is a president of the railway there, and he has a private car.

"I'll bring along a specimen of young man for your inspection, Ma'am," he said. "Nelson Renour, the finest young chap I've met in my life."

And when he said that, a great rush of remembrance came over me, and I felt I should love to see him again, and I told the Senator so, and how we had met him, and just then Tom joined us and we have arranged it all; when we have been to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond for a day or two, we are going right out West, and shall all meet the private car at Los Angeles and go to the camps. "Lola" and her husband are coming, too, and anyone else we like; and the Vicomte immediately proposed himself, as he said he is deeply interested in mining and wants to invest some money. I think we shall have a superb time, don't you, Mamma? And I am longing to be off, but we have still some more social things to do, and go to one dance.

It is so late in the year all the balls are finished and lots of people have already gone to Europe. They are having this one on purpose for us, because Octavia said she wanted to see some young men and girls, and how they amuse themselves. The girls have a perfectly emancipated and glorious time, and are petted and spoilt to a degree. They don't come much to the ladies' lunches, but they have girls' lunches of their own, and their own motor cars and horses, or whatever else they want, and do not have to ask their mothers' leave about anything.

Among the married women there are two distinct sets here in the inner cream, the one which Valerie leads, and which has everything like England, and does not go in for any of those wonderful entertainments where elephants do the waiting with their trunks, or you sit in golden swings over a lake while swans swim with the food on trays on their backs—I am exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean. Valerie says all that is in shocking taste, which of course it is. She never has anything eccentric, only splendid presents at her cotillons, and all the diplomats from Washington come over, and the whole tone of her house is exactly as it is at home, except that many of them are brighter and more amusing than we are.

Then the other set is the "go one better set,"—that is the best way I can describe it. If one has a party one week, another must have a finer one the week after, and so on, until thousands and thousands of dollars are spent on flowers, for instance, for one afternoon; and in it nothing is like England. I believe it must be purely American, or perhaps one ought to say New York.

These two sets meet at Newport, but they won't speak to any others. I wish we were going to stay long enough to go there.

When all the dinner party had gone, Octavia and I and one of the other women who are staying in the house, went up with Valerie into her sitting room, and coseyed round the fire; but when Tom and the Vicomte knocked at the door, and wanted to come in, too, and cosey with us, Valerie looked the wee-est trifle shocked, and rather nervously put them off; and she said to me afterwards that the room opened right into her bedroom, and Daniel would have been awfully cross if they had come in! It is in tiny trifles like this that even Valerie is a fraction provincial. I suppose she had a Puritan ancestor. Puritans, as one knows, always have those odd minds that see something bad in everything.

This morning some of them went to church, but I was not in time. I was so tired I overslept myself and then stayed hours in my bath. The bath-rooms here are superb. Certainly the American plumbers are the best in the world. I can't imagine what the American women do when they marry foreign noblemen and go home with them to their old castles where they would be expected to wash in a dish.

When I got down I found Gaston pacing the library like a maniac. "Enfin, enfin," he cried, as he kissed my hand.

"Enfin what?" I said, and he told me he had been waiting here for me the whole morning, and they would soon be home from church and he would not get another chance to see me alone. So I just played with him a little, Mamma!—and it was too delightful being as provoking as possible and yet perfectly sage. Harry could not have really objected to a word I said, but all the same it drove Gaston crazy. I have never had a chance before, you know, because all these years, what with having babies and the fuss and time that takes, and Harry never leaving me for a moment, and glaring at every other man who came near, I did not know how enjoyable a little fencing could be. And when the rest did come back I only talked to Daniel Latour on purpose to tease Gaston, and I really amused myself.

Lots more people came to luncheon, and though it is in the wilds of the country, what we would call, they were all in lovely afternoon dresses, as if it were town and the height of the season. But we were so merry at lunch. A general conversation is far more bright and entertaining than at home.

After lunch we walked in the woods, and I can never tell you of the beauty of it, with the scent of Spring in the air, and the quaint wild flowers. It is their last Sunday down here; they go off to Europe next week.

Shoals more visitors for tea, among them a little bride who had already got her husband to heel. She talked all the time of what she was going to do and he did not speak a word. But it is only in that sort of way they are very emancipated, it seems, for while they are actually married they are as good as gold, as far as looking at anyone else is concerned. It is when they come to Europe they have flirtations like us. But as I said before, there would not be any zest, because you can get a divorce and marry the man so easily it makes it always une affaire de jeune fille.

Now I must dress for dinner, so good-bye, dear Mamma.

Kisses to my angels.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK



PLAZA HOTEL. NEW YORK, Tuesday.

DEAREST MAMMA,—I have a theatre and dance to tell you of in this letter. To begin with, the theatres themselves are far better built than ours; everyone can see, and there is no pit, and the boxes are in graduated heights so that you have not to crane your neck,—but the decorations in every one we have yet been to are unspeakable. This one last night had grouped around the proscenium what looked exactly like a turkey's insides (I hope you aren't shocked, Mamma!). I once saw the marmiton taken out at Arrachon, when I was a little girl and got into the kitchen,—just those awful colours, and strange long, twisted, curled-up tuby-looking things. They are massed on the boxes, too, and were, I suppose, German "Art Nouveau."

I always think Art Nouveau must have been originated by a would-be artist who got drunk on absinthe after eating too much pate de foie gras in a batard-Louis XV. room, then slept, then woke, and in a fit of D.T. conceived it. He saw impossible flowers and almost rats running up the furniture, and every leg and line out of balance and twisted; and fancy, if one could avoid it, putting it in a theatre! The play itself was very well acted, but, as is nearly always the case here, unless it is a lovely blood-and-shooting, far West play, the heroine is drawn to be a selfish puny character, full of egotism and thinking of her own feelings. The men were perfectly splendid actors, but they distracted my eye so with their padded shoulders it quite worried me. The hero was a small person, and when he appeared in tennis flannels his shoulders were sloping, and in proportion to his little body; but when the coat got on again they were at least eight inches wider, and, as he lifted his arms to clasp his lady, one saw where the padding ended; it was absolutely ridiculous and made me laugh in a serious place.

When one looks down at the audience, the women not being in evening dress gives the coup d'oeil a less festive note, but I think people in theatres look perfectly awful anywhere, don't you, Mamma? One wonders where they come from.

This was a play about "Graft," which as far as I can understand means,—supposing you wanted to be elected a member of the Government, you could agree with some large contractor, who had influence over countless votes, to get the order for him to put up a public building which millions had been voted for; and instead of making it of solid marble, to face it and fill it up with rubbish, and you and he would pocket the difference. I think that would be "graft," and there seems to a lot of it about, judging from the play and the papers; and we were told some of the splendid buildings in San Francisco showed all these tricks when they fell down in the earthquake. I should hate to live in an earthquake country, shouldn't you, Mamma? It could interrupt one in such awkward or agreeable moments,—and one would feel one ought to be ready and looking as attractive as possible all the time. It would be so wearing.

I think English people are stodgy and behind-hand about things. Why don't they come here and take a few hints before they build any more theatres? You can't think how infinitely better these are to see in.

The difference in the comic operas to ours is, they have no refinement or colours or subtleties to please the eye—all is gaudy and blatant. The "Merry Widow," for instance, could make one weep, it is so vulgar and changed, especially the end. But if the people prefer it like that the managers are quite right to let them have what they want.

After the theatre we went, a huge party, to sup at such a funny place which was all mirrors; and a man at the next table, who was perhaps a little beyond "fresh," got perfectly furious thinking another man was staring at him, and wanted to get up and fight him. The lady next him pulled his sleeve, and had to keep telling him, "Hush, Bob, hush! Can't you see it's yourself?" "Certainly not!" shouted the man, so loud we could not help hearing. "I'll fight anyone who says I am that ugly mug!" and he gesticulated at the reflection and it gesticulated back at him. It was the funniest sight you can imagine, Mamma, and it was not until the lady meekly demanded if the person he saw sitting by the "ugly mug" resembled her that he could be convinced, and be got to go on quietly with his supper. And all the rest of the time he kept glancing at the glass and muttering to himself like distant thunder, just as Agnes does when things displease her.

In Paris, at the restaurants one goes to, there is only the one class—unless, of course, one is doing Montmartre, but I mean the best ones bourgeoises would not think of thrusting themselves in; and in London there is only the Ritz and Carlton where one goes, and it is the rarest thing certainly at the Ritz to see any awful people there. But here, heaps of the most ordinary are very rich and think they have the best right, which of course they have if they pay, to enter the most select places; so the conglomeration even at Sherry's sometimes is too amusing, and at the mirror place, which society would only go to as a freak, the company is beyond description. But they all seem such kindly, jolly people, all amusing themselves, and gay and happy. I like it, and the courtesy and fatherly kindness of the men to the women is beautiful, and a lesson to the male creatures of other nations. I have not yet seen an American man who is not the cavalier servante of his wife and sisters and daughters. And what flowers they send one! Everything is generous and opulent.

The dance was such fun, a bal blanc, as only young people were asked, and they all come without chaperones, so sensible, and all seemed to have a lovely romp, and enjoy themselves in a far, far greater degree than we do. It was more like a tenants' ball or a children's party, they seemed so happy; and towards the end lots of the girls' hair became untidy and their dresses torn, and the young men's faces damp and their collars limp.

The house was a perfectly magnificent palace, far up on Fifth Avenue, which has been built so lately that the taste is faultless; but it was a rather new family gave the dance, whom Valerie has not yet received. She thinks she will next year, because the daughter is so lovely and admired, and everyone else knows them.

At the beginning of the evening some of the girls looked beautiful, but as a rule much too richly dressed, like married women; only when even the most exquisite creatures get hot and dishevelled the charm goes off—don't you think so, Mamma? It is more like France than England, as there is very little sitting out; one just goes to the buffet. And there is always the cotillon; but the favours and flowers are much better than anyone would have in Paris. The girls must get quite rich in trinkets at the end of a season.

We are told a real ball, where the married women are, is much more range, and one does not see people get so untidy. But all the balls are over now, so we shall not be able to judge.

What struck us most was the young people seemed much more familiar with each other than we should ever allow them to be; just like playful brothers and sisters, not a bit loverish, but almost as if it could develop into what they call "rough-housing" in a minute, although it never did at the dance.

"Rough-housing" is throwing your neighbour's bread across the table at someone else, and he throwing his table napkin back at you, and yelling and screaming with mirth; and it often ends with being mauled and pulled about, and water being poured down someone's neck.

The Spleists had a young people's tea last week, which I have not had time to tell you of, where they did all this. They flung themselves about, and were as natural and tiresome as baby puppies are, barking and bouncing and eating up people's shoes.

Fancy, Mamma, when Ermyntrude grows up, my allowing her to pour water down a man's neck, and to be mauled and fought with in consequence! But I am sure they are all as innocent and lighthearted as the young puppies whose behaviour theirs resembles; so it may be a natural outlet for high spirits, and have its good side, though we could not possibly stand it.

The whole tenue in moving, of the girls, is "fling about," even in the street, but no other nation can compare to them in their exquisitely spruce, exquisitely soigne appearance, and their perfect feet and superlatively perfect boots, and short tailor dresses. To see Fifth Avenue on a bright day, morning or afternoon, is like a procession of glowing flowers passing. Minxes of fifteen with merry roving eyes, women of all ages, all as beautifully dressed as it is possible to be, swinging along to the soda-water fountain shops where you can get candy and ice cream and lovely chocolates. No one has that draggled, too long in the back and too short in the front look, of lots of English women holding up their garments in a frightful fashion. Here they are too sensible; they have perfect short skirts for walking, and look too dainty and attractive for words. Also there are no old people much—a few old women but never any old men. I suppose they all die off with their hard life.

But isn't human nature funny, Mamma, and how male creatures' instincts will break out sometimes even in a country like this, where sex does not "amount to much." We are told that now and then the most respectable father of a family will "side track," and go off on a jaunt with a glaringly golden-haired chorus lady! But one thing is better than with us, the eldest sons don't defy fate and marry them! When he gets to fifteen I shall begin to have nightmares in case Hurstbridge should bring me home a Gaiety daughter-in-law, though probably by then there will be such numbers of Birdie and Tottie and Rosie Peeresses, that I shall have got used to it, unless, of course, the fashion changes and goes back to the time Uncle Geoffrey talks of, when those ladies found their own world more amusing.

There is not much romance here. I don't see how they ever get in love. How could one get in love with a young man whom one romped with and danced with, till his face became dripping, and his collar limp; whom one saw when one wanted to without any restrictions, and altogether treated like a big brother? I suppose getting "crazy" about a person is as near being in love as they know. Each country has its ways, but I like romance.

Their astounding adaptability is what strikes one—the women's I mean. The ones who have been to Europe only on trips even, have all acquired a more reserved tone and gentler voices, while the girls who went to school in Paris or have lived in England are wonders of brilliant attraction. I do not know if any of those would make a noise and rough-house. They would be clever enough to choose their time and place if they did.

The children skate on roller skates along the streets, and on the asphalte paths of the parks. There is a delightful happy-go-lucky-way about everything. In the country trains cross the roads with no gates to keep people off the track, and in every branch of life you have to look out for yourself and learn self-reliance.

We are so amused because Octavia is considered to have "an English accent," and mine not so strong, the papers say. What can an "English accent" be, Mamma? Since English came from England and is till spoken as we do, there would be some logic in saying "an American accent," but what can an "English" one be! One might as sensibly remark upon a Frenchman from Paris having a French accent, or a German from Berlin.

I suppose it must be the climate which obliges people to make such disagreeable throat-clearing noises. In any public place it is absolutely distressing, and makes one creep with disgust.

At all the restaurants we have been to, the food is most excellent, and they have such delightfully original dishes and ways of serving things. There are not such quantities of "coloured gentlemen" as one supposed, about; and they don't have them even for servants in the big hotels, but at a smaller one, where Southern people go, and we went to call on some-one, there were lots of them; and they have such gentle voices and good manners I like them.

Yesterday Octavia and I went to a "department store" to buy, among other things, some of their lovely ready-made costumes to take out West with us, and it was so amusing; the young ladies at the ribbon counter were chatting with the young ladies at the flowers, divided by a high set of drawers, so they had to climb up or speak through the passage opening. Presently after we had tried to attract their attention, one condescended to serve us, while she finished her conversation with her friend round the corner perfectly indifferent as to our wants, or if we bought or not! The friend surveyed us and chewed gum. But when we got to the costume salon, they were most polite. Two perfect dears attended to us, and were so sympathetic as to our requirements, and talked intelligently and well on outside subjects. Octavia and I felt we were leaving old friends when we went. Why should you be rude measuring off ribbons, and polite showing clothes?

To-morrow we go to Philadelphia to stay with Kitty Bond, who as you know isn't so colossally rich as the rest, but just as nice as Valerie; and they have a house which has been there for a hundred years, so it will be interesting to see the difference.

The Vicomte has been good and docile. I have not had to keep him in order once, but he comes round all the time, and when he thinks people are looking he gazes devotedly at Octavia, and everyone thinks he is her affair. Isn't it intelligent of him, Mamma?

I am glad you have not scolded me about Harry and our quarrel in your last letter; but there is no use your being angry with him and saying he behaved like a brute. He did not, a bit, because it really was my fault, principally; only it's all just as well, as I should never have been allowed to come here if it had not happened, and I am enjoying myself and seeing the world.

Good-bye, dearest Mamma. Best love from,

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA



RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA, Wednesday.

DEAREST MAMMA,—I think you would like this place better than New York if you came to America. It is much quieter and less up-to-date, and there is the most beautiful park; only you have to get at it by going through the lowest slums of the town, which must rather put one off on a summer day, and it is dominated by a cemetery on a high cliff above it, so that as you drive you see the evidences of death always in front of you; and one of the reporters who came to interview us said it made "a cunning place to take your best girl on Sunday to do a bit of a spoon!!" Are they not an astonishing people, Mamma? So devoid of sentiment that they choose this, their best site, for a cemetery! and then spend their gayest recreation hours there!! I couldn't have let even Harry make love to me in a cemetery. Of course it must be only the working class who go there, as a jaunt, not one's friends; but it surprised me in any case.

Kitty's house is the sweetest place, rather in the country, and just made of wood with a shingle roof; but so quaint, and people look at it with the same sort of reverence we look at Aikin's Farm, which was built in fourteen hundred, you remember? This one was put up before the revolution, in Colonial days, and it has a veranda in front running up with Ionic pillars all in wood like a portico. Inside it is just an English home—do you hear, Mamma? I said home! because it is the first we have seen. And it came as some new thing, and to be appreciated, to find the furniture a little shabby from having been in the same place so long; and the pictures most of them rather bad, but really ancestors; and the drawing-room and our bedrooms lovely and bright with flowery chintzes, fresh and shiny, no tapestry and wonderful brocade; and the table-cloths plain, and no lace on the sheets, nor embroideries to scratch the ear. It shows what foolish creatures of habit we are, because in the other houses there has been every possible thing one could want, and masterpieces of art and riches and often beauty; but just because Kitty's house is like a home, and has the indescribable atmosphere of gentle owners for generations, we like it the best! It is ridiculous to be so prejudiced, isn't it?

Jim Bond says they are too poor to go to Europe more than once in three years, and they only run over to New York to stay with Valerie now and then, and sometimes down South or camping out in the summer, so they spend all the time at Ringwood, and there is not a corner of the garden or house they do not tend and love. Jim is a great gardener, so Octavia and he became absorbed at once. He has not got much business to do, and only has to go in to Philadelphia about once a week, so his time is spent with Kitty and books and horses and the trees and flowers; and if you could see the difference it makes, Mamma, in a man! His eyes do not have a bit the look of a terrier after a rat, and he does not always answer literally to everything you say, and if you speak about books or art or anything of other countries, he is familiar with it all, and listens and isn't bored, and hardly attending, so anxious to get his anecdote in, as lots of them were in New York. But on the other hand the Americans would never be the splendid successful nation they are if they were all peaceful and cultivated like Jim Bond; so all is as it should be, and both kinds are interesting.

Kitty is a darling, an immense sense of humour, perfectly indifferent about dress, and as lanky and unshaped a figure as any sporting Englishwoman; when she comes to stay with us at Valmond she only brings two frocks for even a big party! But she is like Octavia, a character, and everyone loves her, and would not mind if she did not wear any clothes at all. You must meet her the next time, Mamma. She did not tremendously apologize because the hot water tap in my bath-room would not run (as Mrs. Spleist did when one of the twenty electric light branches round my bed-room would not shine); she just said, "You must call Ambrosia" (a sweet darkie servant) "and she will bring you a can from the kitchen."

She sat on the floor by the wood fire in the old-fashioned grate, and made me laugh so I was late for dinner. They had a dinner party for us, because they said it was their duty to show us their best, as we had seen a little of New York; and it was a delightful evening. Several of the men had moustaches, and they were all perfectly at ease, and not quite so kind and polite as the others, and you felt more as if they were of the same sex as Englishmen, and you quite understood that they could get in love. The one at my right hand was a pet, and has asked us to a dinner at the Squirrels Club to-night, and I am looking forward to it so. The women were charming, not so well dressed as in New York, and perhaps not so pretty, or so very bright and ready with repartee as there, but sweet all the same. And I am sure they are all as good as gold, and don't have divorces in the family nearly so often. That was the impression they gave me. One even spoke to me of her baby, and we had quite a "young mother's conversation," and I was able to let myself go and talk of my two angels without feeling I should be a dreadful bore. It was, of course, while the men stayed in the dining-room, which they did here just like England.

The Squirrels Club is as old as Kitty's house, and is such a quaint idea. All the members cook the dinner in a great kitchen, and there are no servants to wait or lay the table, or anything, only a care-taker who washes up. We are to go there about seven—it is in the country, too—and help to cook also; won't it be too delightful, Mamma! Octavia says she feels young again at the thought. I will finish this to-morrow, and tell you all about it before the post goes.



Thursday._

I am only just awake, Mamma. We had such an enchanting evening last night, and stayed up so late I slept like a top. We drove to the club house in motors, and there were about six or seven women beside ourselves and ten or twelve men all in shirt-sleeves and aprons, and the badge of the Club, a squirrel, embroidered on their chests. I don't know why, but I think men look attractive in shirt-sleeves. Sometimes at home in the evening, if I am dressed first, I go into Harry's room to hurry him up, and if I find him standing brushing his hair I always want him to kiss me, when his valet isn't there, he looks such a darling like that; and he always does, and then we are generally late. But I must not think of him, because when I do I just long for him to come back, and to rush into his arms, and of course I have got to remain angry with him for ages yet.

How I have wandered from the delightful squirrels! Well, the one who asked us was called Dick Seton, and as I told you he is a pet, and a young man! That is, not elderly, like the business ones we met in New York, and not a boy like the partners at the dance, but a young man of thirty, perhaps, with such nice curly light hair and blue eyes, and actually not married! Everything of this age is married in New York.

There was a huge slate in the kitchen with who was to do each course written up, and it looked so quaint to see in among the serious dishes:

"Cutting Grouts for Soup"—the Countess of Chevenix assisted by Mr. Buckle.

"Hollandaise Sauce"—The Marchioness of Valmond, Mr. Dick Seton.

And we did do ours badly, I am afraid, because there was a nice low dresser in a cool gloomy place, and we sat down on that, and my assistant whispered such lovely things that we forgot, and stirred all wrong, and the head cook came and scolded us, and said we had spoilt six eggs, and he should not give us another job; we were only fit to arrange flowers! So we went to the dining-room, and you can't think of the fun we had. The Club house is an old place with low rooms and all cosey. Octavia was in there—the dining-room—helping to lay the cloth, as she had been rather clumsy, too, and been sent away, and her young man was as nice as mine; and we four had a superb time, as happy as children, but Tom was nothing but a drone, for he sat with Kitty in a window seat behind some curtains, and did not do a thing.

My one said he had never seen such a sweet squirrel as me in my apron, and I do wish, Mamma, we could have fun like this in England; it is so original to cook one's dinner! And when it came in, all so well arranged, each member knowing his appointed duties, it was excellent, the best one could taste. And everybody was witty and brilliant, and nobody wanted to interrupt with their story before the other had finished his. So the time simply flew until it came to dessert, and there were speeches and toasts, and Octavia and I as the guests of honour each received a present of a box of bonbons like a huge acorn; but when we opened them, out of mine there jumped a darling little real squirrel, quite tame and gentle, and coddled up in my neck and was too attractive, so I purred to it of course and caressed it, for the rest of the time; and Mr. Dick said it was not fair to waste all that on a dumb animal, when there were so many deserving talking squirrels in the room, and especially himself. I have never had such an amusing evening. Even the quaint and rather solemn touch pleased me, of the first toast being said between two freshly lighted candles, to those members who were dead. The club dates from Colonial times, too, so there must have been a number of them, and if their spirits were there in the room they must have seen as merry a party as the old room had ever witnessed.

Dear, polite, courteous gentlemen! And I wish you had been with us, Mamma. I came a roundabout way back alone with my "partner-in-sauce" as we called him, in his automobile, an open one, and we just tore along for miles as fast as we could, and though he was driving himself, he managed to say all sorts of charming things; and when we got back to Kitty's more people came, and we had an impromptu dance and then supper, and all the servants had gone to bed, so we had to forage for things in the pantry, and altogether I have never had such fun in my life, and Octavia, too.

To-day we go back to New York and then out West, so good-bye, dearest Mamma. I will cable you from each stopping place, and write by every mail.

Fond love to my babies.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK



BACK IN NEW YORK, PLAZA HOTEL.

DEAREST MAMMA,—All our preparations are made, and we start for the West by Niagara Falls, which I have always wanted to see. The Vicomte is coming with us, and our charming Senator, Elias P. Arden. So I am sure we shall have an agreeable time. "Lola" and the husband have already started, and will join us at Los Angeles from San Francisco; and the Senator says he is "in touch" with Mr. Renour, and he hopes he will "be along" by the time we get to the private car.

These few days in New York have confirmed our opinion of everyone's extraordinary kindness and hospitality. All their peculiarities are just caused by being so young a nation; they are quite natural; whatever their real feelings are come out. As children are touchy, so are they, and as children boast, so do they, and just as children's hearts are warm and generous, so are theirs. So I think this quality of youth is a splendid one, don't you, Mamma?

Valerie's set are practically the same as ours at home in their tone, and way of living, and amusements, so I have not told you anything special of them, the only difference being we never worry in the least about what people think of us, and when we talk seriously it is of politics, and they of Wall Street affairs, which shows, doesn't it, that such things are more interesting to them than the making of laws. We have not heard politics talked about in any class in New York. Attacks on the President often, because he is said to have interfered with trusts by probing their methods, which gets back to the vital point of dollars and cents. People will speak for and against him for hours, but not from a political point of view, and abstract political discussions we have never heard.

I have not yet grasped the difference between "Democrat" and "Republican," and so I don't know if it is just the same as at home, that whichever is Radical wants to snatch each one for his own hand and does not care a rush about the nation; while whichever is Conservative cares nothing for personal advancement—having arrived there already—so has time and experience to look ahead and think of the country.

If you had a delicate baby, Mamma, would not you rather give it into the hands of a thoroughly trained nurse than an ignorant aspiring nursery maid taking her first place, who was more likely to be thinking of the head nurse's wages she was going to get than her duties to the child? That is how I look upon the parties at home, but here I expect it is more as the Whigs and Tories were, each equal in class and experience, only holding different views. I should like to have a peep about five hundred years ahead. I am sure the ignorant nurse-maids will have killed our baby by then, and we shall be a wretched down-trodden commune, while they will be a splendidly governed aristocratic nation under one autocratic king!

I have not told you a thing about the Park, or the general aspect of the houses; we are rushed so it is hard to write. But the Park is a perfectly charming place, as nice as the Bois, and much nicer than our attempt that way, and everyone who goes there seems to be out on a holiday. Fifth Avenue runs beside it like our Park Lane, beginning at Fifty-ninth Street, and about every five years people have to move further up, because of the encroaching shops. So it hardly seems worth while to spend millions on building white marble palaces which may be torn down or converted in so short a time. Nothing is allowed to last. Heaps of the mansions are perfectly beautiful in style, and many simple as well, which is always the prettiest; but you can meet Francois Premier Castles, and Gothic Halls, and all sorts of mixed freaks, too, in half an hour's walk, and it seems to me a pity they can't use their rollers and just cart these into the side streets. But if I were rebuilding Valmond House I would get an American architect to do it for me, and on the American principle, that is, I should get him to study all the best they have done and then "go one better!"

Unless you are quite in the poor parts every creature in the streets is spruce and well dressed; men and women have that look of their things being brushed and ironed to the last state of perfection. And if it is the fashion in Paris to have hats two feet across they will have them a yard; but as they all have the same, one's eye gets accustomed to it, and it does not look ridiculous.

The longer one stays the more one admires that extraordinary quality of "go"—a mental alertness and lucidity they have immeasurably beyond European nations; very few people are intellectual, but all are intelligent and advancing. No one browses like such hundreds do at home, and all are much more amusing companions in consequence.

Last night we went to see China Town with Valerie's brother and some other young men, and two or three women. Valerie would not come because she has done it before and it bores her, and no American woman deliberately does what she finds wearisome. They are sensible. First we dined at the Cafe Lafayette, which is almost down town, and near Washington Square, and then started in automobiles which we left in the Bowery. One always thought that was a kind of cut throat Whitechapel, did not one? But it is most quiet and respectable, so is China Town, and I am sure we need not have had the two detectives who accompanied us.

Outside there is nothing very lurid to look at. The Mayor met us at the opening of the street, a most entertaining character of what would answer to our Coster class I suppose. He spoke pure Bowery-Irish-Coster-American slang, which the detectives translated for us. It was about this: That he had seen English Lords before, and they weren't half bad when you knew 'em, and he took a particular fancy to Octavia because he said "her Nobs" (his late wife, or one of them) had red hair, too, and "ginger for pluck." He had several teeth missing, lost in fights, I suppose, and a perfectly delicious sense of humour. I wish we could have understood all he said, but our host insinuated it was just as well not! He led us first to "the theatre"—a den underground, with the stage still lower at one end, where a Chinese play was going on. The atmosphere was an unbelievable mixture of heat and smell. And wouldn't you hate to be a Chinese woman, Mamma, packed away in a sort of pen at one corner with all the other women and children and not allowed to sit with the men. We went in there, too, for as long as we could stand it. The audience were too quaint, not in their national dress, but ordinary clothes and pigtails; you couldn't have been sure they were human beings, or of what sex.

The play seemed to a thrilling one as far as we could see; they had just got to a part where the whole company were going to be beheaded. One of our party felt faint from the heat, and no wonder, so we continued our travels. We descended a kind of ladder near the door, into the bowels of the earth; and I was glad it was almost pitch dark, because Gaston was just below me and made the greatest fuss of the necessity of putting each of my feet safely on the steps for me; and once towards the bottom I am sure he kissed my instep, but as it might have been a bundle of tow which was sticking out on the last step, brushing against me, I did not like to say anything to him about it. We crossed some kind of rat hole rooms in utter darkness, and here one respectful brotherly arm, and one passionate, entreprenant one came round my waist! And while in my right ear the voice of Valerie's brother said kindly, "I'm obliged to hold on to you or you'll have an awful fall"—in my left Gaston was whispering, "Je vous adore, vous savez; n'allez pas si vite!" So I had to be very angry with him, and clung to Valerie's brother, who toward the end of the evening got into being quite a cousin instead of an aunt or father.

We had been burrowing under the auditorium, and presently found ourselves in a large cellar where a Chinese was cooking on a brazier an unspeakable melange of dog, fish, and rat for the actors' supper, with not a scrap of ventilation anywhere!! Finally, up some steps, we emerged behind the scenes, and saw all the performers dressing—rows of false beards and wonderful garments hanging all around the walls; the most indescribable smell of opium, warm eastern humanity, and grease paint, and no air! A tiny baby was there being played with by its proud father. Their lung capacity must be quite different to ours, because if we had not quickly returned I am sure some of us would have fainted. I felt strangely excited; it had a weird, fierce effect. What a fatal mysterious nation the Chinese! Unlike any others on earth. I did not much care who held me going back. I only wanted to rush to the open air, and when we had climbed up again and got outside in the street, we all staggered a little and could not speak.

When breath returned, further down the street, we recommenced burrowing into a passage to the opium den, and this was a most wonderful and terrible sight; a room with a stove in it, not more than ten feet square and about eight feet high, no perceptible ventilation but the door, which the detective put his foot in to keep a little open; a raised platform along one side of the place, and on it four Chinamen lying in different stages of the effects of opium. The first one's eyes were beginning to glaze, the pipe had fallen from his hand, and he was staring in front of him, and clutching some sheets of paper with Chinese writing on them in one hand, a ghastly smile of extraordinary bliss on his poor thin face. He was "happy and dreamin'," the detective told us. I do wonder what about, don't you, Mamma? The next had just begun to smoke, and was angry at our entrance because we let in some air! The detectives made him give us the pipe to smell, and we watched the way it was smoked, the man looking sullen and fierce and resentful, crouching like a beast ready to spring. So Valerie's brother and Gaston both thought it their duty to take care of me. The next man was half asleep, also smoking, and the fourth what they call "quite sick." He was the most dreadful of all, as he might have been a corpse except for the rising and falling of his chest. The Mayor told us, with the most amusing reflections upon this serious subject, that he would lie like that for forty-eight hours and then wake. A fearful looking creature crouched by the stove, cooking some more dog, or preparing something for the opium; and a glaring piece of scarlet cloth hung down from a rail at the top. There were some wicked long knives lying about, and the whole thing, lit up by the light of one lantern, was a grim picture of horror I shall never forget and hope never to see again. And this is called pleasure! What a mercy, Mamma, our idea of joy is different. I am glad to have seen these strange things, but I never want to again.

Everyone's head swam from the smell of the opium, and Tom said he was rather sorry he had let us go there because of that; but Octavia told him not to be ridiculous; experience is what we had come to America for, and this is one of the sights.

After that we just had fun, going to a joss-house to have our fortunes told, where a quaint priest and acolyte went through all sorts of comic mysteries, and finally paired Octavia off with one of the detectives for her fate! (Tom was furious!) and me with Valerie's brother, and Gaston looked in despair at that! Then after buying curiosities at the curio shop, we returned to the automobiles and went to Delmonico's to supper. But the opium had got into our brains I think, for we could only tell gruesome stories, and all felt "afraid to go home in the dark!"

And now, Mamma, in case you have been worrying over us going into awful places, I may as well tell you that at the end of supper our host informed us that the whole show of the opium den had been got up for our benefit, and was not the real thing at all!!! But whether this is true or no I can't say; if it was "got up" it was awfully well done, and I don't want to see any realler.

We can't get enough "drawing-rooms" on the train for everybody to-morrow, so Octavia and I shall have one, and the senator and either Tom or the Vicomte the other, and whoever is left out will have to sleep in the general place. I believe it is too odd, but I will tell you all about it when I have seen it.—If Harry writes to you and asks about me, just say I am enjoying myself awfully, and say I am thinking of becoming a naturalised American! That ought to bring him back at once. I have been dying to cable and make it up with him, but of course as I have determined not to, I can't. I am sorry to hear Hurstbridge got under the piano and then banged the German Governess's head as she tried to pull him out; but what can you expect, Mamma? His temper is the image of Harry's.

Kiss the angels for me, both of them!

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



NIAGARA



NIAGARA.

DEAREST MAMMA,—We got here this morning after such a night!—The sleeping cars are too amusing. Picture to yourself the arrangement of seats I told you about going to the Spleists, with a piece put in between to make into a bed, and then another bed arranged on top, these going all down each side and just divided from the aisle by green curtains; so that if A. likes to take a top berth and B. an underneath one, they can bend over their edges, and chat together all night, and no one would know except for the bump in the curtains. But fancy having to crouch up and dress on one's bed! And when Octavia and I peeped out of our drawing-room this morning we saw heaps of unattractive looking arms and legs protruding, while the struggle to get into clothes was going on.

A frightful thing happened to poor Agnes. Tom's valet, who took our tickets, did not get enough, not understanding the ways, and Tom and the senator and the Vicomte had tossed up which two were to have the drawing-room, and Tom lost; so when Hopkins, who is a timid creature, found a berth did not mean a section, he of course gave up his without saying anything to Tom, and as the conductor told him there was not another on the train he wandered along and at last came to Agnes's. She had a lower berth next our door, and was away undressing me. Hopkins says he thought it was an unoccupied one the conductor had overlooked, so he took it, and when Agnes got back and crawled in in the dark she found him there!! There was a dreadful scene!! We heard Hopkins scream, and I believe he ran for his life, and no one knows where he slept.

Agnes said it was too ridiculous and "tres mauvais gout" on his part to make such a fuss over "un petit accident de voyage." "Je puis assurer Madame la Marquise," she said, "que s'il etait reste c'eut ete la meme chose. Son type ne me dit rien!" At the same time she does not think these trains "comme il faut!"

We were just in time for an early breakfast when we arrived at this hotel, and the quaintest coloured gentlemen waited on us; they were rather aged, and had a shambling way of dragging their feet, but the most sympathetic manners, just suited to the four honeymoon pairs who were seated at little tables round. That was a curious coincidence, wasn't it, Mamma, to find four pairs in one hotel in that state. None of the bridegrooms were over twenty-five, and the brides varied from about eighteen to twenty-eight; we got the senator to ask about them, and one lot had been married a week, and they each read a paper propped up against their cups, and did not speak much, and you would have thought they were quite indifferent; but from where I sat I could see their right and left hands clasped under the table! Another pair with a dour Scotch look ate an enormous meal in solemn silence, and then they went off and played tennis! Their wedding took place three days ago!! The third had been there a fortnight, and seemed very jaded and bored, while the last were mere children, and only married yesterday! She was too sweet, and got crimson when she poured out his tea, and asked him if he took sugar? I suppose up till now they had only been allowed nursery bread and milk.

I don't believe I should like to have had my honeymoon breakfasts in public, would you, Mamma? Because I remember Harry always wanted—but I really must not let myself think of him or all my pride will vanish, and I shall not be able to resist cabling.

I find the senator too attractive. He does not speak much generally, and never boasts of anything he has done. We have to drag stories out of him, but he must have had such a life, and I am sure there is some tragedy in his past connected with his wife. He has such a whimsical sense of humour, and yet underneath there is a ring of melancholy sometimes. I know he and I are going to be the greatest friends. Gaston is getting seriously in love, which is perfectly ridiculous; he almost threatened to throw himself into the falls when we went to look at them; but fortunately I said only the very curly-haired could look well when picked up drowned, so that put him off.

I was not half so impressed with the falls as I ought to have been. They don't seem so high as in the pictures, and the terrible buildings on one side distract one so it seems as if even the water can't be natural, and must be just arranged by machinery. But it was fun going under them, and those oilskin coats and caps are most becoming. You go down in a lift and then walk along passages scooped out of the rock until you are underneath the volume of water, which pours over in front of you like a curtain. It was here Gaston suggested his suicide, and all because I had told the senator that he was to arrange for us to have a drive alone in the afternoon, and he overheard in the echo the place makes. I had never asked him to drive alone he said, and I said, certainly not, the senator and I would talk philosophy, whereas he would make love to me, I knew, and it would not be safe. That pacified him a good deal, and as I had been rather unsympathetic and horrid all the morning, I was lovely to him for the rest of the day; and he is really quite a dear, Mamma, as I have always told you.

Octavia says she thinks it rather hard my grabbing everybody like this, and she had wanted the senator for herself on our trip, so we have agreed to share him, and Tom says it is mean no one has been asked for him. So the senator has wired to "Lola" to bring two cousins to meet us at Los Angeles. He says they are the sweetest girls in the world, and would keep anyone alive. I am rather longing to get there and begin our fun. After the falls we did the rapids, and they impressed me far more deeply; they are rushing, wicked-looking things if you like, Mamma, and how anyone ever swam them I can't imagine. The spring is all too beautiful, only just beginning, and some of the bends of the river and views are exquisite. I felt quite romantic on the way back, and allowed Gaston to repeat poetry to me. We are just starting to get on to Chicago, so good-bye, dear Mamma.

Love from your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.

P.S.—Octavia says she thinks I am leading Gaston on, but I don't, do you, Mamma? Considering I stop him every time he begins any long sentence about love—what more can I do, eh?



CHICAGO.



CHICAGO.

DEAREST MAMMA,—We had such an interesting dinner on the train the night we left Niagara, and here we are. A millionaire travelling also, whom the senator knew, joined us for the meal, so we sat four at one table, and Gaston and Octavia alone at the other side. He was such a wonderful person, the first of just this kind we have met yet, although we are told there are more like him in Pittsburg and Chicago.

He was thick-set everywhere, a bull neck and fierce moustache and bushy eyebrows, and gave one the impression of sledge-hammer force. The whole character seemed to be so dominated and obsessed by an immense personal laudation, that his conversation created in our minds the doubt that qualities which required so much vaunting could really be there. It was his wonderful will which had won his game, his wonderful diplomacy, his wonderful knowledge of men, his clever perception, his supreme tact; in short, his everything in the world. The slightest show of a contrary opinion to anything he said was instantly pounced upon and annihilated. I do wonder, Mamma, if two of his sort got together what their conversation would be about? Would they shout one another down, each saying he was perfect, and so end in thunder or silence? Or would they contradict each other immediately and come to blows, or would they realise it was no use boasting to one of their own species, and so talk business or be quiet?

We, being strangers, were splendid victims for him, and I am sure he spent a dinner of pure joy. After each speech of self appreciation he would look round the table in a triumphant challenging way, and say, "Say, senator, isn't that so?" and the dear senator, with a twinkle in his grey eye, would reply:

"Why, certainly, Governor." (He was a governor of some place once, the senator knew.)

Finally he got on to his marvellous cleverness in the training of the young. He had no children himself, he said, but he had "raised" two young men in his office, and as a proof of their wonderful astuteness from his teaching, "I give you my word, Ma'am," he said, "either of them could draw a contract now for me, out of which I could slip at any moment!!!"

Isn't that a superb idea, Mamma! And the complete frankness with which it was said! What we would call sharp practice he considered "smart," and no doubt that is the way to get rich; for when he had gone on to the smoking car, the senator told us he was five times a millionaire, and really a good fellow underneath.

"We've got to have all sorts to make a nation, and he's the kind of machine that does the rough-hewing," he said. "He did no bragging when he was under dog; he just bottled it up and pushed on, but it was that spirit which caused him to rise. Now he's made good, won his millions, and it bursts out."—(It certainly did!)

The Senator always sees straight. He said also: "He rough-hews everything he handles, including his neighbours' nerves; he has no mercy or pity or consideration for anyone serving him, and yet he's the kindest heart towards children and animals, and the good he does to them is about the only thing he don't brag about."

It interested me immensely, but Tom had got so ruffled that I am sure even his sense of humour could not have kept him from contradicting Craik Purdy, his name is—Craik V. Purdy, I mean!

The Senator told us lots more about him and his methods, succeeding by sheer brute force and shouting all opposition down. Don't you wish, Mamma, we had some like him at home to deal with the socialists? These men are the real autocrats of the world, even though America is a republic. But wouldn't it be frightful to be married to a person like that! Octavia, who even in the noise of the train had heard some of it, asked the Senator what the wife was like, and he told us she had been a girl of his own class who had never risen with him, and was a rare exception in American women, who rise quicker than the men as a rule.

"She's been every sort of drawback to him," he said, "and yet he is almighty kind to her and covers her with diamonds; and she is a dullish sort of woman with a cold in her head."

Octavia said at once that was the kind she wanted to see in Chicago. Of what use to meet more charming and refined people like in New York or Philadelphia. She wanted to sample the "rough-hewn." And we both felt, Mamma, one must have a nice streak in one to go on being kind to a person who has a continual cold in her head.

The Senator said he would arrange a luncheon party for us in Chicago unlike anything we had had in any place yet, and it is coming off to-morrow. But first I must tell you of Detroit, where we stopped the night before last, and of our arrival here. The whole train goes over in a ferry boat from the Canadian to the American side and dinner and screaming tram cars under the window are the only distinct memories I have after our arrival, until next day, when we took a motor and went for a drive.

Detroit is really the most perfectly laid out city one could imagine, and such an enchanting park and lake,—infinitely better than any town I know in Europe. It ought to be a paradise in about fifty years when it has all matured. That is where the Americans are clever, in the beautiful laying-out of their towns; but then, as I said, they have not old debris to contend with, though I shall always think it looks queer and unfinished to see houses standing just in a mown patch unseparated from the road by any fence. I should hate the idea of strangers being able to peep into my windows.

We left about twelve, after being interviewed by several reporters in the hall of the hotel. These halls are apparently meeting places for countless men, simply crammed like one could have imagined a portico in the Roman days,—not people necessarily staying there, but herds of others from outside. The type gets thicker as one leaves New York. It reminds one of a funny man I once saw in the pantomime who put on about six suits, one after another, growing gradually larger, though no taller or fatter—just thick. All these in the hall were meaty, not one with that lean look of the pictures of "Uncle Sam," but more like our "John Bull," only not portly and complacent as he is, but just thick all over, at about the three coat stage; thick noses, thick hair, thick arms, thick legs, and nearly invariably clean-shaven and keen looking. The Senator said they were the ordinary business people and might any of them rise to be President of the Republic. We are perfectly overcome with admiration and respect for their enormous advancing and adaptive power, because just to look at we should not call these of the Senator's class. But think what brains they must have, and what vitality; and those things matter a great deal more than looks to a country.

The Senator said the type would culminate in Chicago, and gradually get finer again out in the far West. And he seemed right, from the impression we got of the crowd in this hotel. It was rather like a Christmas nightmare, when everyone had turned into a plum pudding, or those gingerbread men the old woman by the Wavebeach pier used to sell. Do you remember, Mamma? Perfectly square and solid. They are ahead of Detroit, and at the six coat stage here. Probably all as good as gold, and kind and nice and full of virtues; but for strangers who don't know all these things, just to look at, they make one think one is dreaming.

Do you suppose it is, if they have to be so much among pork and meat generally, perhaps that makes them solid? We did not know a soul to speak to, nor did the Senator either, though he said he was acquainted with many nice people in Chicago; so perhaps they were just travellers like us after all, and we have no right to judge of a place by them.

We supped—we had arrived very late—and watched the world in from the theatres. We don't know of what class they were, or of what society, only they were not the least like New York. The women were, some of them, very wonderfully dressed, though not that exquisite Paris look of the New Yorkers, and they had larger hats and brighter colours; and numbers of them were what the Senator calls "homely." We were very silent,—naturally, we did not like to say our thoughts aloud to the Senator, an American; but he spoke of it to us himself.

He said his eye, accustomed to the slender lean cowboys and miners, found them just as displeasing as he was sure we must. "Lordy," he said, "they look a set of qualifying prize-fighters gorged with sausage-meat, and then soaked in cocktails." And though that sounds frightfully coarse to write, Mamma, it is rather true. Then he added, "And yet some of the brightest brains of our country have come from Chicago. I guess they kept pretty clear of this crowd."

One of the strangest things is that no one is old, never more than sixty and generally younger; the majority from eighteen to thirty-five, and also, something we have remarked everywhere, everyone seems happy. You do not see weary, tired, bored faces, like in Europe, and no one is shabby or dejected, and they are all talking and drinking and laughing with the same intent concentrated force they bring to everything they do, and it is simply splendid.

To-morrow we are going to drive about and see everything. The aristocracy live in fine houses just outside the town, we are told, and the Senator has arranged with Mr. Craik Purdy for us all to go and have lunch with him in his mansion. This is the party he promised us, which would be different to what we had seen before, and we are looking forward to it. And there is one thing I feel sure: even if they are odd, we shall find a generous welcome, original ideas, and kind hearts; and the more I see the more I think these qualities matter most.

Now I must go to bed, dearest Mamma.

You haven't heard from Harry, I suppose? Because if you have you might let me know.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



GOING WEST



In the train going West.

DEAREST MAMMA,—Forgive this shaky writing, but I had no time before we left, and I feel I must tell you at once about our luncheon at the Purdy Castle, in case anything gets dulled in my memory. It was a unique experience. We spent the morning seeing the town, an immense busy place with colossal blocks of houses, and some really fine architecture, all giving the impression of a mighty prosperous and advancing nation, and quite the best shops one could wish for, not too crowded, and polite assistants—even at the ribbon counter!

Octavia and I made ourselves look as smart as we could in travelling dresses, because there would be no time to change after the lunch; we had to go straight to the train. I always think it is such impertinence imposing your customs upon other nations when you are travelling among them, like the English people who will go to the Paris restaurants without hats, and one Englishwoman we met at a party at Sherry's in New York in a draggled tweed skirt and coat, when all the other women were in long afternoon dresses. One should do as one's hosts do, but we could not help it this time and did not look at all bad considering.

However, when we got there we felt we were indeed out of it! But I must begin from the very door-step.

We drove a little way beyond the town to rows of dwelling mansions more or less important and growing in magnificence until we arrived at one inside some gates, a cross between a robber's castle on the stage, and a Henri III. chateau, mixed with a "little English Gothic." Huge, un-nameable animals were carved on top of the gates. Tom said the fathers of them must have been "gazeekas," and their mothers "slithy toves," out of "Through the Looking-glass." They were Mr. Purdy's crest, we suppose. Then came a short gravel path and a robber's castle, nail-studded door. All the down-stairs windows had the shutters shut, so we were rather nervous ringing the bell in case there had been a death since our invitation came; but the door was opened immediately by a German butler—one of those people one sees at sea-side hotels, who have come over to learn English, with a slow sort of walk and stentorian breathing.

The hall was full of pictures in the widest gold frames, all sorts: landscapes, portraits, cats, dogs, groups of still life, good, bad, and indifferent massed together on a wall covered with large-patterned scarlet and gilt Japanese leather paper. Guarding the doors and staircase were imitation suits of armour on dummy men, standing under some really beautiful Toledo blades crossed above their heads. Then, through crimson plush curtains with gold applique Florentine patterned borders, we were ushered into the drawing-room.

It was so original! Think, Mamma, of a sarcophagus for a drawing-room! Stone walls and floor, tombstone mantlepieces (mixed Gothic), really good Persian rugs, and the very most carved, brand new gilt Louis Philippe suite of furniture, helped out by mammoth armchairs and sofa, covered in gold brocade. These had the same shape and look for furniture as the men in the hotel hall had for men, so colossally stuffed out and large. The Vicomte said, "Dieu! Un salon d'Hippopotames!" It was a glorious sunny day, but from the hall onwards all daylight had been excluded, and the drawing-room was a blaze of electric light, flashing from countless gilt branches; while the guests to meet us were drawn up on the hearth rug, the women in full restaurant evening dress, a little decollete, and hats, and glittering with jewels.

Octavia and I felt miserably cheap creatures. Mr. Craik V. Purdy, simply gorgeous about waistcoat and watchchain, presented us to his wife, a short, red-haired woman (I do dislike red hair, don't you, Mamma?). She was very stout, but I don't understand why she was such a "drawback." She had the jolliest face and laugh, even if her voice was the voice of the Lusitania's siren.

The customs are so quaint! She introduced us to each guest (not the guests to us!) and they each repeated our names after her like this:

"Lady Chevenix and Lady Valmond, I want to present you to Mrs. Colonel Prodgers." Then Mrs. Colonel Prodgers repeated, "Lady Chevenix, Lady Valmond," and so on all down the line, until our poor names rang in our heads; and Tom and the Senator and the Vicomte just the same. The company were about seven women besides our hostess, and only three young, the others verging on forty; and all the men were husbands, whom the wives spoke of as "Mr." So and So when they mentioned them—just as the townspeople do when they come out to the Conservative meetings or bazaars at home; and the husbands did the same. But they do this in New York even, unless in the very highest set; no man is spoken of by his wife as "Bob" or "Charlie" or "my husband;" always "Mr." So and So.

Is it not odd, Mamma, that they who are so wonderfully quick and adaptive should not have noticed that this is a purely middle class peculiarity? Mr. Purdy had just time to tell us he had paid $40,000 for a large Dutch picture hanging against the Gothic stone of one panel of the wall, and $50,000 for a Gainsborough on the next (yes, Mamma, a beautiful powdered lady in a white robe was smiling down with whimsical sorrow upon us). Then luncheon was announced and we went in.

The dining-room had been decorated, he told us, a year or two ago, when taste was even different to what it is now! And he was thinking of altering it and having it pure Louis XIV. At present it was composed of saddle-bag coverings, varnished mahogany and a stencilled fleur-de-lys wall with crossed battle-axes upon it, between pictures and some china plates, while the table was lit by two huge lamps from the ceiling, shaded by old gold silk shades with frills. It was as gay as possible, and the time flew. Here the implements to eat with were more varied and numerous than even at the Spleists, and the tablecloths more lacy, and quantities of gold dishes full of almonds and olives and candies and other nice things, were by one's plate, and one could eat them all through the meal. Everyone else did, so we did, too, Mamma! and I think it is a splendid idea. Our host spent his time in telling, first Octavia, then me, of his fortune and possessions, and how there was no picture in Europe he could not buy if he wished it, and he intended to start a gallery. Octavia said he was quite right, as he evidently had a most original taste; and he was delighted.

The cold in the wife's head could be heard quite plainly even where we were, and the host shouted so kindly: "Say, Anabel, be careful of that draught."

Fancy an English husband bothering to think of a draught after a catarrh had been there for fifteen years!

I admired her diamond dog collar and splendid pearls, and he replied with open-hearted pride, "They came from Tiffany's in New York, Ma'am. I don't hold with buying foreign goods for American ladies; Mrs. Purdy has got as first-class stones as any Princess in the world, and they are every one purchased in America!"

The man at my other hand was very young, but even so a husband. I asked him how it was all the men were married, and he said he "didn't kinder know"; it was a habit they dropped into on leaving college; but for his part he though perhaps it was a pity not to be able to have a look round a little longer. And then he said thoughtfully, "I guess you're right. I don't recollect many single men. Why, there's not one here!"

And I said we had found it like that everywhere; they all seemed married except in Philadelphia.

"But you see we can quit if we want to," he added, "though we don't start out with that idea." And probably they don't, but I think it must give an underneath, comforting sort of feeling to know, when you are trotting up the aisle, or walking across the drawing-room to a lovely rigged-up altar to swear fidelity to the person who is waiting for you there, that if he annoys you in a fortnight, you can get free; and all the experience gained, and not a stain upon your character. I do wish we were half as sensible in England.

Just think of it, Mamma! I could have divorced Harry by now for quarrelling with me. I might then marry someone else, divorce him, and then presently make up with Harry and have the fun of getting married all over again. Just imagine what stories we could then tell one another! I could say "My intermediate husband never did such and such," or, "Jack would not have spoken in that tone; he made love quite differently;" and so on, and Harry could say, "You are far sweeter than Clara; I am glad we have returned to one another." Don't you think it is a splendid plan? Or are you ridiculously old fashioned like most English people, who think their worn out old laws the only ones in the universe?

I hope I am not being impertinent, Mamma, to you, but really, after being in America for a while, where everything is so progressive, I get impatient with our solidity of thought. It is quite as wearisome to contemplate, as the Chicago solid body is unattractive to look at.

When we got back the Senator told us that the very young man I had been talking to had had a quarrel with his wife, and they were actually settling the divorce proceedings when Mr. Purdy's invitation to meet the English travellers came the evening before, and they had sent off the lawyers and made it up to be able to come, and now they may go on happily for another two years, he says!

Our host told us all sorts of interesting things of his greatness, and how acquired. He is really a wonderful person, almost a socialist in politics, and a complete autocrat in his life and methods. Tom and the Vicomte sat at each side of the hostess, of course, and they told us she practically did not hear a word they said, she was so anxious that the servants should do their duty and ply them with food.

"Mr. Purdy would never forgive me if you didn't get just what you fancy," she said; and however quaint the idea, the spirit which prompted it was so kind; they said they just gorged everything which was put in front of them, to please her.

"An admirable woman, and first class wife," Tom told Octavia afterwards; so she said she would ask Mr. Purdy to arrange a divorce and they would have an exchange, she becoming Mrs. Purdy and Mrs. Purdy Countess of Chevenix for a while; but Tom would not agree to that. Men are selfish, aren't they, Mamma?

After lunch we were taken to see the pictures in the hall and different rooms, and some of them were really beautiful, and I have no doubt in a few years' time, when Mr. Purdy has travelled more, and educated his eye, he really will collect a gallery worth having, and eliminate the atrocities. His feeling was more to have a better collection than anyone else in Chicago, or indeed America, rather than the joy of the possession of the exquisite pictures themselves. But even this spirit gets together lovely things, which will benefit future, and more highly cultured people; so it all has good in it.

They were so kind we could hardly get away to catch our train, and we have promised to go again if ever we pass this way. The women after lunch talked among themselves, and were deeply intent and confidential when we got back to the drawing-room after seeing the pictures; but they made way for us and were most agreeable. All of them had set views on every subject, not any hesitation or indecision, and they all used each other's names in every sentence. They were full of practical common sense, and rigid virtue; and did not worry about intellectual conversation.

At this moment the Vicomte has peeped in to call Octavia and me to dinner; we were resting in our drawing-room. So I must stop. I will post this to-morrow when we get to a big station.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



Morning.

P.S.—These sleeping cars are really wonderful. Such a thing happened last night! But it shows how comfortable the beds are, and how soundly people can sleep. At the station where we stopped after dinner, two couples got in, an uncle and nephew, married to an aunt and niece; only the uncle's wife was the niece, and the nephew's the aunt, a plain elderly person with a fierce commanding glance and a mole on her upper lip, while he was a nice-looking boy with droopy grey eyes. The train was very crowded, and they could only get two single berths—lower ones, but they are quite wide enough for two people to sleep in at a pinch. It appears the husbands went off to smoke while the wives undressed and got into bed, and when they returned the coloured conductor showed them to their places, naturally thinking, as they were the same name, the old ones were a pair and the young ones another. And fancy, Mamma, they never found out till the morning, when the whole car was awakened by the old lady's yells! And the old gentleman flew out like Hopkins and wanted to nearly murder the conductor. But it was not the least his fault, was it? And the nephew, such a nice, generous fellow, gave the poor nigger twenty-five dollars to make up for being roughly handled. The niece still slept on through all this noise, and Tom, who was passing at the time the old gentleman lifted the curtains to climb in there, said she looked the sweetest thing possible with her long eyelashes on her cheek.

The four had the next table to us at lunch, and they seemed all at sixes and sevens with one another, the elderly lady glaring at her young husband, and the uncle frowning at the niece, while the nephew had just the look of Hurstbridge when Mademoiselle scolds him unjustly. It was dreadful for them, wasn't it, Mamma? and not a soul to blame.



Still in the train.

DEAREST MAMMA,—You can't think what interesting country we are going through. We woke yesterday morning and peeped out about five to see the most perfect desolation one could imagine,—much more grim than the Egyptian desert: vast unending plains of uneven ground, with a rough dried drab grass in splodges, and high scrub. Not a bird or animal in all these hundreds of miles, only desolation; generally perfectly flat, but here and there rising ground and rough hills. The Senator says it is the end of the ranch country, but we have seen no sign of cattle or any beast, and what could they eat? At long intervals we have passed a few board shanties like card houses grouped together near the track; just fancy living there, Mamma! Even with the nicest young man in the world it would be a trial, wouldn't it? And those Mormons crossed it all in waggons! And we are finding it quite long in a train! It is still going on, and now the surface is a little different; low hills are sticking up just like elephants' backs, and the same colour; no ranches are here or any living thing. We get into our drawing-room, all of us, and the Senator tells us stories of his young days, too exciting, they must have been, when he came through here before all the railway was built. No wonder he is so splendid a character now, having had to be so strong and fearless all his life. Every word he says is interesting, and perfectly vivid and true; and his views on every subject that is discussed are common-sense and exact. He has no prejudices, and is not touchy. He can see his own nation's faults as well as ours, and his first thought is to appreciate the good qualities.

He says there is a very grave danger to the country in the liberty of the press, which has a most debasing influence by printing all the sensational news, and encouraging the interest in these things in the youthful mind. It must bring a paltry taint into the glorious freedom of the true American spirit, but that will right itself. He says: "They are too darned sane to suffer a scourge when once they begin to see its fruits." And while the rest were in the observation car after tea he talked to me of happiness. Happiness, he said, was the main and chief object in life, and yet nine-tenths of the people of the world throw it away for such imitation pleasure; and you can't often catch it again once you have lost it.

I asked him what the greatest was, and he said perfect happiness was to be close to the woman you loved. If that was impossible there were several substitutes of a secondary sort—your children, ambition, success, and even rest. Then his eyes grew all misty and sad, and he looked out on the desert, and at that moment we were passing a group of a few shanties close to the rails. They were tumbled down and deserted, and nearby lay the skeleton of a horse. "It was in just such a place as that, only a good bit farther west, I first saw my Hearts-ease," he said. "The boys called her 'Hearts-ease' because she was the sweetest English flower, drifted out to the mines with the people who had adopted her." He paused, and I slipped my hand into his, he looked so sad, and then he told me all the story, Mamma, and it has touched me so, I tell it to you.

He had gone to this small rough camp, about thirty miles short of the Great Eagles, with only ten cents in his pocket, from the ranch where he had been a cowboy. He had ridden for days, and there his horse had died. He crept up half dead, carrying his saddle bags, and these people, "human devils," he called them, who owned Hearts-ease, let him come in and lie in a shed. They kept a sort of a gambling den, all of the most primitive, and the worst rogues of the world congregated there in the evenings.

Hearts-ease was about sixteen, and they looked upon her as a promising decoy-duck, but she was "just the purest flower of the prairies," he said, and so they beat and starved her in consequence, for not falling in with their views.

That night when he lay in the straw, she crept out of some corner where she slept, and warned him not to remain, if he had gold in the bags, or they would certainly murder him before morning; and she gave him some water, and half her wretched supper, because he had been too tired to eat when he arrived. Then he told her he was only a poor cowboy, hoping to get on to the Great Eagles Camp and make his fortune; and they stayed there talking till dawn, and she bathed his poor feet, all bleeding from his long tramp, and must have been too sweet and adorable, Mamma. And when the morning came and her adopted parents found he was still there and had only ten cents to pay with, they tried to make him leave, and beat Hearts-ease before his eyes, which made him so mad he got out his gun (that means revolver) and would have shot the man, only Hearts-ease clung to him, and begged him not to. Then they called in some more brutes, who had been drinking and gambling all night in the bar, and overpowered him, and threw him out, and the girl, too, and said he might take her to hell with him, they would shelter her no more. And one of the brutes said he would fight him for her, and they made a ring and the brute tried to get his pistol off first; but it hit another man, and before he could shoot again, the Senator fired and wounded him in the side; and as he fell, and the others, angry at his hitting one of them, all began to quarrel together, the Senator and the girl slipped away, and ran and hid in the scrub. If you could have heard him telling all this, Mamma, in the dying light, his strong face and quiet voice so impressive! I shall never forget it. Well, the girl had brought some bread in a handkerchief, which he had not eaten, and they shared that together, and when it was dark they slept under the stars; and "by then I'd just grown to love her," he said, and "we were quite content to die together if we couldn't push on to the big camp; but we meant to make an almighty try."