DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 
 
 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE, 
 
 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 BY HENRY JAMES, JR 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 JJcrnfocrn: 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1879. 
 
 \_Right of Translation is reserved.] 
 
35 n n g a g : 
 
 CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 THE two first tales contained in this 
 volume originally appeared in the " Cornhill 
 Magazine." The other is republished from 
 " Scribner's Monthly." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY . . . . . . . . I 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE .. .. .. 139 
 
 FOUR MEETINGS , .... 315 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 I. 
 
 AT the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, 
 there is a particularly comfortable hotel. 
 There are, indeed, many hotels ; for the 
 entertainment of tourists is the business of 
 the place, which, as many travellers will 
 remember, is seated upon the edge of a 
 remarkably blue lake a lake that it behoves 
 every tourist to visit. The shore of the 
 lake presents an unbroken array of establish- 
 ments of this order, of every category, from 
 the " grand hotel " of the newest fashion, 
 with a chalk-white front, a hundred bal- 
 conies, and a dozen flags flying from its 
 roof, to the little Swiss pension of an elder 
 day, with its name inscribed in German- 
 looking lettering upon a pink or yellow 
 
2 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 wall, and an awkward summer-house in the 
 angle of the garden. One of the hotels at 
 Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, 
 being distinguished from many of its upstart 
 neighbours by an air both of luxury and 
 of maturity. In this region, in the month 
 of June, American travellers are extremely 
 numerous ; it may be said, indeed, that 
 Vevey assumes at this period some of the 
 characteristics of an American watering- 
 place. There are sights and sounds which 
 evoke a vision, an echo, of Newport and 
 Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and 
 thither of " stylish " young girls, a rustling 
 of muslin flounces, a rattle of dance-music 
 in the morning hours, a sound of high- 
 pitched voices at all times. You receive an 
 impression of these things at the excellent 
 inn of the "Trois Couronnes," and are 
 transported in fancy to the Ocean House or 
 to Congress Hall. But at the "Trois 
 Couronnes," it must be added, there are 
 other features that are much at variance 
 with these suggestions : neat German 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 3 
 
 waiters, who look like secretaries of legation ; 
 Russian princesses sitting in the garden; 
 little Polish boys walking about, held by the 
 hand, with their governors ; a view of the 
 snowy crest of the Dent du Midi and 
 the picturesque towers of the Castle of 
 Chillon. 
 
 I hardly know whether it was the analogies 
 or the differences that were uppermost in 
 the mind of a young American, who, two or 
 three years ago, sat in the garden of the 
 "Trois Couronnes," looking about him, 
 rather idly, at some of the graceful objects 
 I have mentioned. It was a beautiful 
 summer morning, and in whatever fashion 
 the young American looked at things, they 
 must have seemed to him charming. He 
 had come from Geneva the day before, by 
 the little steamer, to see his aunt, who was 
 staying at the hotel Geneva having been 
 for a long time his place of residence. But 
 his aunt had a headache his aunt had 
 almost always a headache and now she was 
 shut up in her room, smelling camphor, so 
 
 B 2 
 
4 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 that he was at liberty to wander about. He 
 was some seven-and-twenty years of age; 
 when his friends spoke of him, they usually 
 said that he was at Geneva, " studying." 
 When his enemies spoke of him they said 
 but, after all, he had no enemies ; he was 
 an extremely amiable fellow, and universally 
 liked. What I should say is, simply, that 
 when certain persons spoke of him they 
 affirmed that the reason of his spending so 
 much time at Geneva was that he was 
 extremely devoted to a lady who lived there 
 a foreign lady a person older than him- 
 self. Very few Americans indeed I think 
 none had ever seen this lady, about whom 
 there were some singular stories. But 
 Winterbourne had an old attachment for the 
 little metropolis of Calvinism ; he had been 
 put to school there as a boy, and he had 
 afterwards gone to college there circum- 
 stances which had led to his forming a great 
 many youthful friendships. Many of these 
 he had kept, and they were a source of great 
 satisfaction to him. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 5 
 
 After knocking at his aunt's door and 
 learning that she was indisposed, he had 
 taken a walk about the town, and then he 
 had come in to his breakfast. He had now 
 finished his breakfast , out he was drinking 
 a small cup of coffee, which had been served 
 to him on a little table in the garden by one 
 of the waiters who looked like an attach^ 
 At last he finished his coffee and lit a 
 cigarette. Presently a small boy came 
 walking along the path an urchin of nine 
 or ten. The child, who was diminutive for 
 his years, had an aged expression of counte- 
 nance, a pale complexion, and sharp little 
 features. He was dressed in knicker- 
 bockers, with red stockings, which displayed 
 his poor little spindleshanks ; he also wore a 
 brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand 
 a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which 
 he thrust into everything that he approached 
 the flower-beds, the garden-benches, the 
 trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of 
 Winterbourne he paused, looking at him 
 with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes. 
 
6 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 "Will you give me a lump of sugar?" 
 he asked, in a sharp, hard little voice a 
 voice immature, and yet, somehow, not 
 young. 
 
 Winterbourne glanced at the small table 
 near him, on which his coffee-service rested, 
 and saw that several morsels of sugar re- 
 mained. " Yes, you may take one," he 
 answered ; " but I don't think sugar is good 
 for little boys." 
 
 This little boy stepped forward and care- 
 fully selected three of the coveted fragments, 
 two of which he buried in the pocket of his 
 knickerbockers, depositing the other as 
 promptly in another place. He poked his 
 alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winter- 
 bourne's bench, and tried to crack the lump 
 of sugar with his teeth. 
 
 " Oh, blazes ; it's har-r-d ! " he exclaimed, 
 pronouncing the adjective in a peculiar 
 manner. 
 
 Winterbourne had immediately perceived 
 that he might have the honour of claiming 
 him as a fellow-countryman. "Take care 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 7 
 
 you don't hurt your teeth," he said, 
 paternally. 
 
 " I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They 
 have all come out. I have only got seven 
 teeth. My mother counted them last 
 night, and one came out right afterwards. 
 She said she'd slap me if any more came 
 out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. 
 It's the climate that makes them come out. 
 In America they didn't come out. It's 
 these hotels." 
 
 Winterbourne was much amused. "If 
 you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother 
 will certainly slap you," he said. 
 
 " She's got to give me some candy, then," 
 rejoined his young interlocutor. " I can't 
 get any candy here any American candy. 
 American candy's the best candy." 
 
 "And are American little boys the best 
 little boys ? " asked Winterbourne. 
 
 " I don't know. I'm an American boy," 
 said the child. 
 
 " I see you are one of the best ! " laughed 
 Winterbourne. 
 
8 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " Are you an American man ? " pursued 
 this vivacious infant. And then, on Winter- 
 bourne's affirmative reply "American men 
 are the best," he declared. 
 
 His companion thanked him for the 
 compliment ; and the child, who had now 
 got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking 
 about him, while he attacked a second lump 
 of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he 
 himself had been like this in his infancy, for 
 he had been brought to Europe at about 
 this age. 
 
 " Here comes my sister ! " cried the child, 
 in a moment. " She's an American girl/' 
 
 Winterbourne looked along the path and 
 saw a beautiful young lady advancing. 
 " American girls are the best girls," he said, 
 cheerfully, to his young companion. 
 
 " My sister ain't the best ! " the child 
 declared. " She's a^ays blowing at me." 
 
 u I imagine that is your fault, not hers," 
 said Winterbourne. The young lady mean- 
 while had drawn near. She was dressed in 
 white muslin, with a hundred frills and 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 9 
 
 flounces, and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. 
 She was bare-headed; but she balanced in 
 her hand a large parasol, with a deep border 
 of embroidery ; and she was strikingly, 
 admirably pretty. " How pretty they are ! " 
 thought Winterbourne, straightening himself 
 in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise. 
 
 The young lady paused in front of his 
 bench, near the parapet of the garden, 
 which overlooked the lake. The little boy 
 had now converted his alpenstock into a 
 vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he was 
 springing about in the gravel, and kicking it 
 up not a little. 
 
 " Randolph," said the young lady, " what 
 are you doing ? " 
 
 "I'm going up the Alps," replied 
 Randolph. "This is the way!" And he 
 gave another little jump, scattering the 
 pebbles about Winterbourne' s ears. 
 
 "That's the way they come down," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 " He's an American man ! " cried 
 Randolph, in his little hard voice. 
 
io DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 The young lady gave no heed to this 
 announcement, but looked straight at her 
 brother. " Well, I guess you had better be 
 quiet," she simply observed. 
 
 It seemed to Winterbourne that he had 
 "been in a manner presented. He got up 
 and stepped slowly towards the young girl, 
 throwing away his cigarette. "This little 
 boy and I have made acquaintance," he 
 said, with great civility. In Geneva, as he 
 had been perfectly aware, a young man was 
 not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried 
 lady except under certain rarely-occurring 
 conditions ; but here at Vevey, what condi- 
 tions could be better than these? a pretty 
 American girl coming and standing in front 
 of you in a garden. This pretty American 
 girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne's 
 observation, simply glanced at him ; she 
 then turned her head and looked over the 
 parapet, at the lake and the opposite moun- 
 tains. He wondered whether he had gone 
 too far; but he decided that he must ad- 
 vance farther, rather than retreat. While 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 11 
 
 he was thinking of something else to say, 
 the young lady turned to the little boy 
 again. 
 
 "I should like to know where you got 
 that pole," she said. 
 
 " I bought it ! " responded Randolph. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you're going to 
 take it to Italy ! " 
 
 " Yes, I am going to take it to Italy ! " 
 the child declared. 
 
 The young girl glanced over the front of 
 her dress, and smoothed out a knot or two 
 of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon 
 the prospect again. "Well, I guess you 
 had better leave it somewhere," she said, after 
 a moment. 
 
 "Are you going to Italy?" Winterbourne 
 inquired, in a tone of great respect. 
 
 The young lady glanced at him again. 
 "Yes, sir," she replied. And she said 
 nothing more. 
 
 " Are you a going over the Simplon ? " 
 Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " I suppose it's 
 
12 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 some mountain. Randolph, what mountain 
 are we going over ? " 
 
 " Going where ? " the child demanded. 
 
 " To Italy," Winterbourne explained. 
 
 " I don't know," said Randolph. " I don't 
 want to go to Italy. I want to go to 
 America." 
 
 " Oh, Italy is a beautiful place ! " rejoined 
 the young man. 
 
 " Can you get candy there ? " Randolph 
 loudly inquired. 
 
 " I hope not," said his sister. " I guess 
 you have had enough candy, and mother 
 thinks so too." 
 
 " I haven't had any for ever so long for 
 a hundred weeks ! " cried the boy, still 
 jumping about. 
 
 The young lady inspected her flounces 
 and smoothed her ribbons again ; and 
 Winterbourne presently risked an observ- 
 ation upon the beauty of the view. He was 
 ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun 
 to perceive that she was not in the least 
 embarrassed herself. There had not been 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 13 
 
 the slightest alteration in her charming 
 complexion ; she was evidently neither 
 offended nor fluttered. If she looked 
 another way when he spoke to her, and 
 seemed not particularly to hear him, this was 
 simply her habit, her manner. Yet, as he 
 talked a little more, and pointed out some of 
 the objects of interest in the view, with 
 which she appeared quite unacquainted, she 
 gradually gave him more of the benefit of 
 her glance ; and then he saw that this glance 
 was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It 
 was not, however, what would have been 
 called an immodest glance, for the young 
 girl's eyes were singularly honest and fresh. 
 They were wonderfully pretty eyes ; and, 
 indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a 
 long time anything prettier than his fair 
 countrywoman's various features her com- 
 plexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He 
 had a great relish for feminine beauty ; he 
 was addicted to observing and analysing it ; 
 and as regards this young lady's face he 
 made several observations. It was not at all 
 
14 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; 
 and though it was eminently delicate 
 Winterbourne mentally accused it very 
 forgivingly of a want of finish. He 
 thought it very possible that Master Ran- 
 dolph's sister was a coquette; he was sure 
 she had a spirit of her own ; but in her 
 bright, sweet, superficial little visage there 
 was no mockery, no irony. Before long it 
 became obvious that she was much disposed 
 towards conversation. She told him that 
 they were going to Rome for the winter 
 she and her mother and Randolph. She 
 asked him if he was a " real American ; " she 
 wouldn't have taken him for one ; he 
 seemed more like a German this was said 
 after a little hesitation, especially when he 
 spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered 
 that he had met Germans who spoke like 
 Americans ; but that he had not, so far as he 
 remembered, met an American who spoke 
 like a German. Then he asked her if she 
 would not be more comfortable in sitting 
 upon the bench which he had just quitted. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 15 
 
 She answered that she liked standing up and 
 walking about ; but she presently sat down. 
 She told him she was from New York State 
 " if you know where that is." Winter- 
 bourne learned more about her by catching 
 hold of her small, slippery brother and 
 making him stand a few minutes by his side. 
 
 "Tell me your name, my boy/' he said. 
 
 "Randolph C. Miller," said the boy, 
 sharply. " And I'll tell you her name ; " and 
 he levelled his alpenstock at his sister. 
 
 " You had better wait till you are asked ! " 
 said this young lady, calmly. 
 
 " I should like very much to know your 
 name," said Winterbourne. 
 
 " Her name is Daisy Miller ! " cried the 
 child. " But that isn't her real name ; that 
 isn't her name on her cards." 
 
 " It's a pity you haven't got one of my 
 cards ! " said Miss Miller. 
 
 " Her real name is Annie P. Miller," the 
 boy went on. 
 
 "Ask him his name," said his sister, 
 indicating Winterbourne. 
 
16 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 But on this point Randolph seemed per- 
 fectly indifferent ; he continued to supply 
 information with regard to his own family. 
 " My father's name is Ezra B. Miller," he 
 announced. "My father ain't in Europe; 
 my father's in a better place than Europe."* 
 
 Winterbourne imagined for a moment 
 that this was the manner in which the child 
 had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller 
 had been removed to the sphere of celestial 
 rewards. But Randolph immediately added, 
 " My father's in Schenectady. He's got 
 a big business. My father's rich, you 
 bet." 
 
 " Well ! " ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering 
 her parasol and looking at the embroidered 
 border. Winterbourne presently released 
 the child, who departed, dragging his alpen- 
 stock along the path. "He doesn't like 
 Europe," said the young girl. "He wants 
 to go back." 
 
 " To Schenectady, you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he wants to go right home. He 
 hasn't got any boys here. There is on^ boy 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 17 
 
 here, but he always goes round with a 
 teacher ; they won't let him play." 
 
 " And your brother hasn't any teacher ? " 
 Winterbourne inquired. 
 
 " Mother thought of getting him one, to 
 travel round with us. There was a lady told 
 her of a very good teacher ; an American 
 lady perhaps you know her Mrs. Sanders. 
 I think she came from Boston. She told 
 her of this teacher, and we thought of 
 getting him to travel round with us. But 
 Randolph said he didn't want a teacher 
 travelling round with us. He said he 
 wouldn't have lessons when he was in the 
 cars. And we are in the cars about half 
 the time. There was an English lady we 
 met in the cars I think her name was Miss 
 Featherstone ; perhaps you know her. She 
 wanted to know why I didn't give Randolph 
 lessons give him 'instruction,' she called it. 
 I guess he could give me more instruction 
 than I could give him. He's very smart." 
 
 " Yes," said Winterbourne ; " he seems 
 very smart." 
 
18 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " Mother's going to get a teacher for him 
 as soon as we get to Italy. Can you get 
 good teachers in Italy ? " 
 
 " Very good, I should think," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 " Or else she's going to find some school. 
 He ought to learn some more. He's only 
 nine. He's going to college." And in this 
 way Miss Miller continued to converse upon 
 the affairs of her family, and upon other 
 topics. She sat there with her extremely 
 pretty hands, ornamented with very brilliant 
 rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty 
 eyes now resting upon those of Winter- 
 bourne, now wandering over the garden, the 
 people who passed by, and the beautiful 
 view. She talked to Winterbourne as if she 
 had known him a long time. He found it 
 very pleasant. It was many years since he 
 had heard a young girl talk so much. It 
 might have been said of this unknown 
 young lady, who had come and sat down 
 beside him upon a bench, that she chattered. 
 She was very quiet, she sat in a charming 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 19 
 
 tranquil attitude ; but her lips and her eyes 
 were constantly moving. She had a soft, 
 slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was 
 decidedly sociable. She gave Winterbourne 
 a history of her movements and intentions, 
 and those of her mother and brother, in 
 Europe, and enumerated, in particular, the 
 various hotels at which they had stopped. 
 " That English lady in the cars," she said 
 " Miss Featherstone asked me if we didn't 
 all live in hotels in America. I told her I 
 had never been in so many hotels in my life 
 as since I came to Europe. I have never 
 seen so many it's nothing but hotels." But 
 Miss Miller did not make this remark with 
 a querulous accent ; she appeared to be in 
 the best humour with everything. She de- 
 clared that the hotels were very good, when 
 once you got used to their ways, and that 
 Europe was perfectly sweet. She was not 
 disappointed not a bit. Perhaps it was 
 because she had heard so much about it 
 before. She had ever so many intimate 
 friends that had been there ever so many 
 
 c 2 
 
20 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 times. And then she had had ever so many 
 dresses and things from Paris. Whenever 
 she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she 
 were in Europe. 
 
 "It was a kind of a wishing-cap," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Miller, without examin- 
 ing this analogy ; " it always made me wish I 
 was here. But I needn't have done that for 
 dresses. I am sure they send all the pretty 
 ones to America; you see the most fright- 
 ful things here. The only thing I don't 
 like," she proceeded, " is the society. There 
 isn't any society ; or, if there is, I don't know 
 where it keeps itself. Do you ? I suppose 
 there is some society somewhere, but I 
 haven't seen anything of it. I'm very fond 
 of society, and I have always had a great 
 deal of it. I don't mean only in Schenectady, 
 but in New York. I used to go to New 
 York every winter. In New York I had 
 lots of society. Last winter I had seventeen 
 dinners given me ; and three of them were 
 by gentlemen," added Daisy Miller. "I 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 21 
 
 have more friends in New York than in 
 Schenectady more gentlemen friends ; and 
 more young lady friends too," she resumed 
 in a moment. She paused again for an 
 instant ; she was looking at Winterbourne 
 with all her prettiness in her lively eyes and 
 in her light, slightly monotonous smile. " I 
 have always had," she said, "a great deal of 
 gentlemen's society." 
 
 Poor Winterbourne was amused, per- 
 plexed, and decidedly charmed. He had 
 never yet heard a young girl express herself 
 in just this fashion ; never, at least, save in 
 cases where to say such things seemed a 
 kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain 
 laxity of deportment. And yet was he to 
 accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or 
 potential inconduite, as they said at Geneva ? 
 He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long 
 that he had lost a good deal ; he had 
 become dishabituated to the American tone. 
 Never, indeed, since he had grown old 
 enough to appreciate things, had he en- 
 countered a young American girl of so 
 
22 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 pronounced a type as this. Certainly she 
 was very charming ; but how deucedly 
 sociable ! Was she simply a pretty girl 
 from New York State were they all like 
 that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of 
 gentlemen's society? Or was she also a 
 designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous 
 young person ? Winterbourne had lost his 
 instinct in this matter, and his reason could 
 not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked 
 extremely innocent. Some people had told 
 him that, after all, American girls were 
 exceedingly innocent ; and others had told 
 him that, after all, they were not. He was 
 inclined to think Miss Daisy Miller was a 
 flirt a pretty American flirt. He had 
 never, as yet, had any relations with young 
 ladies of this category. He had known, 
 here in Europe, two or three women 
 persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and 
 provided, for respectability's sake, with hus- 
 bands who were great coquettes danger- 
 ous, terrible women, with whom one's 
 relations were liable to take a serious turn. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 23 
 
 But this young girl was not a coquette in 
 that sense ; she was very unsophisticated ; 
 she was only a pretty American flirt. 
 Winterbourne was almost grateful for having 
 found the formula that applied to Miss 
 Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat ; 
 he remarked to himself that she had the 
 most charming nose he had ever seen ; he 
 wondered what were the regular conditions 
 and limitations of one's intercourse with a 
 pretty American flirt. It presently became 
 apparent that he was on the way to learn. 
 
 "Have you been to that old castle?" 
 asked the young girl, pointing with her 
 parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the 
 Chateau de Chillon. 
 
 "Yes, formerly, more than once," said 
 Winterbourne. "You too, I suppose, have 
 seen it ? " 
 
 " No ; we haven't been there. I want to 
 go there dreadfully. Of course I mean to 
 go there. I wouldn't go away from here 
 without having seen that old castle." 
 
 " It's a very pretty excursion," said 
 
24 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 Winterbourne, "and very easy to make. 
 You can drive, you know, or you can go by 
 the little steamer." 
 
 "You can go in the cars," said Miss 
 Miller. 
 
 " Yes ; you can go in the cars," Winter- 
 bourne assented. 
 
 " Our courier says they take you right up 
 to the castle," the young girl continued. 
 " We were going last week ; but my mother 
 gave out. She suffers dreadfully from 
 dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go. 
 Randolph wouldn't go either; he says he 
 doesn't think much of old castles. But 
 I guess we'll go this week, if we can get 
 Randolph." 
 
 "Your brother is not interested in an- 
 cient monuments ? " Winterbourne inquired, 
 smiling. 
 
 " He says he don't care much about old 
 castles. He's only nine. He wants to stay 
 at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him 
 alone, and the courier won't stay with him ; 
 so we haven't been to many places. But it 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 25 
 
 will be too bad if we don't go up there." 
 And Miss Miller pointed again at the 
 Chateau de Chillon. 
 
 "I should think it might be arranged," 
 said Winterbourne. " Couldn't you get 
 some one to stay for the afternoon with 
 Randolph ? " 
 
 Miss Miller looked at him a moment ; 
 and then, very placidly " I wish you would 
 stay with him ! " she said. 
 
 Winterbourne hesitated a moment. "I 
 would much rather go to Chillon with 
 you." 
 
 " With me ? " asked the young girl, with 
 the same placidity. 
 
 She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl 
 at Geneva would have done ; and yet Win- 
 terbourne, conscious that he had been very 
 bold, thought it possible she was offended. 
 "With your mother," he answered very 
 respectfully. 
 
 But it seemed that both his audacity and 
 his respect were lost upon Miss Daisy 
 Miller. " I guess my mother won't go, after 
 
26 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 all," she said. " She don't like to ride round 
 in the afternoon. But did you really mean 
 what you said just now ; that you would like 
 to go up there ? " 
 
 a Most earnestly," Winterbourne declared. 
 
 " Then we may arrange it. If mother will 
 stay with Randolph, I guess Eugenio will." 
 
 " Eugenio ? " the young man inquired. 
 
 "Eugenie's our courier. He doesn't like 
 to stay with Randolph; he's the most fas- 
 tidious man I ever saw. But he's a splendid 
 courier. I guess he'll stay at home with 
 Randolph if mother does, and then we can 
 go to the castle." 
 
 Winterbourne reflected for an instant as 
 lucidly as possible "we" could only mean 
 Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This pro- 
 gramme seemed almost too agreeable for 
 credence ; he felt as if he ought to kiss the 
 young lady's hand. Possibly he would have 
 done so and quite spoiled the project; 
 but at this moment another person pre- 
 sumably Eugenio appeared. A tall, hand- 
 some man, with superb whiskers, wearing a 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 27 
 
 velvet morning-coat and a brilliant watch- 
 chain, approached Miss Miller, looking 
 sharply at her companion. " Oh, Eugenio ! " 
 said Miss Miller, with the friendliest 
 accent. 
 
 Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from 
 head to foot ; he now bowed gravely to the 
 young lady. " I have the honour to inform 
 mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the 
 table." 
 
 Miss Miller slowly rose. "See here, 
 Eugenio," she said. "I'm going to that 
 old castle, any way." 
 
 "To the Chateau de Chillon, made- 
 moiselle ? " the courier inquired. " Made- 
 moiselle has made arrangements?" he added, 
 in a tone which struck Winterbourne as very 
 impertinent. 
 
 Eugenie's tone apparently threw, even to 
 Miss Miller's own apprehension, a slightly 
 ironical light upon the young girl's situation. 
 She turned to Winterbourne, blushing a 
 little a very little. "You won't back out?" 
 she said. 
 
28 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I shall not be happy till we go ! " he 
 protested. 
 
 "And you are staying in this hotel?" 
 she went on. "And you are really an 
 American ? " 
 
 The courier stood looking at Winter- 
 bourne, offensively. The young man, at 
 least, thought his manner of looking an 
 offence to Miss Miller ; it conveyed an 
 imputation that she "picked up" acquaint- 
 ances. " I shall have the honour of present- 
 ing to you a person who will tell you all 
 about me," he said smiling, and referring to 
 his aunt. 
 
 " Oh, well, we'll go some day," said Miss 
 Miller. And she gave him a smile and 
 turned away. She put up her parasol and 
 walked back to the inn beside Eugenio. 
 Winterbourne stood looking after her ; and 
 as she moved away, drawing her muslin 
 furbelows over the gravel, said to himself 
 that she had the tournure of a princess. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 29 
 
 II. 
 
 HE had, however, engaged to do more 
 than proved feasible, in promising to present 
 his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy 
 Miller. As soon as the former lady had 
 got better of her headache he waited upon 
 her in her apartment ; and, after the proper 
 inquiries in regard to her health, he asked 
 her if she had observed, in the hotel, an 
 American family a mamma, a daughter, 
 and a little boy. 
 
 " And a courier ? " said Mrs. Costello. 
 "Oh, yes, I have observed them. Seen 
 them heard them and kept out of their 
 way." Mrs. Costello was a widow with a 
 fortune ; a person of much distinction, who 
 frequently intimated that, if she were not so 
 dreadfully liable to sick-headaches, she would 
 probably have left a deeper impress upon 
 
30 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 her time. She had a long pale face, a high 
 nose, and a great deal of very striking white 
 hair, which she wore in large puffs and 
 rouleaux over the top of her head. She had 
 two sons married in New York, and another 
 who was now in Europe. This young man 
 was amusing himself at Homburg, and, 
 though he was on his travels, was rarely 
 perceived to visit any particular city at the 
 moment selected by his mother for her own 
 appearance there. Her nephew, who had 
 come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was 
 therefore more attentive than those who, as 
 she said, were nearer to her. He had 
 imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must 
 always be attentive to one's aunt. Mrs. 
 Costello had not seen him for many years, 
 and she was greatly pleased with him, mani- 
 festing her approbation by initiating him 
 into many of the secrets of that social sway 
 which, as she gave him to understand, she 
 exerted in the American capital. She 
 admitted that she was very exclusive; 
 but, if he were acquainted with New 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 31 
 
 York, he would see that one had to 
 be. And her picture of the minutely 
 hierarchical constitution of the society 
 of that city, which she presented to him 
 in many different lights, was, to Winter- 
 bourne's imagination, almost oppressively 
 striking. 
 
 He immediately perceived, from her 
 tone, that Miss Daisy Miller's place in 
 the social scale was low. " I am 
 afraid you don't approve of them," he 
 said. 
 
 " They are very common," Mrs. Costello 
 declared. " They are the sort of Americans 
 that one does one's duty by not not 
 accepting." 
 
 " Ah, you don't accept them ? " said the 
 young man. 
 
 " I can't, my dear Frederick. I would if 
 I could, but I can't." 
 
 "The young girl is very pretty," said 
 Winterbourne, in a moment. 
 
 " Of course she's pretty. But she is very 
 common." 
 
32 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 "I see what you mean, of course," said 
 Winterbourne, after another pause. 
 
 " She has that charming look that they all 
 have," his aunt resumed. " I can't think 
 where they pick it up ; and she dresses in 
 perfection no, you don't know how well 
 she dresses. I can't think where they get 
 their taste." 
 
 " But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a 
 Comanche savage." 
 
 " She is a young lady," said Mrs. Costello, 
 "who has an intimacy with her mamma's 
 courier ? " 
 
 "An intimacy with the courier?" the 
 young man demanded. 
 
 "Oh, the mother is just as bad! They 
 treat the courier like a familiar friend like 
 a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder if he dines 
 with them. Very likely they have never seen 
 a man with such good manners, such fine 
 clothes, so like a gentleman. He probably 
 corresponds to the young lady's idea of a 
 Count. He sits with them in the garden, in 
 the evening. I think he smokes." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 33 
 
 Winterbourne listened with interest to 
 these disclosures ; they helped him to make 
 up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently 
 she was rather wild. " Well," he said, " I am 
 not a courier, and yet she was very charming 
 
 to me." 
 
 "You had better have said at first," said 
 Mrs. Costello with dignity, "that you had 
 made her acquaintance." 
 
 " We simply met in the garden, and we 
 talked a bit." 
 
 " Tout bonnement ! And pray what did 
 you say ? " 
 
 "I said I should take the liberty of 
 introducing her to my admirable aunt." 
 
 "I am much obliged to you." 
 
 " It was to guarantee my respectability/' 
 said Winterbourne. 
 
 16 And pray who is to guarantee hers ? " 
 
 " Ah, you are cruel ! " said the young 
 man. " She's a very nice girl." 
 
 " You don't say that as if you believed it," 
 Mrs. Costello observed. 
 
 " She is completely uncultivated," Winter- 
 
34 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 bourne went on. "But she is wonderfully 
 pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To 
 prove that I believe it, I am going to take 
 her to the Chateau de Chillon." 
 
 " You two are going off there together ? 
 I should say it proved just the contrary. 
 How long had you known hei, may I ask, 
 when this interesting project was, formed ? 
 You haven't been twenty-four hours in the 
 house." 
 
 "I had known her half-an-hour ! " said 
 Winterbourne, smiling. 
 
 " Dear me ! " cried Mrs. Costello. " What 
 a dreadful girl ! " 
 
 Her nephew was silent for some moments. 
 " You really think, then," he began, earnestly, 
 and with a desire for trustworthy information 
 
 "you really think that " But he 
 
 paused again. 
 
 " Think what, sir ? " said his aunt. -, 
 
 " That she is the sort of young lady who 
 expects a man sooner or later to carry her 
 off?" 
 
 " 1 haven't the least idea what such young 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 35 
 
 ladies expect a man to do. But I really 
 think that you had better not meddle with 
 little American girls that are uncultivated, as 
 you call them. You have lived too long 
 out of the country. You will be sure to 
 make some great mistake. You are too 
 innocent." 
 
 " My dear aunt, I am not so innocent," 
 said Winterbourne, smiling and curling his 
 moustache. 
 
 " You are too guilty, then ! " 
 
 Winterbourne continued to curl his mous- 
 tache, meditatively. "You won't let the 
 poor girl know you then ? " he asked at 
 last. 
 
 " Is it literally true that she is going to 
 the Chateau de Chillon with you ? " 
 
 " I think that she fully intends it." 
 
 "Then, my dear Frederick," said Mrs. 
 Costello, " I must decline the honour of her 
 acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I 
 am not too old thank Heaven to be 
 shocked ! " 
 
 " But don't they all do these things the 
 
 D2 
 
36 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 young girls in America ? " Winterbourne 
 inquired. 
 
 Mrs. Costello stared a moment. "I 
 should like to see my granddaughters do 
 them ! " she declared, grimly. 
 
 This seemed to throw some light upon 
 the matter, for Winterbourne remembered 
 to have heard that his pretty cousins in New 
 York were "tremendous flirts." If, there- 
 fore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal 
 license allowed to these young ladies, it was 
 probable that anything might be expected 
 of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see 
 her again, and he was vexed with himself 
 that, by instinct, he should not appreciate 
 her justly. 
 
 Though he was impatient to see her, he 
 hardly knew what he should say to her 
 about his aunt's refusal to become ac- 
 quainted with her ; but he discovered, 
 promptly enough, that with Miss Daisy 
 Miller there was no great need of walking 
 on tiptoe. He found her that evening in 
 the garden, wandering about in the warm 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 37 
 
 starlight, like an indolent sylph, and swing- 
 ing to and fro the largest fan he had ever 
 beheld. It was ten o'clock. He had dined 
 with his aunt, had been sitting with her since 
 dinner, and had just taken leave of her till 
 the morrow. Miss Daisy Miller seemed 
 very glad to see him ; she declared it was 
 the longest evening she had ever passed. 
 
 " Have you been all alone ? " he asked. 
 
 " I ' have been walking round with mother. 
 But mother gets tired walking round," she 
 answered. 
 
 " Has she gone to bed ? " 
 
 "No; she doesn't like to go to bed," said 
 the young girl. "She doesn't sleep not 
 three hours. She says she doesn't know 
 how she lives. She's dreadfully nervous. 1 
 guess she sleeps more than she thinks. 
 She's gone somewhere after Randolph ; she 
 wants to try to get him to go to bed. He 
 doesn't like to go to bed." 
 
 "Let us hope she will persuade him," 
 observed Winterbourne. 
 
 " She will talk to him all she can ; but he 
 
38 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 
 
 doesn't like her to talk to him/' said Miss 
 Daisy, opening her fan. "She's going to 
 try to get Eugenio to talk to him. But he 
 isn't afraid of Eugenio. Eugenie's a 
 splendid courier, but he can't make much 
 impression on Randolph ! I don't believe 
 he'll go to bed before eleven." It appeared 
 that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumph- 
 antly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled 
 about with the young girl for some time 
 without meeting her mother. " I have been 
 looking round for that lady you want to 
 introduce me to," his companion resumed. 
 "She's your aunt." Then, on Winter- 
 bourne's admitting the fact, and expressing 
 some curiosity as to how she had learned 
 it, she said she had heard all about Mrs. 
 Costello from the chambermaid. She was 
 very quiet and very comme il faut ; she wore 
 white puffs ; she spoke to no one, and she 
 never dined at the table d'/iote. Every two 
 days she had a headache. " I think that's a 
 lovely description, headache and all ! " said 
 Miss Daisy, chattering along in her thin, 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 39 
 
 gay voice. "I want to know her ever so 
 much. I know just what your aunt would 
 be ; I know I should like her. She would 
 be very exclusive. I like a lady to be 
 exclusive ; I'm dying to be exclusive myself. 
 Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We 
 don't speak to every one or they don't 
 speak to us. I suppose it's about the same 
 thing. Any way, I shall be ever so glad to 
 know your aunt." 
 
 Winterbourne was embarrassed. " She 
 would be most happy," he said ; " but 
 I am afraid those headaches will inter- 
 fere." 
 
 The young girl looked at him through 
 the dusk. " But I suppose she doesn't 
 have a headache every day," she said, 
 sympathetically. 
 
 Winterbourne was silent a moment. 
 " She tells me she does," he answered at 
 last not knowing what to say. 
 
 Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood 
 looking at him. Her prettiness was still 
 visible in the darkness ; she was opening and 
 
40 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 closing her enormous fan. " She doesn't want 
 to know me ! " she said, suddenly. " Why 
 don't you say so? You needn't be afraid. 
 I'm not afraid!" And she gave a little 
 laugh. 
 
 Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor 
 in her voice; he was touched, shocked, 
 mortified by it. " My dear young lady," he 
 protested, "she knows no one. It's her 
 wretched health." 
 
 The young girl walked on a few steps, 
 laughing still. "You needn't be afraid," 
 she repeated. "Why should she want to 
 know me ? " Then she paused again ; she 
 was close to the parapet of the garden, and 
 in front of her was the starlit lake. There 
 was a vague sheen upon its surface, and in 
 the distance were dimly-seen mountain 
 forms. Daisy Miller looked out upon the 
 mysterious prospect, and then she gave 
 another little laugh. " Gracious ! she is 
 exclusive ! " she said. Winterbourne won- 
 dered whether she was seriously wounded, 
 and for a moment almost wished that her 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 41 
 
 sense of injury might be such as to make it 
 becoming in him to attempt to reassure and 
 comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that 
 she would be very approachable for consola- 
 tory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, 
 quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversa- 
 tionally ; to admit that she was a proud, rude 
 woman, and to declare that they needn't 
 mind her. But before he had time to 
 commit himself to this perilous mixture of 
 gallantry and impiety, the young lady, re- 
 suming her walk, gave an exclamation in 
 quite another tone. " Well ; here's mother ! 
 I guess she hasn't got Randolph to go to 
 bed." The figure of a lady appeared, at a 
 distance, very indistinct in the darkness, 
 and advancing with a slow and waver- 
 ing movement. Suddenly it seemed to 
 pause. 
 
 " Are you sure it is your mother ? Can 
 you distinguish her in this thick dusk?" 
 Winterbourne asked. 
 
 " Well ! " cried Miss Daisy Miller, 
 with a laugh, " I guess I know my own 
 
42 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 mother. And when she has got on my 
 shawl, too ! She is always wearing my 
 things." 
 
 The lady in question, ceasing to advance, 
 hovered vaguely about the spot at which 
 she had checked her steps. 
 
 " I am afraid your mother doesn't see 
 you," said Winterbourne. "Or perhaps," 
 he added thinking, with Miss Miller, the 
 joke permissible " perhaps she feels guilty 
 about your shawl." 
 
 " Oh, it's a fearful old thing ! " the young 
 girl replied, serenely. " I told her she could 
 wear it. She won't come here, because she 
 sees you." 
 
 "Ah, then," said Winterbourne, "I had 
 better leave you." 
 
 " Oh no ; come on ! " urged Miss Daisy 
 Miller. 
 
 " I'm afraid your mother doesn't approve 
 of my walking with you." 
 
 Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. 
 " It isn't for me ; it's for you that is, it's 
 for her. Well ; I don't know who it's for ! 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 43 
 
 But mother doesn't like any of my gentle- 
 men friends. She's right down timid. She 
 always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentle- 
 man. But I do introduce them almost 
 always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen 
 friends to mother," the young girl added, 
 in her little soft, flat monotone, " I shouldn't 
 think I was natural." 
 
 "To introduce me," said Winterbourne, 
 " you must know my name." And he 
 proceeded to pronounce it. 
 
 " Oh, dear ; I can't say all that ! " said 
 his companion, with a laugh. But by this 
 time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, 
 who, as they drew near, walked to the 
 parapet of the garden and leaned upon it, 
 looking intently at the lake and turning 
 her back upon them. " Mother ! " said 
 the young girl, in a tone of decision. Upon 
 this the elder lady turned round. " Mr. 
 Winterbourne," said Miss Daisy Miller, 
 introducing the young man very frankly 
 and prettily. " Common " she was, as Mrs. 
 Costello had pronounced her; yet it was a 
 
44 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 wonder to Winterbourne that, with her 
 commonness, she had a singularly delicate 
 grace. 
 
 Her mother was a small, spare, light 
 person, with a wandering eye, a very 
 exiguous nose, and a large forehead, 
 decorated with a certain amount of thin, 
 much-frizzled hair. Like her daughter, 
 Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme 
 elegance; she had enormous diamonds in 
 her ears. So far as Winterbourne could 
 observe, she gave him no greeting she 
 certainly was not looking at him. Daisy 
 was near her, pulling her shawl straight. 
 " What are you doing, poking round here ? " 
 this young lady inquired ; but by no means 
 with that harshness of accent which her 
 choice of words may imply. 
 
 " I don't know," said her mother, turning 
 towards the lake again. 
 
 "I shouldn't think you'd want that 
 shawl ! " Daisy exclaimed. 
 
 " Well I do ! " her mother answered, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 45 
 
 " Did you get Randolph to go to bed ? " 
 asked the young girl. 
 
 " No ; I couldn't induce him/' said Mrs. 
 Miller, very gently. " He wants to talk 
 to the waiter. He likes ,to talk to that 
 
 waiter." 
 
 "I was telling Mr. Winterbourne," the 
 young girl went on; and to the young 
 man's ear her tone might have indicated 
 that she had been uttering his name all her 
 life. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Winterbourne ; " I have 
 the pleasure of knowing your son." 
 
 Randolph's mamma was silent ; she turned 
 her attention to the lake. But at last she 
 spoke. " Well, I don't see how he lives ! " 
 
 "Anyhow, it isn't so bad as it was at 
 Dover," said Daisy Miller. 
 
 " And what occurred at Dover ? " Winter- 
 bourne asked. 
 
 " He wouldn't go to bed at all. I guess 
 he sat up all night in the public parlour. 
 He wasn't in bed at twelve o'clock : I know 
 that." 
 
46 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " It was half-past twelve/' declared Mrs. 
 Miller, with mild emphasis. 
 
 "Does he sleep much during the day?" 
 Winterbourne demanded. 
 
 "I guess he doesn't sleep much," Daisy 
 rejoined. 
 
 " I wish he would ! " said her mother. 
 " It seems as if he couldn't." 
 
 "I think he's real tiresome," Daisy 
 pursued. 
 
 Then, for some moments, there was 
 silence. "Well, Daisy Miller," said the 
 elder lady, presently, " I shouldn't think 
 you'd want to talk against your own 
 brother ! " 
 
 "Well, he is tiresome, mother," said 
 Daisy, quite without the asperity of a 
 retort. 
 
 He's only nine," urged Mrs. Miller. 
 
 "Well, he wouldn't go to that castle," 
 said the young girl. " I'm going there 
 with Mr. Winterbourne." 
 
 To this announcement, very placidly 
 made, Daisy's mamma offered no response. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 47 
 
 Winterbourne took for granted that she 
 deeply disapproved of the projected excur- 
 sion ; but he said to himself that she was 
 a simple, easily-managed person, and that 
 a few deferential protestations would take 
 the edge from her displeasure. "Yes," 
 he began; "your daughter has kindly 
 allowed me the honour of being her 
 guide." 
 
 Mrs. Miller's wandering eyes attached 
 themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to 
 Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps 
 farther, gently humming to herself. " I 
 presume you will go in the cars," said her 
 mother. 
 
 "Yes; or in the boat," said Winter 
 bourne. 
 
 "Well, of course, I don't know," Mrs. 
 Miller rejoined. " I have never been to 
 that castle." 
 
 " It is a pity you shouldn't go," said 
 Winterbourne, beginning to feel reassured 
 as to her opposition. And yet he was 
 quite prepared to find that, as a matter of 
 
48 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 course, she meant to accompany her 
 daughter. 
 
 "We've been thinking ever so much 
 about going," she pursued ; " but it seems 
 as if we couldn't. Of course Daisy she 
 wants to go round. But there's a lady here 
 I don't know her name she says she 
 shouldn't think we'd want to go to see 
 castles here; she should think we'd want to 
 wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if 
 there would be so many there," continued 
 Mrs. Miller, with an air of increasing 
 confidence. "Of course, we only want 
 to see the principal ones. We visited 
 several in England," she presently 
 added. 
 
 " Ah, yes ! in England there are beautiful 
 castles," said Winterbourne. " But Chillon, 
 here, is very well worth seeing." 
 
 "Well, if Daisy feels up to it ," said 
 
 Mrs. Miller, in a tone impregnated with a 
 sense of the magnitude of the enterprise. 
 "It seems as if there was nothing she 
 wouldn't undertake." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 49 
 
 "Oh, 1 think she'll enjoy it!" Winter- 
 bourne declared. And he desired more and 
 more to make it a certainty that he was to 
 have the privilege of a tete-a-ttte with the 
 young lady, who was still strolling along 
 in front of them, softly vocalising. " You 
 are not disposed, madam," he inquired, " to 
 undertake it yourself? " 
 
 Daisy's mother looked at him, an instant, 
 askance, and then walked forward in silence. 
 Then " I guess she had better go alone," 
 she said, simply. 
 
 Winterbourne observed to himself that 
 this was a very different type of maternity 
 from that of the vigilant matrons who 
 massed themselves in the forefront of social 
 intercourse in the dark old city at the other 
 end of the lake. But his meditations were 
 interrupted by hearing his name very 
 distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Miller's 
 unprotected daughter. 
 
 " Mr. Winterbourne ! " murmured Daisy. 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! " said the young man. 
 
 " Don't you want to take me out in a boat ? " 
 
50 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " At present : " he asked. 
 
 " Of course ! " said Daisy. 
 
 "Well, Annie Miller!" exclaimed her 
 mother. 
 
 " I beg you, madam, to let her go," said 
 Winterbourne, ardently; for he had never 
 yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding through 
 the summer starlight a skiff freighted with 
 a fresh and beautiful young girl. 
 
 "I shouldn't think she'd want to," said 
 her mother. "I should think she'd rather 
 go indoors." 
 
 " I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to 
 take me," Daisy declared. "He's so awfully 
 devoted!" 
 
 "I will row you over to Chillon, in the 
 starlight." 
 
 " I don't believe it ! " said Daisy. 
 
 "Well ! " ejaculated the elder lady again, 
 
 u You haven't spoken to me for half-an- 
 hour," her daughter went on. 
 
 "I have been having some very pleasant 
 conversation with your mother," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 51 
 
 " Well ; I want you to take me out in a 
 boat ! " Daisy repeated. They had all 
 stopped, and she had turned round and was 
 looking at Winterbourne. Her face wore 
 a charming smile, her pretty eyes were 
 gleaming, she was swinging her great fan 
 about. No; it's impossible to be prettier 
 than that, thought Winterbourne. 
 
 " There are half-a-dozen boats moored 
 at that landing-place," he said, pointing to 
 certain steps which descended from the 
 garden to the lake. " If you will do me 
 the honour to accept my arm, we will go 
 and select one of them." 
 
 Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back 
 her head and gave a little light laugh. " I 
 like a gentleman to be formal ! " she 
 declared. 
 
 " I assure you it's a formal offer." 
 
 " I was bound I would make you say 
 something," Daisy went on. 
 
 "You see it's not very difficult," said 
 Winterbourne. "But I am afraid you are 
 
 chaffing me." 
 
 E 2 
 
52 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I think not, sir," remarked Mrs. Miller, 
 very gently. 
 
 "Do, then, let me give you a row," he 
 said to the young girl. 
 
 " It's quite lovely, the way you say that ! " 
 cried Daisy, 
 
 "It will be still more lovely to do 
 it." 
 
 "Yes, it would be lovely!" said Daisy. 
 But she made no movement to accompany 
 him ; she only stood there laughing. 
 
 "I should think you had better find 
 out what time it is," interposed her 
 mother. 
 
 "It is eleven o'clock, madam," said a 
 voice, with a foreign accent, out of the 
 neighbouring darkness ; and Winterbourne, 
 turning, perceived the florid personage who 
 was in attendance upon the two ladies. He 
 had apparently just approached. 
 
 " Oh, Eugenio," said Daisy, " I am going 
 out in a boat ! " 
 
 Eugenio bowed. "At eleven o'clock, 
 mademoiselle ? " 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 53 
 
 "I am going with Mr. Winterbourne. 
 This very minute." 
 
 " Do tell her she can't," said Mrs. Miller 
 to the courier. 
 
 " I think you had better not go out in a 
 boat, mademoiselle," Eugenio declared, 
 
 Winterbourne wished to Heaven this 
 pretty girl were not so familiar with her 
 courier ; but he said nothing. 
 
 " I suppose you don't think it's proper ! " 
 Daisy exclaimed. " Eugenio doesn't think 
 anything's proper." 
 
 " I am at your service," said Winter- 
 bourne. 
 
 "Does mademoiselle propose to go 
 alone ? " asked Eugenio of Mrs. Miller. 
 
 "Oh, no; with this gentleman!" an- 
 swered Daisy's mamma. 
 
 The courier looked for a moment at 
 Winterbourne the latter thought he was 
 smiling and then, solemnly, with a bow, 
 " As mademoiselle pleases ! " he said. 
 
 " Oh, I hoped you would make a fuss ! " 
 said Daisy. " I don't care to go now." 
 
54 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 t( I myself shall make a fuss if you don't 
 go," said Winterbourne. 
 
 "That's all I want a little fuss!" And 
 the young girl began to laugh again. 
 
 " Mr. Randolph has gone to bed ! " the 
 courier announced, frigidly. 
 
 u Oh, Daisy ; now we can go ! " said Mrs. 
 Miller. 
 
 Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, 
 looking at him, smiling and fanning her- 
 self. " Good night," she said ; " I hope you 
 are disappointed, or disgusted, or some- 
 thing ! " 
 
 He looked at her, taking the hand she 
 offered him. " I am puzzled," he answered. 
 
 "Well; I hope it won't keep you awake!" 
 she said, very smartly; and, under the 
 escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two 
 ladies passed towards the house. 
 
 Winterbourne stood looking after them ; 
 he was indeed puzzled. He lingered 
 beside the lake for a quarter of an hour, 
 turning over the mystery of the young girl's 
 sudden familiarities and caprices. But the 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY, 55 
 
 only very definite conclusion he came to 
 was that he should enjoy deucedly " going 
 off" with her somewhere. 
 
 Two days afterwards he went off with her 
 to the Castle of Chillon. He waited for her 
 in the large hall of the hotel, where the 
 couriers, the servants, the foreign tourists 
 were lounging about and staring. It was 
 not the place he would have chosen, but 
 she had appointed it. She came tripping 
 downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, 
 squeezing her folded parasol against her 
 pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a 
 soberly elegant travelling-costume. Winter- 
 bourne was a man of imagination and, as our 
 ancestors used to say, of sensibility ; as he 
 looked at her dress and, on the great stair- 
 case, her little rapid, confiding step, he felt 
 as if there were something romantic going 
 forward. He could have believed he was 
 going to elope with her. He passed out 
 with her among all the idle people that were 
 assembled there ; they were all looking at 
 her very hard ; she had begun to chatter as 
 
56 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 
 
 soon as she joined him. Wmterbourne s 
 preference had been that they should be 
 conveyed to Chillon in a carriage ; but she 
 expressed a lively wish to go in the little 
 steamer ; she declared that she had a passion 
 for steamboats. There was always such a 
 lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw 
 such lots of people. The sail was not long, 
 but Winterbourne's companion found time 
 to say a great many things. To the young 
 man himself their little excursion was so 
 much of an escapade an adventure that, 
 even allowing for her habitual sense of free- 
 dom, he had some expectation of seeing her 
 regard it in the same way. But it must be 
 confessed that, in this particular, he was 
 disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely 
 animated, she was in charming spirits; 
 but she was apparently not at all excited ; 
 she was not fluttered ; she avoided neither 
 his eyes nor those of any one else ; she 
 blushed neither when she looked at him 
 nor when she saw that people were looking 
 at her. People continued to look at her a 
 
DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 57 
 
 great deal, and Winter bourne took much 
 satisfaction in his pretty companion's dis- 
 tinguished air. He had been a little afraid 
 that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, 
 and even, perhaps, desire to move about the 
 boat a good deal. But he quite forgot his 
 fears ; he sat smiling, with his eyes upon her 
 face, while, without moving from her place, 
 she delivered herself of a great number of 
 original reflections. It was the most charm- 
 ing garrulity he had ever heard. He had 
 assented to the idea that she was " com- 
 mon ; " but was she so, after all, or was he 
 simply getting used to her commonness ? 
 Her conversation was chiefly of what meta- 
 physicians term the objective cast; but 
 every now and then it took a subjective 
 turn. 
 
 "What on earth are you so grave 
 about ? " she suddenly demanded, fixing her 
 agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne's. 
 
 "Am I grave?" he asked. "I had an 
 idea I was grinning from ear to ear." 
 
 "You look as if you were taking me to a 
 
58 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 funeral. If that's a grin, your ears are very 
 near together." 
 
 " Should you like me to dance a hornpipe 
 on the deck ? " 
 
 " Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. 
 It will pay the expenses of our journey." 
 
 " I never was better pleased in my life," 
 murmured Winterbourne. 
 
 She looked at him a moment, and then 
 burst into a little laugh. u I like to make 
 you say those things ! You're a queer 
 mixture ! " 
 
 In the castle, after they had landed, the 
 subjective element decidedly prevailed. 
 Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, 
 rustled her skirts in the corkscrew stair- 
 cases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and 
 a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, 
 and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to 
 everything that Winterbourne told her about 
 the place. But he saw that she cared very 
 little for feudal antiquities, and that the 
 dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight 
 impression upon her. They had the good 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 59 
 
 fortune to have been able to walk about 
 without other companionship than that of 
 the custodian ; and Winterbourne arranged 
 with this functionary that they should not be 
 hurried that they should linger and pause 
 wherever they chose. The custodian inter- 
 preted the bargain generously Winter- 
 bourne, on his side, had been generous 
 and ended by leaving them quite to them- 
 selves. Miss Miller's observations were not 
 remarkable for logical consistency ; for any- 
 thing she wanted to say she was sure to find 
 a pretext. She found a great many pretexts 
 in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for 
 asking Winterbourne sudden questions about 
 himself his family, his previous history, his 
 tastes, his habits, his intentions and for sup- 
 plying information upon corresponding points 
 in her own personality. Of her own tastes, 
 habits and intentions Miss Miller was pre- 
 pared to give the most definite, and indeed 
 the most favourable, account. 
 
 " Well ; I hope you know enough ! " she 
 said to her companion, after he had told her 
 
60 .DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 the history of the unhappy Bonivard. " I 
 never saw a man that knew so much ! " 
 The history of Bonivard had evidently, as 
 they say, gone into one ear and out of the 
 other. But Daisy went on to say that she 
 wished Winterbourne would travel with 
 them and " go round " with them ; they 
 might know something, in that case. 
 " Don't you want to come and teach 
 Randolph ? " she asked. Winterbourne said 
 that nothing could possibly please him so 
 much ; but that he had unfortunately other 
 occupations. " Other occupations? I 
 don't believe it ! " said Miss Daisy. " What 
 do you mean ? You are not in business.' 1 
 The young man admitted that he was not in 
 business ; but he had engagements which, 
 even within a day or two would force him 
 to go back to Geneva. "Oh, bother!" 
 she said, " I don't believe it ! " and she began 
 to talk about something else. But a few 
 moments later, when he was pointing out 
 to her the pretty design of an antique fire- 
 place, she broke out irrelevantly, " You 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 61 
 
 don't mean to say you are going back to 
 Geneva ? " 
 
 66 It is a melancholy fact that I shall have 
 to return to Geneva to-morrow." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Winterbourne," said Daisy; 
 " I think you're horrid ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't say such dreadful things ! " 
 said Winterbourne "just at the last." 
 
 " The last ! " cried the young girl ; " I call 
 it the first. I have half a mind to leave you 
 here and go straight back to the hotel 
 alone." And for the next ten minutes she 
 did nothing but call him horrid. Poor 
 Winterbourne was fairly bewildered ; no 
 young lady had as yet done him the honour 
 to be so agitated by the announcement of 
 his movements. His companion, after this, 
 ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities 
 of Chillon or the beauties of the lake ; she 
 opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in 
 Geneva, whom she appeared to have instantly 
 taken it for granted that he was hurrying 
 back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller 
 know that there was a charmer in Geneva? 
 
62 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 Winterbourne, who denied the existence of 
 such a person, was quite unable to discover ; 
 and he was divided between amazement at 
 the rapidity of her induction and amuse- 
 ment at the frankness of her persiflage. 
 She seemed to him, in all this, an extra- 
 ordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. 
 " Does she never allow you more than three 
 days at a time?" asked Daisy, ironically. 
 " Doesn't she give you a vacation in 
 summer? There's no one so hard worked 
 but they can get leave to go off somewhere 
 at this season. I suppose, if you stay 
 another day, she'll come after you in the 
 boat. Do wait over till Friday, and I will 
 go down to the landing to see her arrive ! " 
 Winterbourne began to think he had been 
 wrong to feel disappointed in the temper in 
 which the young lady had embarked. If 
 he had missed the personal accent, the 
 personal accent was now making its ap- 
 pearance. It sounded very distinctly, at 
 last, in her telling him she would stop 
 " teasing " him if he would promise her 
 
DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 63 
 
 solemnly to come down to Rome in the 
 winter. 
 
 " That's not a difficult promise to make," 
 said Winterbourne. " My aunt has taken 
 an apartment in Rome for the winter, and 
 has already asked me to come and see 
 her." 
 
 "I don't want you to come for your 
 aunt," said Daisy ; " I want you to come for 
 me." And this was the only allusion that 
 the young man was ever to hear her make 
 to his invidious kinswoman. He declared 
 that, at any rate, he would certainly come. 
 After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winter- 
 bourne took a carriage, and they drove back 
 to Vevey in the dusk; the young girl was 
 very quiet. 
 
 In the evening Winterbourne mentioned 
 to Mrs. Costello that he had spent the after- 
 noon at Chillon, with Miss Daisy Miller. 
 
 " The Americans of the courier : " asked 
 this lady. 
 
 " Ah, happily," said Winterbourne, " the 
 courier stayed at home." 
 
64 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " She went with you all alone ? " 
 
 "All alone." 
 
 Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her 
 smelling-bottle. " And that," she exclaimed, 
 " is the young person you wanted me to 
 know ! " 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 65 
 
 III. 
 
 WINTERBOURNE, who had returned to Geneva 
 the day after his excursion to Chillon, went 
 to Rome towards the end of January. His 
 aunt had been established there for several 
 weeks, and he had received a couple of letters 
 from her. "Those people you were so 
 devoted to last summer at Vevey have turned 
 up here, courier and all," she wrote. " They 
 seem to have made several acquaintances, 
 but the courier continues to be the most 
 intime. The young lady, however, is also 
 very intimate with some third-rate Italians, 
 with whom she rackets about in a way that 
 makes much talk. Bring me that pretty 
 novel of Cherbuliez's ( Paule Mere ' and 
 don't come later than the 23rd." 
 
 In the natural course of events, Winter- 
 bourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently 
 
66 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 have ascertained Mrs. Miller's address at the 
 American banker's and have gone to pay his 
 compliments to Miss Daisy. " After what 
 happened at Vevey I certainly think I may 
 call upon them," he said to Mrs. Costello. 
 
 " If, after what happens at Vevey and 
 everywhere you desire to keep up the 
 acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of 
 course a man may know every one. Men 
 are welcome to the privilege ! " 
 
 "Pray what is it that happens here, for 
 instance ? " Winterbourne demanded. 
 
 " The girl goes about alone with her 
 foreigners. As to what happens farther, 
 you must apply elsewhere for information. 
 She has picked up half-a-dozen of the 
 regular Roman fortune-hunters, and she 
 takes them about to people's houses. When 
 she comes to a party she brings with her a 
 gentleman with a good deal of manner and a 
 wonderful jnoustache." 
 
 "And where is the mother ? " 
 
 " I haven't the least idea. They are very 
 dreadful people." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 67 
 
 Winterbourne meditated a moment. 
 "They are very ignorant very innocent 
 only. Depend upon it they are not bad." 
 
 " They are hopelessly vulgar/' said Mrs. 
 Costello. "Whether or no being hopelessly 
 vulgar is being ( bad ' is a question for the 
 metaphysicians. They are bad enough to 
 dislike, at any rate ; and for this short life 
 that is quite enough." 
 
 The news that Daisy Miller was sur- 
 rounded by half-a-dozen wonderful mous- 
 taches checked Winterbourne's impulse to 
 go straightway to see her. He had perhaps 
 not definitely flattered himself that he had 
 made an ineffaceable impression upon her 
 heart, but he was annoyed at hearing of a 
 state of affairs so little in harmony with an 
 image that had lately flitted in and out of 
 his own meditations ; the image of a very 
 pretty girl looking out of an old Roman 
 window and asking herself urgently when 
 Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, how- 
 ever, he determined to wait a little before 
 reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her 
 
 F2 
 
68 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 consideration, he went very soon to call upon 
 two or three other friends. One of these 
 friends was an American lady who had spent 
 several winters at Geneva, where she had 
 placed her children at school. She was a 
 very accomplished woman and she lived in 
 the Via Gregoriana. Winterbourne found 
 her in a little crimson drawing-room, on a 
 third floor ; the room was filled with south- 
 ern sunshine. He had not been there ten 
 minutes when the servant came in, announc- 
 ing " Madame Mila ! " This announcement 
 was presently followed by the entrance of 
 little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the 
 middle of the room and stood staring at 
 Winterbourne. An instant later his pretty 
 sister crossed the threshold ; and then, after 
 a considerable interval, Mrs. Miller slowly 
 advanced. 
 
 " I know you ! " said Randolph. 
 
 " I'm sure you know a great many things," 
 exclaimed Winterbourne, taking him by the 
 hand. " How is your education coming 
 on?" 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 69 
 
 Daisy was exchanging greetings very 
 prettily with her hostess ; but when she heard 
 Winterbourne's voice she quickly turned her 
 head. " Well, I declare ! " she said. 
 
 " I told you I should come, you know," 
 Winterbourne rejoined, smiling. 
 
 "Well I didn't believe it," said Miss 
 Daisy. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you," laughed the 
 young man. 
 
 " You might have come to see me ! " said 
 Daisy. 
 
 " I arrived only yesterday." 
 
 " I don't believe that ! " the young girl 
 declared. 
 
 Winterbourne turned with a protesting 
 smile to her mother ; but this lady evaded 
 his glance, and seating herself, fixed her eyes 
 upon her son. " We've got a bigger place 
 than this," said Randolph. " It's all gold on 
 the walls." 
 
 Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. 
 " I told you if I were to bring you, you 
 would say something ! " she murmured. 
 
70 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 
 
 "I told youT Randolph exclaimed. "I 
 tell you, sir ! " he added jocosely, giving 
 Winterbourrie a thump on the knee. " It 
 is bigger, too ! " 
 
 Daisy had entered upon a lively conversa- 
 tion with her hostess ; Winterbourne judged 
 it becoming to address a few words to her 
 mother. " I hope you have been well since 
 we parted at Vevey," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him 
 at his chin. "Not very well, sir," she 
 answered. 
 
 " She's got the dyspepsia," said Randolph. 
 " I've got it too. Father's got it. I've got 
 
 it worst ! 
 
 This announcement, instead of embarrass- 
 ing Mrs. Miller, seemed to relieve her. " I 
 suffer from the liver," she said. "I think 
 it's this climate ; it's less bracing than 
 Schenectady, especially in the winter season. 
 I don't know whether you know we reside at 
 Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I 
 certainly hadn't found any one like Dr. 
 Davis, and I didn't believe I should. Oh, 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 71 
 
 at Schenectady, he stands first ; they think 
 everything of him. He has so much to do, 
 and yet there was nothing he wouldn't do for 
 me. He said he never saw anything like my 
 dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. 
 I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't try. 
 He was just going to try something new 
 when we came off. Mr. Miller wanted 
 Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I 
 wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I 
 couldn't get on without Dr. Davis. At 
 Schenectady he stands at the very top ; and 
 there's a great deal of sickness there, too. It 
 affects my sleep." 
 
 Winterbourne had a good deal of patho- 
 logical gossip with Dr. Davis's patient, during 
 which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her 
 own companion. The young man asked 
 Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. 
 "Well, I must say I am disappointed," 
 she answered. "We had heard so much 
 about it ; I suppose we had heard too much. 
 But we couldn't help that. We had been 
 led to expect something different." 
 
72 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 "Ah, wait a little, and you will become 
 very fond of it," said Winterbourne. 
 
 " I hate it worse and worse every day ! " 
 cried Randolph. 
 
 "You are like the infant Hannibal," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 "No, I ain't!" Randolph declared, at a 
 venture. 
 
 "You are not much like an infant," said 
 his mother. " But we have seen places," she 
 resumed, "that I should put a long way 
 before Rome." And in reply to Winter- 
 bourne's interrogation, "There's Zurich," 
 she observed ; " I think Zurich is lovely ; 
 and we hadn't heard half so much about it." 
 
 " The best place we've seen is the City of 
 Richmond ! " said Randolph. 
 
 "He means the ship," his mother ex- 
 plained. "We crossed in that ship. Ran- 
 dolph had a good time on the City of 
 Richmond." 
 
 " It's the best place I've seen," the child 
 repeated. " Only it was turned the wrong 
 way." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 73 
 
 " Well, we've got to turn the right way 
 some time," said Mrs. Miller, with a little 
 laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope 
 that her daughter at least found some gratifi- 
 cation in Rome, and she declared that Daisy 
 was quite carried away. " It's on account of 
 the society the society's splendid. She 
 goes round everywhere ; she has made a 
 great number of acquaintances. Of course 
 she goes round more than I do. I must say 
 they have been very sociable ; they have 
 taken her right in. And then she knows a 
 great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks 
 there's nothing like Rome. Of course, it's a 
 great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she 
 knows plenty of gentlemen." 
 
 By this time Daisy had turned her atten- 
 tion again to Winterbourne. " I've been 
 telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were ! " 
 the young girl announced. 
 
 "And what is the evidence you have 
 offered?" asked Winterbourne, rather 
 annoyed at Miss Miller's want of apprecia- 
 tion of the zeal of an admirer who on his 
 
74 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 way down to Rome had stopped neither at 
 Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of 
 a certain sentimental impatience. He re- 
 membered that a cynical compatriot had 
 once told him that American women the 
 pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the 
 axiom were at once the most exacting in 
 the world and the least endowed with a 
 sense of indebtedness. 
 
 " Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey," 
 said Daisy. " You wouldn't do anything. 
 You wouldn't stay there when I asked 
 you." 
 
 u My dearest young lady," cried Winter- 
 bourne, with eloquence, "have I come all 
 the way to Rome to encounter your re- 
 proaches r " 
 
 " Just hear him say that ! " said Daisy to 
 her hostess, giving a twist to a bow on this 
 lady's dress. " Did you ever hear anything 
 so quaint ? " 
 
 " So quaint, my dear ? " murmured Mrs. 
 Walker, in the tone of a partisan of 
 Winterbourne. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 75 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Daisy, finger- 
 ing Mrs. Walker's ribbons. " Mrs. Walker, 
 I want to tell you something." 
 
 " Motherr," interposed Randolph, with 
 his rough ends to his words, "I tell you 
 you've got to go. Eugenio '11 raise some- 
 thing!" 
 
 " I'm not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy, 
 with a toss of her head. " Look here, Mrs. 
 Walker," she went on, "you know I'm 
 coming to your party ." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it" 
 
 " I've got a lovely dress." 
 
 " I am very sure of that." 
 
 " But I want to ask a favour permission 
 to bring a friend." 
 
 "I shall be happy to see any of your 
 friends," said Mrs. Walker, turning with a 
 smile to Mrs. Miller. 
 
 " Oh, they are not my friends," answered 
 Daisy's mamma, smiling shyly, in her own 
 fashion. " I never spoke to them ! " 
 
 " It's an intimate friend of mine Mr. 
 Giovanelli," said Daisy, without a tremor in 
 
76 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 her clear little voice or a shadow on her 
 brilliant little face. 
 
 Mrs. Walker was silent a moment, she 
 gave a rapid glance at Winterbourne. " I 
 shall be glad to see Mr. Giovanelli," she 
 then said. 
 
 "He's an Italian/' Daisy pursued, with 
 the prettiest serenity. " He's a great friend 
 of mine he's the handsomest man in the 
 world except Mr. Winterbourne ! He 
 knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to 
 know some Americans. He thinks ever so 
 much of Americans. He's tremendously 
 clever. He's perfectly lovely ! " 
 
 It was settled that this brilliant personage 
 should be brought to Mrs. Walker's party, 
 and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her 
 leave. " I guess we'll go back to the hotel," 
 she said. 
 
 (t You may go back to the hotel, mother, 
 but I'm going to take a walk," said 
 Daisy. 
 
 "She's going to walk with Mr. Giova- 
 nelli," Randolph procla'med. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 77 
 
 " I am going to the Pincio," said Daisy, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Alone, my dear at this hour ? " Mrs. 
 Walker asked. The afternoon was drawing 
 to a close it was the hour for the throng of 
 carriages and of contemplative pedestrians. 
 " I don't think it's safe, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Walker. 
 
 "Neither do I," subjoined Mrs. Miller. 
 " You'll get the fever as sure as you 
 live. Remember what Dr. Davis told 
 you ! " 
 
 "Give her some medicine before she 
 goes," said Randolph. 
 
 The company had risen to its feet ; Daisy, 
 still showing her pretty teeth, bent over 
 and kissed her hostess. " Mrs. Walker, 
 you are too perfect," she said. " I'm 
 not ' going alone ; I am going to meet a 
 friend." 
 
 "Your friend won't keep you from 
 getting the fever," Mrs. Miller observed. 
 
 " Is it Mr. Giovanelli ? " asked the hostess 
 
 Winterbourne was watching the young 
 
78 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 girl ; at this question his attention quick- 
 ened. She stood there smiling and smooth- 
 ing her bonnet-ribbons; she glanced at 
 Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced 
 and smiled, she answered without a shade of 
 hesitation, " Mr. Giovanelli the beautiful 
 Giovanelli." 
 
 " My dear young friend," said Mrs. 
 Walker, taking her hand, pleadingly, " don't 
 walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet 
 a beautiful Italian." 
 
 "Well, he speaks English," said Mrs. 
 Miller. 
 
 " Gracious me ! " Daisy exclaimed, " I 
 don't want to do anything improper. 
 There's an easy way to settle it." She con- 
 tinued to glance at Winterbourne. "The 
 Pincio is only a hundred yards distant, and 
 if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as 
 he pretends he would offer to walk with 
 me!" 
 
 Winterbourne's politeness hastened to 
 affirm itself, and the young girl gave him 
 gracious leave to accompany her. They 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 79 
 
 passed down-stairs before her mother, and 
 at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. 
 Miller's carriage drawn up, with the orna- 
 mental courier whose acquaintance he had 
 made at Vevey seated within. " Good-bye, 
 Eugenio ! " cried Daisy, " I'm going to take 
 a walk." The distance from the Via Gre- 
 goriana to the beautiful garden at the other 
 end of the Pincian Hill is, in fact, rapidly 
 traversed. As the day was splendid, how- 
 ever, and the concourse of vehicles, walkers, 
 and loungers numerous, the young Ameri- 
 cans found their progress much delayed. 
 This fact was highly agreeable to Winter- 
 bourne, in spite of his consciousness of 
 his singular situation. The slow-moving, 
 idly-gazing Roman crowd bestowed much 
 attention upon the extremely pretty young 
 foreign lady who was passing through it 
 upon his arm ; and he wondered what on 
 earth had been in Daisy's mind when she 
 proposed to expose herself, unattended, to 
 its appreciation. His own mission, to her 
 sense, apparently, was to consign her to the 
 
8o DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 hands of Mr. Giovanelli ; but Winter- 
 bourne, at once annoyed and gratified, 
 resolved that he would do no such thing. 
 
 "Why haven't you been to see me?" 
 asked Daisy. "You can't get out of 
 that." 
 
 " I have had the honour of telling you 
 that I have only just stepped out of the 
 train." 
 
 "You must have stayed in the train a 
 good while after it stopped ! " cried the 
 young girl, with her little laugh. "I 
 suppose you were asleep. You have had 
 time to go to see Mrs. Walker." 
 
 " I knew Mrs. Walker " Winterbourne 
 began to explain. 
 
 " I knew where you knew her. You 
 knew her at Geneva. She told me so. 
 Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just 
 as good. So you ought to have come." 
 She asked him no other question than this ; 
 she began to prattle about her own affairs. 
 "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; 
 Eugenio says they're the best rooms in 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 81 
 
 Rome. We are going to stay all winter if 
 we don't die of the fever ; and I guess we'll stay 
 then. It's a great deal nicer than I thought ; 
 I thought it would be fearfully quiet ; I was 
 sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure 
 we should be going round all the time with 
 one of those dreadful old men that explain 
 about the pictures and things. But we only 
 had about a week of that, and now I'm 
 enjoying myself. I know ever so many 
 people, and they are all so charming. The 
 society's extremely select. There are all 
 kinds English, and Germans, and Italians. 
 I think I like the English best. I like their 
 style of conversation. But there are some 
 lovely Americans. 1 never saw anything so 
 hospitable. There's something or other 
 every day. There's not much dancing ; 
 but I must say I never thought dancing was 
 everything. I was always fond of conversa- 
 tion. I guess I shall have plenty at Mrs. 
 Walker's her rooms are so small." When 
 they had passed the gate of the Pincian 
 Gardens, Miss Miller began to wonder 
 
82 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 where Mr. Giovanelli might be. " We had 
 better go straight to that place in front," she 
 said, " where you look at the view." 
 
 "I certainly shall not help you to find 
 him," Winterbourne declared. 
 
 "Then I shall find him without you," 
 said Miss Daisy. 
 
 " You certainly won't leave me ! " cried 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 She burst into her little laugh. " Are you 
 afraid you'll get lost or run over? But 
 there's Giovanelli, leaning against that 
 tree. He's staring at the women in the 
 carriages: did you ever see anything so 
 cool?" 
 
 Winterbourne perceived at some distance 
 a little man standing with folded arms, 
 nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, 
 an artfully poised hat, a glass in one eye and 
 a nosegay in his button-hole. Winter- 
 bourne looked at him a moment and then 
 said, " Do you mean to speak to that 
 
 man ? 
 
 "Do I mean to sj^eak to him? Why, 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 83 
 
 you don't suppose I mean to communicate 
 by signs r " 
 
 "Pray understand, then," said Winter- 
 bourne, "that I intend to remain with you." 
 
 Daisy stopped and looked at him, without 
 a sign of troubled consciousness in her 
 face; with nothing but the presence of her 
 charming eyes and her happy dimples. 
 "Well, she's a cool one!" thought the 
 young man. 
 
 " I don't like the way you say that," said 
 Daisy. " It's too imperious." 
 
 " I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. 
 The main point is to give you an idea of 
 my meaning." 
 
 The young girl looked at him more 
 gravely, but with eyes that were prettier than 
 ever. " I have never allowed a gentleman to 
 dictate to me, or to interfere with anything 
 I do." 
 
 " I think you have made a mistake," 
 said Winterbourne. " You should some- 
 times listen to a gentleman the right 
 
 one ? " 
 
 G 2 
 
84 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 Daisy began to laugh again. " I do 
 nothing but listen to gentlemen ! " she 
 exclaimed. " Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is 
 the right one ? " 
 
 The gentleman with the nosegay in his 
 bosom had now perceived our two friends, 
 and was approaching the young girl with 
 obsequious rapidity. He bowed to Winter- 
 bourne as well as to the latter's companion ; 
 he had a brilliant smile, an intelligent eye ; 
 Winterbourne thought him not a bad- 
 looking fellow. But he nevertheless said to 
 Daisy " No, he's not the right one." 
 
 Daisy evidently had a natural talent for 
 performing introductions ; she mentioned 
 the name of each of her companions to the 
 other. She strolled along with one of them 
 on each side of her ; Mr. Giovanelli, who 
 spoke English very cleverly Winterbourne 
 afterwards learned that he had practised the 
 idiom upon a great many American heir- 
 esses addressed her a great deal of very 
 polite nonsense ; he was extremely urbane, 
 and the young American, who said nothing, 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 85 
 
 reflected upon that profundity of Italian 
 cleverness which enables people to appear 
 more gracious in proportion as they are 
 more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of 
 course, had counted upon something more 
 intimate ; he had not bargained for a party 
 of three. But he kept his temper in a 
 manner which suggested far-stretching in- 
 tentions. Winterbourne flattered himself 
 that he had taken his measure. " He is not 
 a gentleman," said the young American ; 
 " he is only a clever imitation of one. He 
 is a music- master, or a penny-a-liner, or a 
 third-rate artist. Damn his good lo'oks ! " 
 Mr. Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty 
 face ; but Winterbourne felt a superior 
 indignation at his own lovely fellow-country- 
 woman's not knowing the difference between 
 a spurious gentleman and a real one. 
 Giovanelli chattered and jested and made 
 himself wonderfully agreeable. It was true 
 that if he was an imitation the imitation was 
 very skilful. " Nevertheless," Winterbourne 
 said to himself, "a nice girl ought to 
 
86 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 know ! " And then he came back to the 
 question whether this was in fact a nice girl. 
 Would a nice girl even allowing for her 
 being a little American flirt make a 
 rendezvous with a presumably low-lived 
 foreigner? The rendezvous in this case, 
 indeed, had been in broad daylight, and in 
 the most crowded corner of Rome ; but was 
 it not impossible to regard the choice of 
 these circumstances as a proof of extreme 
 cynicism ? Singular though it may seem, 
 Winterbourne was vexed that the young 
 girl, in joining her amoroso, should not 
 appear more impatient of his own company, 
 and he was vexed because of his inclination. 
 It was impossible to regard her as a perfectly 
 well-conducted young lady ; she was wanting 
 in a certain indispensable delicacy. It 
 would therefore simplify matters greatly to 
 be able to treat her as the object of one of 
 those sentiments which are called by roman- 
 cers "lawless passions." That she should 
 seem to wish to get rid of him would help 
 him to think more lightly of her, and to be 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 87 
 
 able to think more lightly of her would 
 make her much less perplexing. But 
 Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present 
 herself as an inscrutable combination of 
 audacity and innocence. 
 
 She had been walking some quarter of an 
 hour, attended by her two cavaliers, and 
 responding in a tone of very childish gaiety, 
 as it seemed to Winterbourne, to the pretty 
 speeches of Mr. Giovanelli, when a carriage 
 that had detached itself from the revolving 
 train drew up beside the path. At the same 
 moment Winterbourne perceived that his 
 friend Mrs. Walker the lady whose house 
 he had lately left was seated in the vehicle 
 and was beckoning to him. Leaving Miss 
 Miller's side, he hastened to obey her 
 summons. Mrs. Walker was flushed; she 
 wore an excited air. " It is really too dread- 
 ful," she said. "That girl must not do this 
 sort of thing. She must not walk here with 
 you two men. Fifty people have noticed 
 her." 
 
 Winterbourne raised his eyebrows. " I 
 
88 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 think it's a pity to make too much fuss 
 about it." 
 
 " It's a pity to let the girl ruin herself! " 
 
 "She is very innocent," said Winterbourne. 
 
 "She's very, crazy!" cried Mrs. Walker. 
 " Did you ever see anything so imbecile as 
 her mother ? After you had all left me, just 
 now, I could not sit still for thinking of it. 
 It seemed too pitiful, not even to attempt to 
 save her. I ordered the carriage and put on 
 my bonnet, and came here as quickly as 
 possible. Thank heaven I have found you!" 
 
 " What do you propose to do with us ? " 
 asked Winterbourne, smiling. 
 
 " To ask her to get in, to drive her about 
 here for half-an-hour, so that the world may 
 see she is not running absolutely wild, and 
 then to take her safely home." 
 
 " I don't think it's a very happy 
 thought," said Winterbourne; "but you 
 can try." 
 
 Mrs. Walker tried. The young man 
 went in pursuit of Miss Miller, who had 
 simply nodded and smiled at his interlocutrix 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 89 
 
 in the carriage and had gone her way with 
 her own companion. Daisy, on learning that 
 Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, re- 
 traced her steps with a perfect good grace 
 and with Mr. Giovanelli at her side. 
 She declared that she was delighted to 
 have a chance to present this gentle- 
 man to Mrs. Walker. She immediately 
 achieved the introduction, and declared 
 that she had never in her life seen any- 
 thing so lovely as Mrs. Walker's carriage- 
 rug. 
 
 " I am glad you admire it," said this lady, 
 smiling sweetly. "Will you get in and let 
 me put it over you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, thank you," said Daisy. " I 
 shall admire it much more as I see you 
 driving round with it." 
 
 " Do get in and drive with me," said 
 Mrs. Walker. 
 
 "That would be charming, but it's so 
 enchanting just as I am ! " and Daisy gave a 
 brilliant glance at the gentlemen on either 
 side of her. 
 
90 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " It may be enchanting, dear child, but it 
 is not the custom here," urged Mrs. Walker, 
 leaning forward in her victoria with her hands 
 devoutly clasped. 
 
 " Well, it ought to be, then ! " said Daisy. 
 " If I didn't walk I should expire." 
 
 "You should walk with your mother, 
 dear," cried the lady from Geneva, losing 
 patience. 
 
 " With my mother dear ! " exclaimed the 
 young girl. Winterbourne saw that she 
 scented interference. "My mother never 
 walked ten steps in her life. And then, you 
 know," she added with a laugh, " I am more 
 than five years old." 
 
 " You are old enough to be more reason- 
 able. You are old enough, dear Miss Miller, 
 to be talked about." 
 
 Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling 
 intensely. " Talked about ? What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "Come into my carriage and I will tell 
 you." 
 
 Daisy turned her quickened glance again 
 
DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 91 
 
 from one of the gentlemen beside her to the 
 other. Mr. Giovanelli was bowing to and 
 fro, rubbing down his gloves and laughing 
 very agreeably ; Winterbourne thought it a 
 most unpleasant scene. "I don't think I 
 want to know what you mean/' said Daisy 
 presently. "I don't think I should like 
 it." 
 
 Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walker 
 would tuck in her carriage-rug and drive 
 away; but this lady did not enjoy being 
 defied, as she afterwards told him. " Should 
 you prefer being thought a very reckless 
 girl ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Gracious me ! " exclaimed Daisy. She 
 looked again at Mr. Giovanelli, then she 
 turned to Winterbourne. There was a little 
 pink flush in her cheek ; she was tremen- 
 dously pretty. " Does Mr. Winterbourne 
 think," she asked slowly, smiling, throwing 
 back her head and glancing at him from 
 head to foot, " that to save my reputation 
 I ought to get into the carriage ? " 
 
 Winterbourne coloured ; for an instant he 
 
92 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 hesitated greatly. It seemed so strange to 
 hear her speak that way of her " reputation." 
 But he himself, in fact, must speak in 
 accordance with gallantry. The finest gal- 
 lantry, here, was simply to tell her the 
 truth; and the truth, for Winterbourne, 
 as the few indications I have been able to 
 give have made him known to the reader, 
 was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. 
 Walker's advice. He looked at her ex- 
 quisite prettiness; and then he said very 
 gently, "I think you should get into the 
 carriage." 
 
 Daisy gave a violent laugh. " I never 
 heard anything so stiff! If this is improper, 
 Mrs. Walker," she pursued, " then I am all 
 improper, and you must give me up. 
 Good-bye ; I hope you'll have a lovely ride ! " 
 and, with Mr. Giovanelli, who made a 
 triumphantly obsequious salute, she turned 
 away. 
 
 Mrs. Walker sat looking after her, and 
 there were tears in Mrs. Walker's eyes. 
 " Get in here, sir," she said to Winterbourne, 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 93 
 
 indicating the place beside her. The young 
 man answered that he felt bound to accom- 
 pany Miss Miller ; whereupon Mrs. Walker 
 declared that if he refused her this favour 
 she would never speak to him again. She 
 was evidently in earnest. Winterbourne 
 overtook Daisy and her companion and, 
 offering the young girl his hand, told her 
 that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious 
 claim upon his society. He expected that 
 in answer she would say something rather 
 free, something to commit herself still farther 
 to that " recklessness " from which Mrs. 
 Walker had so charitably endeavoured to 
 dissuade her. But she only shook his hand, 
 hardly looking at him, while Mr. Giovanelli 
 bade him farewell with a too emphatic 
 flourish of the hat. 
 
 Winterbourne was not in the best pos- 
 sible humour as he took his seat in Mrs. 
 Walker's victoria. "That was not clever 
 of you," he said candidly, while the vehicle 
 mingled again with the throng of carriages. 
 
 " In such a case/' his companion answered, 
 
94 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I don't wish to be clever, I wish to be 
 earnest ! " 
 
 "Well, your earnestness has only offended 
 her and put her off." 
 
 " It has happened very well," said Mrs. 
 Walker. " If she is so perfectly determined 
 to compromise herself, the sooner one knows 
 it the better ; one can act accordingly." 
 
 " I suspect she meant no harm," Winter- 
 bourne rejoined. 
 
 " So I thought a month ago. But she 
 has been going too far." 
 
 " What has she been doing ? " 
 
 "Everything that is not done here. 
 Flirting with any man she could pick up; 
 sitting in corners with mysterious Italians ; 
 dancing all the evening with the same 
 partners ; receiving visits at eleven o'clock 
 at night. Her mother goes away when 
 visitors come." 
 
 "But her brother," said Winterbourne? 
 laughing, " sits up till midnight." 
 
 . " He must be edified by what he sees. 
 I'm told that at their hotel every one is 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 95 
 
 talking about her, and that a smile goes 
 round among the servants when a gentle- 
 man comes and asks for Miss Miller." 
 
 " The servants be hanged ! " said Winter- 
 bourne angrily. "The poor girl's only 
 fault," he presently added, "is that she is 
 very uncultivated." 
 
 " She is naturally indelicate," Mrs. Walker 
 declared. " Take that example this morn- 
 ing. How long had you known her at 
 Vevey ? " 
 
 "A couple of days." 
 
 "Fancy, then, her making it a personal 
 matter that you should have left the place ! " 
 
 Winterbourne was silent for some 
 moments; then he said, "I suspect, Mrs. 
 Walker, that you and I have lived too long 
 at Geneva ! " And he added a request that 
 she should inform him with what particular 
 design she had made him enter her carriage. 
 
 " I wished to beg you to cease your 
 relations with Miss Miller not to flirt 
 with her to give her no farther opportunity 
 to expose herself to let her alone, in short." 
 
96 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't do that," said Winter- 
 bourne. " I like her extremely." 
 
 " All the more reason that you shouldn't 
 help her to make a scandal." 
 
 " There shall be nothing scandalous in my 
 attentions to her." 
 
 " There certainly will be in the way she 
 takes them. But I have said what I had on 
 my conscience," Mrs. Walker pursued. " If 
 you wish to rejoin the young lady I will put 
 you down. Here, by-the-way, you have a 
 chance." 
 
 The carriage was traversing that part of 
 the Pincian Garden which overhangs the wall 
 of Rome and overlooks the beautiful Villa 
 Borghese. It is bordered by a large parapet, 
 near which there are several seats. One of 
 the seats, at a distance, was occupied by a 
 gentleman and a lady, towards whom Mrs. 
 Walker gave a toss of her head. At the 
 same moment these persons rose and walked 
 towards the parapet. Winterbourne had 
 asked the coachman to stop ; he now 
 descended from the carriage. His companion 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 97 
 
 looked at him a moment in silence ; then, 
 while he raised his hat, she drove majestically 
 away. Winterbourne stood tkere ; he had 
 turned his eyes towards Daisy and her 
 cavalier. They evidently saw no one; they 
 were too deeply occupied with each other. 
 When they reached the low garden-wall 
 they stood a moment looking off at the 
 great flat-topped pine-clusters of the Villa 
 Borghese ; then Giovanelli seated himself 
 familiarly upon the broad ledge of the wall. 
 The western sun in the opposite sky sent 
 out a brilliant shaft through a couple of 
 cloud-bars ; whereupon Daisy's companion 
 took her parasol out of her hands and opened 
 it. She came a little nearer and he held 
 the parasol over her; then, still holding it, 
 he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that both 
 of their heads were hidden from Winter- 
 bourne. This young man lingered a 
 moment, then he began to walk. But he 
 walked not towards the couple with the 
 parasol ; towards the residence of his aunt, 
 Mrs. Costello. 
 
98 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 HE flattered himself on the following day 
 that there was no smiling among the servants 
 when he, at least, asked for Mrs. Miller at 
 her hotel. This lady and her daughter, 
 however, were not at home; and on the 
 next day after, repeating his visit, Winter- 
 bourne again had the misfortune not to find 
 them. Mrs. Walker's party took place on 
 the evening of the third day, and in spite of 
 the frigidity of his last interview with the 
 hostess Winterbourne was among the guests. 
 Mrs. Walker was one of those American 
 ladies who, while residing abroad, make a 
 point, in their own phrase, of studying 
 European society ; and she had on this 
 occasion collected several specimens of her 
 diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, as it 
 were, as text-books. When Winterbourne 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 99 
 
 arrived Daisy Miller was not there ; but in 
 a few moments he saw her mother come in 
 alone, very shyly and ruefully. Mrs. Miller's 
 hair, above her exposed-looking temples, was 
 more frizzled than ever. As she approached 
 Mrs. Walker, Winterbourne also drew 
 near. 
 
 " You see I've come all alone," said poor 
 Mrs. Miller. " I'm so frightened; I don't 
 know what to do ; it's the first time I've 
 ever been to a party alone especially in 
 this country. I wanted to bring Randolph 
 or Eugenio, or some one, but Daisy just 
 pushed me off by myself. I ain't used to 
 going round alone." 
 
 "And does not your daughter intend to 
 favour us with her society ? " demanded Mrs. 
 Walker, impressively. 
 
 "Well, Daisy's all dressed," said Mrs. 
 Miller, with that accent of the dispassionate, 
 if not of the philosophic, historian with 
 which she always recorded the current inci- 
 dents of her daughter's career. "She got 
 dressed on purpose before dinner. But 
 
 H2 
 
ioo DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 she's got a friend of hers there ; that gentle- 
 man the Italian that she wanted to bring. 
 They've got going at the piano ; it seems as 
 if they couldn't leave off. Mr. Giovanelli 
 sings splendidly. But I guess they'll come 
 before very long," concluded Mrs. Miller 
 hopefully. 
 
 " I'm sorry she should come in that 
 way," said Mrs. Walker. 
 
 " Well, I told her that there was no use in 
 her getting dressed before dinner if she was 
 going to wait three hours," responded 
 Daisy's mamma. " I didn't see the use of 
 her putting on such a dress as that to sit 
 round with Mr. Giovanelli." 
 
 "This is most horrible!" said Mrs. 
 Walker, turning away and addressing her- 
 self to Winterbourne. " Rile sqfficke. It's 
 her revenge for my having ventured to 
 remonstrate with her. When she comes I 
 shall not speak to her." 
 
 Daisy came after eleven o'clock, but she 
 was not, on such an occasion, a young lady 
 to wait to be spoken to. She rustled for- 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 101 
 
 ward in radiant loveliness, smiling and 
 chattering, carrying a large bouquet and 
 attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Every one 
 stopped talking, and turned and looked at 
 her. She came straight to Mrs. Walker. 
 " I'm afraid you thought I never was 
 coming, so I sent mother off to tell you. I 
 wanted to make Mr. Giovanelli practise 
 some things before he came ; you know he 
 sings beautifully, and I want you to ask him 
 to sing. This is Mr. Giovanelli ; you 
 know I introduced him to you ; he's got the 
 most lovely voice and he knows the most 
 charming set of songs. I made him go 
 over them this evening, on purpose ; we 
 had the greatest time at the hotel." Of all 
 this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, 
 brightest audibleness, looking now at her 
 hostess and now round the room, while 
 she gave a series of little pats, round her 
 shoulders, to the edges of her dress. "Is 
 there any one I know ? " she asked. 
 
 " I think every one knows you ! " said Mrs. 
 Walker pregnantly, and she gave a very 
 
102 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli. This 
 gentleman bore himself gallantly. He 
 smiled and bowed and showed his white 
 teeth, he curled his moustaches and rolled 
 his eyes, and performed all the proper func- 
 tions of a handsome Italian at an evening 
 party. He sang, very prettily, half-a-dozen 
 songs, though Mrs. Walker afterwards 
 declared that she had been quite unable to 
 find out who asked him. It was apparently 
 not Daisy who had given him his orders. 
 Daisy sat at a distance from the piano, 
 and though she had publicly, as it were, 
 professed a high admiration for his singing, 
 talked, not inaudibly, while it was going 
 on. 
 
 " It's a pity these rooms are so small ; we 
 can't dance," she said to Winterbourne, as if 
 she had seen him five minutes before. 
 
 u I am not sorry we can't dance," Winter- 
 bourne answered ; " I don't dance." 
 
 " Of course you don't dance ; you're too 
 stiff," said Miss Daisy. " I hope you 
 enjoyed your drive with Mrs. Walker." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 103 
 
 "No, I didn't enjoy it; I preferred walk- 
 ing with you." 
 
 "We paired off, that was much better," 
 said Daisy. " But did you ever hear any- 
 thing so cool as Mrs. Walker's wanting me 
 to get into her carriage and drop poor Mr. 
 Giovanelli ; and under the pretext that it was 
 proper? People have different ideas! It 
 would have been most unkind ; he had been 
 talking about that walk for ten days." 
 
 " He should not have talked about it at 
 all," said Winterbourne ; " he would never 
 have proposed to a young lady of this 
 country to walk about the streets with 
 him." 
 
 " About the streets ? " cried Daisy, with 
 her pretty stare. "Where then would he 
 have proposed to her to walk ? The Pincio 
 is not the streets, either ; and I, thank good- 
 ness, am not a young lady of this country. 
 The young ladies of this country have a 
 dreadfully poky time of it, so far as I can 
 learn ; I don't see why I should change my 
 habits for them'' 
 
104 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I am afraid your habits are those of a 
 flirt," said Winterbourne gravely. 
 
 "Of course they are," she cried, giving 
 him her little smiling stare again. " I'm a 
 fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of 
 a nice girl that was not ? But I suppose you 
 will tell me now that I am not a nice girl." 
 
 "You're a very nice girl, but I wish you 
 would flirt with me, and me only," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 " Ah ! thank you, thank you very much ; 
 you are the last man I should think of 
 flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of 
 informing you, you are too stiff." 
 
 "You say that too often," said Winter- 
 bourne. 
 
 Daisy gave a delighted laugh. " If I 
 could have the sweet hope of making you 
 angry, I would say it again." 
 
 "Don't do that; when I am angry I'm 
 stiffer than ever. But if you won't flirt with 
 me, do cease at least to flirt with your friend 
 at the piano ; they don't understand that 
 sort of thing here." 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 105 
 
 " I thought they understood nothing 
 else ! " exclaimed Daisy. 
 
 "Not in young unmarried women." 
 
 "It seems to me much more proper in 
 young unmarried women tha'n in old married 
 ones," Daisy declared. 
 
 "Well," said Winterbourne, "when you 
 deal with natives you must go by the 
 custom of the place. Flirting is a purely 
 American custom ; it doesn't exist here. So 
 when you show yourself in public with Mr. 
 Giovanelli and without your mother " 
 
 " Gracious ! poor mother ! " interposed 
 Daisy. 
 
 " Though you may be flirting, Mr. 
 Giovanelli is not ; he means something else." 
 
 " He isn't preaching, at any rate," said 
 Daisy with vivacity. " And if you want 
 very much to know, we are neither of us 
 flirting ; we are too good friends for that ; we 
 are very intimate friends." 
 
 "Ah!" rejoined Winterbourne, "if you 
 are in love with each other it is another 
 affair." 
 
io5 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 She had allowed him up to this point to 
 talk so frankly that he had no expectation 
 of shocking her by this ejaculation ; but she 
 immediately got up, blushing visibly, and 
 leaving him to exclaim mentally that little 
 American flirts were the queerest creatures 
 in the world. "Mr. Giovanelli, at least," 
 she said, giving her interlocutor a single 
 glance, "never says such very disagreeable 
 things to me." 
 
 Winterbourne was bewildered ; he stood 
 staring. Mr. Giovanelli had finished sing- 
 ing ; he left the piano and came over to 
 Daisy. "Won't you come into the other 
 room and have some tea?" he asked, 
 bending before her with his decorative 
 smile. 
 
 Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning 
 to smile again. He was still more per- 
 plexed, for this inconsequent smile made 
 nothing clear, though it seemed to prove, 
 indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness 
 that reverted instinctively to the pardon of 
 offences. "It has never occurred to Mr. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 107 
 
 Winterbourne to offer me any tea/' she said, 
 with her little tormenting manner. 
 
 "I have offered you advice," Winter- 
 bourne rejoined. 
 
 " I prefer weak tea ! " cried Daisy, and she 
 went off with the brilliant Giovanelli. She 
 sat with him in the adjoining room, in the 
 embrasure of the window, for the rest of the 
 evening. There was an interesting perform- 
 ance at the piano, but neither of these 
 young people gave heed to it. When 
 Daisy came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, 
 this lady conscientiously repaired the weak- 
 ness of which she had been guilty at the 
 moment of the young girl's arrival. She 
 turned her back straight upon Miss Miller 
 and left her to depart with what grace she 
 might. Winterbourne was standing neai 
 the door ; he saw it all. Daisy turned very 
 pale and looked at her mother, but Mrs. 
 Miller was humbly unconscious of any 
 violation of the usual social forms. She 
 appeared, indeed, to have felt an incongru- 
 ous impulse to draw attention to her own 
 
loS DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 striking observance of them. " Good night, 
 Mrs. Walker," she said; "we've had a 
 beautiful evening. You see if I let Daisy 
 come to parties without me, I don't want 
 her to go away without me." Daisy turned 
 away, looking with a pale, grave face at the 
 circle near the door; Winterbourne saw 
 that, for the first moment, she was too 
 much shocked and puzzled even for in- 
 dignation. He on his side was greatly 
 touched. 
 
 "That was very cruel," he said to Mrs. 
 Walker. 
 
 " She never enters my drawing-room 
 again," replied his hostess. 
 
 Since Winterbourne was not to meet her 
 in Mrs. Walker's drawing-room, he went as 
 often as possible to Mrs. Miller's hotel. 
 The ladies were rarely at home, but when he 
 found them the devoted Giovanelli was 
 always present. Very often the polished 
 little Roman was in the drawing-room with 
 Daisy alone, Mrs. Miller being apparently 
 constantly of the opinion that discretion is 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 109 
 
 the better part of surveillance. Winter- 
 bourne noted, at first with surprise, that 
 Daisy on these occasions was never embar- 
 rassed or annoyed by his own entrance ; but 
 he very presently began to feel that she had 
 no more surprises for him ; the unexpected 
 in her behaviour was the only thing to 
 expect. She showed no displeasure at her 
 tete-a-tete with Giovanelli being interrupted ; 
 she could chatter as freshly and freely with 
 two gentlemen as with one ; there was 
 always in her conversation, the same odd 
 mixture of audacity and puerility. Winter- 
 bourne remarked to himself that if she was 
 seriously interested in Giovanelli it was very 
 singular that she should not take more 
 trouble to preserve the sanctity of their 
 interviews, and he liked her the more for 
 her innocent-looking indifference and her 
 apparently inexhaustible good humour. He 
 could hardly have said why, but she seemed 
 to him a girl who would never be jealous. 
 At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive 
 smile on the reader's part, I may affirm that 
 
no DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 with regard to the women who had hitherto 
 interested him it very often seemed to 
 Winterbourne among the possibilities that, 
 given certain contingencies, he should be 
 afraid literally afraid of these ladies. He 
 had a pleasant sense that he should never be 
 afraid of Daisy Miller. It must be added 
 that this sentiment was not altogether flatter- 
 ing to Daisy ; it was part of his conviction, 
 or rather of his apprehension, that she would 
 prove a very light young person. 
 
 But she was evidently very much inter- 
 ested in Giovanelli. She looked at him 
 whenever he spoke ; she was perpetually 
 telling him to do this and to do that ; she 
 was constantly "chaffing" and abusing him. 
 She appeared completely to have forgotten 
 that Winterbourne had said anything to 
 displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. 
 One Sunday afternoon, having gone to St. 
 Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne per- 
 ceived Daisy strolling about the great 
 church in company with the inevitable 
 Giovanelli. Presently he pointed out the 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. in 
 
 young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Costello. 
 This lady looked at them a moment through 
 her eyeglass, and then she said : 
 
 "That's what makes you so pensive in 
 these days, eh ? " 
 
 " I had not the least idea I was pensive," 
 said the young man. 
 
 "You are very much pre-occupied, you 
 are thinking of something." 
 
 "And what is it," he asked, "that you 
 accuse me of thinking of ? " 
 
 "Of that young lady's Miss Baker's, 
 Miss Chandler's what's her name ? Miss 
 Miller's intrigue with that little barber's 
 block." 
 
 " Do you call it an intrigue," Winterbourne 
 asked "an affair that goes on with such 
 peculiar publicity ? " 
 
 "That's their folly," said Mrs. Costello, 
 " it's not their merit." 
 
 " No," rejoined Winterbourne, with some- 
 thing of that pensiveness to which his aunt 
 had alluded. " I don't believe that there is 
 anything to be called an intrigue." 
 
U2 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 "I have heard a dozen people speak of 
 it; they say she is quite carried away by 
 him." ' 
 
 "They are certainly very intimate," said 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple 
 again with her optical instrument. " He is 
 very handsome. One easily sees how it is. 
 She thinks him the most elegant man in the 
 world, the finest gentleman. She has never 
 seen anything like him ; he is better even 
 than the courier. It was the courier pro- 
 bably who introduced him, and if he suc- 
 ceeds in marrying the young lady, the 
 courier will come in for a magnificent 
 
 commission." 
 
 " I don't believe she thinks of marrying 
 him," said Winterbourne, "and I don't 
 believe he hopes to marry her." 
 
 "You may be very sure she thinks of 
 nothing. She goes on from day to day, 
 from hour to hour, as they did in the 
 Golden Age. I can imagine nothing more 
 vulgar. And at the same time/' added Mrs. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 113 
 
 Costello, " depend upon it that she may tell 
 you any moment that she is ' engaged.' " 
 
 " I think that is more than Giovanelli 
 expects," said Winterbourne. 
 
 " Who is Giovanelli ? " 
 
 " The little Italian. I have asked ques- 
 tions about him and learned something. He 
 is apparently a perfectly respectable little 
 man. I believe he is in a small way a 
 cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn't move in 
 what are called the first circles. I think it 
 is really not absolutely impossible that the 
 courier introduced him. He is evidently 
 immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If 
 she thinks him the finest gentleman in the 
 world, he, on his side, has never found him- 
 self in personal contact with such splendour, 
 such opulence, such expensiveness, as this 
 young lady's. And then she must seem to 
 him wonderfully pretty and interesting. I 
 rather doubt whether he dreams of marrying 
 her. That must appear to him too impos- 
 sible a piece of luck. He has nothing but 
 his handsome face to offer, and there is a 
 
ii4 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 substantial Mr. Miller in that mysterious 
 land of dollars. Giovanelli knows that he 
 hasn't a title to offer. If he were only a 
 count or a marchese ! He must wonder at 
 his luck at the way they have taken him 
 up." 
 
 " He accounts for it by his handsome face, 
 and thinks Miss Miller a young lady qui se 
 passe ses fantaisies ! " said Mrs. Costello. 
 
 " It is very true," Winterbourne pursued, 
 " that Daisy and her mamma have not yet 
 risen to that stage of what shall I call it ? 
 of culture, at which the idea of catching a 
 count or a marchese begins. I believe that 
 they are intellectually incapable of that 
 conception." 
 
 "Ah! but the cavalier e can't believe it," 
 said Mrs. Costello. 
 
 Of the observation excited by Daisy's 
 " intrigue," Winterbourne gathered that day 
 at St. Peter's sufficient evidence. A dozen 
 of the American colonists in Rome came to 
 talk with Mrs. Costello, who sat on a little 
 portable stool at the base of one of the great 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 115 
 
 pilasters. The vesper-service was going for- 
 ward in splendid chants and organ-tones in 
 the adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between 
 Mrs. Costello and her friends, there was a 
 great deal said about poor little Miss Miller's 
 going really " too far." Winterbourne was 
 not pleased with what he heard ; but 
 when, coming out upon the great steps of 
 the church, he saw Daisy, who had emerged 
 before him, get into an open cab with her 
 accomplice and roll away through the 
 cynical streets of Rome, he could not deny 
 to himself that she was going very far 
 indeed. He felt very sorry for her not 
 exactly that he believed that she had com- 
 pletely lost her head, but because it was 
 painful to hear so much that was pretty and 
 undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar 
 place among the categories of disorder. He 
 made an attempt after this to give a hint to 
 Mrs. Miller. He met one day in the Corso 
 a friend a tourist like himself who had 
 just come out of the Doria Palace, where he 
 had been walking through the beautiful 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 gallery. His friend talked for a moment 
 about the superb portrait of Innocent X. by 
 Velasquez, which hangs in one of the 
 cabinets of the palace, and then said, " And 
 in the same cabinet, by-the-way, I had the 
 pleasure of contemplating a picture of a 
 different kind that pretty American girl 
 whom you pointed out to me last week." 
 In answer to Winterbourne's inquiries, his 
 friend narrated that the pretty American girl 
 prettier than ever was seated with a com- 
 panion in the secluded nook in which the 
 great papal portrait is enshrined. 
 
 " Who was her companion r " asked 
 Winterbourne. 
 
 " A little Italian with a bouquet in his 
 button-hole. The girl is delightfully pretty, 
 but I thought I understood from you the 
 other day that she was a young lady du 
 meilleur monde" 
 
 " So she is ! " answered Winterbourne ; 
 and having assured himself that his informant 
 had- seen Daisy and her companion but five 
 minutes before, he jumped into a cab and 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 117 
 
 went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at 
 home ; but she apologised to him for 
 receiving him in Daisy's absence. 
 
 " She's gone out somewhere with Mr. 
 Giovanelli," said Mrs. Miller. "She's al- 
 ways going round with Mr. Giovanelli." 
 
 " I have noticed that they are very inti- 
 mate," Winterbourne observed. 
 
 " Oh ! it seems as if they couldn't live 
 without each other!" said Mrs. Miller. 
 " Well, he's a real gentleman, anyhow. I 
 keep telling Daisy she's engaged ! " 
 
 " And what does Daisy say ? " 
 
 " Oh, she says she isn't engaged. But she 
 might as well be ! " this impartial parent 
 resumed. " She goes on as if she was. But 
 I've made Mr. Giovanelli promise to tell 
 me, if she doesn't. I should want to 
 write to Mr. Miller about it shouldn't 
 you ? " 
 
 Winterbourne replied that he certainly 
 should ; and the state of mind of Daisy's 
 mamma struck him as so unprecedented in 
 the annals of parental vigilance that he gave 
 
ii8 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place 
 her upon her guard. 
 
 After this Daisy was never at home, and 
 Winterbourne ceased to meet her at the 
 houses of their common acquaintance, 
 because, as he perceived, these shrewd people 
 had quite made up their minds that she was 
 going too far. They ceased to invite her, 
 and they intimated that they desired to 
 express to observant Europeans the great 
 truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a 
 young American lady, her behaviour was 
 not representative was regarded by her 
 compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne 
 wondered how she felt about all the cold 
 shoulders that were turned towards her, and 
 sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that 
 she did not feel at all. He said to himself 
 that she was too light and childish, too 
 uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, 
 to have reflected upon her ostracism or 
 even to have perceived it. Then at other 
 moments he believed that she carried about 
 in her elegant and irresponsible little 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 119 
 
 organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly 
 observant consciousness of the impression 
 she produced. He asked himself whether 
 Daisy's defiance came from the conscious- 
 ness of innocence or from her being, essen- 
 tially, a young person of the reckless class. 
 It must be admitted that holding oneself to 
 a belief in Daisy's " innocence " came to 
 seem to Winterbourne more and more a 
 matter of fine-spun gallantry. As I have 
 already had occasion to relate, he was angry 
 at finding himself reduced to chopping logic 
 about this young lady ; he was vexed at his 
 want of instinctive certitude as to how far 
 her eccentricities were generic, national, and 
 how far they were personal. From either 
 view of them he had somehow missed her, 
 and now it was too late. She was " carried 
 away " by Mr. Giovanelli. 
 
 A few days after his brief interview with 
 her mother, he encountered her in that 
 beautiful abode of flowering desolation 
 known as the Palace of the Caesars. The 
 early Roman spring had filled the air with 
 
120 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface 
 of the Palatine was muffled with tender 
 verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top 
 of one of those great mounds of ruin that 
 are embanked with mossy marble and paved 
 with monumental inscriptions. It seemed to 
 him that Rome had never been so lovely as 
 just then. He stood looking off at the 
 enchanting harmony of line and colour that 
 remotely encircles the city, inhaling the 
 softly humid odours and feeling the fresh- 
 ness of the year and the antiquity 
 of the place reaffirm themselves in 
 mysterious interfusion. It seemed to 
 him also that Daisy had never looked 
 so pretty; but this had been an observ- 
 ation of his whenever he met her. 
 Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, 
 too, wore an aspect of even unwonted 
 brilliancy. 
 
 "Well," said Daisy, "I should think you 
 would be lonesome ! " 
 
 " Lonesome ? " asked Winterbourne. 
 
 " You are always going round by your- 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 121 
 
 self. Can't you get any one to walk with 
 you ? " 
 
 " I am not so fortunate," said Winter- 
 bourne, "as your companion." 
 
 Giovanelli, from the first, had treated 
 Winterbourne with distinguished politeness ; 
 he listened with a deferential air to his 
 remarks; he laughed, punctiliously, at his 
 pleasantries ; he seemed disposed to testify to 
 his belief that Winterbourne was a superior 
 young man. He carried himself in no 
 degree like a jealous wooer; he had obvi- 
 ously a great deal of tact ; he had no 
 objection to your expecting a little humility 
 of him. It even seemed to Winterbourne at 
 times that Giovanelli would find a certain 
 mental relief in being able to have a private 
 understanding with him to say to him, as 
 an intelligent man, that, bless you, he knew 
 how extraordinary was this young lady, and 
 didn't flatter himself with delusive or at 
 least too delusive hopes of matrimony and 
 dollars. On this occasion he strolled away 
 from his companion to pluck a sprig of 
 
122 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 almond blossom, which he carefully arranged 
 in his button-hole. 
 
 " I know why you say that," said Daisy, 
 watching Giovanelli. " Because you think I 
 go round too much with him/" And she 
 nodded at her attendant. 
 
 "Every one thinks so if you care to 
 know," said Winterbourne. 
 
 " Of course I care to know ! " Daisy ex- 
 claimed seriously. " But I don't believe it. 
 They are only pretending to be shocked. 
 They don't really care a straw what I do. 
 Besides, I don't go round so much." 
 
 " I think you will find they do care. 
 They will show it disagreeably." 
 
 Daisy looked at him a moment. " How 
 disagreeably ? " 
 
 "Haven't you noticed anything?" Win- 
 terbourne asked. 
 
 " I have noticed you. But I noticed you 
 were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I 
 saw you." 
 
 " You will find I am not so stiff as several 
 others," said Winterbourne, smiling. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 123 
 
 "How shall I find it ? " 
 
 " By going to see the others." 
 
 " What will they do to me ? " 
 
 "They will give you the cold shoulder. 
 Do you know what that means ? " 
 
 Daisy was looking at him intently; she 
 began to colour. "Do you mean as Mrs. 
 Walker did the other night ? " 
 
 " Exactly ! " said Winterbourne. 
 
 She looked away at Giovanelli, who was 
 decorating himself with his almond-blossom. 
 Then looking back at Winterbourne "I 
 shouldn't think you would let people be so 
 unkind ! " she said. 
 
 " How can I help it ? " he asked. 
 
 "I should think you would say some- 
 thing." 
 
 " I do say something ; " and he paused a 
 moment. " I say that your mother tells me 
 that she believes you are engaged." 
 
 "Well, she does," said Daisy very 
 simply. 
 
 Winterbourne began to laugh. " And 
 does Randolph believe it ? " he asked. 
 
I2 4 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 "I guess Randolph doesn't believe any- 
 thing," said Daisy. Randolph's scepticism 
 excited Winterbourne to farther hilarity, 
 and he observed that Giovanelli was coming 
 back to them. Daisy, observing it too, 
 addressed herself again to her countryman. 
 " Since you have mentioned it," she said, " I 
 am engaged." . . . Winterbourne looked at 
 her ; he had stopped laughing. " You don't 
 believe it !." she added. 
 
 He was silent a moment ; and then, " Yes, 
 I believe it ! " he said. 
 
 "Oh, no, you don't," she answered. 
 "Well, then I am not!" 
 
 The young girl and her cicerone were 
 on their way to the gate of the enclosure, 
 so that Winterbourne, who had but lately 
 entered, presently took leave of them. A 
 week afterwards he went to dine at a beauti- 
 ful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, 
 dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening 
 was charming, and he promised himself the 
 satisfaction of walking home beneath the 
 Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely- 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 125 
 
 lighted monuments of the Forum. There 
 was a waning moon in the sky, and her 
 radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled 
 in a thin cloud-curtain which seemed to 
 diffuse and equalise it. When, on his 
 return from the villa (it was 'eleven o'clock), 
 Winterbourne approached the dusky circle 
 of the Colosseum, it occurred to him, as a 
 lover of the picturesque, that the interior, 
 in the pale moonshine, would be well worth 
 a glance. He turned aside and walked to 
 one of the empty arches, near which, as he 
 observed, an open carriage one of the 
 little Roman street-cabs was stationed. 
 Then he passed in among the cavernous 
 shadows of the great structure, and emerged 
 upon the clear and silent arena. The place 
 had never seemed to him more impressive. 
 One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep 
 shade ; the other was sleeping in the 
 luminous dusk. As he stood there he 
 began to murmur Byron's famous lines, 
 out of " Manfred ; " but before he had 
 finished his quotation he remembered that 
 
I 2 6 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum 
 are recommended by the poets, they are 
 deprecated by the doctors. The historic 
 atmosphere was there, certainly ; but the 
 historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, 
 was no better than a villanous miasma. 
 Winterbourne walked to the middle of the 
 arena, to take a more general glance, 
 intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. 
 The great cross in the centre was covered 
 with shadow ; it was only as he drew near 
 it that he made it out distinctly. Then 
 he saw that two persons were stationed upon 
 the low steps which formed its base. One 
 of these was a woman, seated ; her companion 
 was standing in front of her. 
 
 Presently the sound of the woman's voice 
 came to him distinctly in the warm night-air. 
 "Well, he looks at us as one of the old 
 lions or tigers may have looked at the 
 Christian martyrs ! " These were the words 
 he heard, in the familiar accent of Miss 
 Daisy Miller. 
 
 " Let us hope he is not very hungry," 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 127 
 
 responded the ingenious Giovanelli. "He 
 will have to take me first ; you will 
 serve for dessert ! " 
 
 Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of 
 horror; and, it must be added, with a sort 
 of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination 
 had been flashed upon the ambiguity of 
 Daisy's behaviour and the riddle had become 
 easy to read. She was a young lady whom 
 a gentleman need no longer be at pains 
 to respect. He stood there looking at her 
 looking at her companion, and not reflect- 
 ing that though he saw them vaguely, he 
 himself must have been more brightly 
 visible. He felt angry with himself that 
 he had bothered so much about the right 
 way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller Then, 
 as he was going to advance again, he 
 checked himself; not from the fear that 
 he was doing her injustice, but from 
 a sense of the danger of appearing un- 
 becomingly exhilarated by this sudden re- 
 vulsion from cautious criticism. He turned 
 away towards the entrance of the place; 
 
128 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 but as he did so he heard Daisy speak 
 again. 
 
 " Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne ! He 
 saw me and he cuts me ! " 
 
 What a clever little reprobate she was, 
 and how smartly she played an injured 
 innocence! But he wouldn't cut her. 
 Winterbourne came forward again, and 
 went towards the great cross. Daisy had 
 got up ; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Winter- 
 bourne had now begun to think simply of 
 the craziness, from a sanitary point of view, 
 of a delicate young girl lounging away 
 the evening in this nest of malaria. What 
 if she were a clever little reprobate ? that was 
 no reason for her dying of the perniciosa. 
 " How long have you been here ? " he asked, 
 almost brutally. 
 
 Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, 
 looked at him a moment. Then "All 
 the evening," she answered gently. , . . " I 
 never saw anything so pretty." 
 
 " I am afraid," said Winterbourne, " that 
 you will not think Roman fever very pretty. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 129 
 
 This is the way people catch it. I wonder," 
 he added, turning to Giovanelli, " that you, 
 a native Roman, should countenance such 
 a terrible indiscretion." 
 
 " Ah," said the handsome native, " for 
 myself, I am not afraid." 
 
 " Neither am I for you ! I am speaking 
 for this young lady." 
 
 Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows 
 and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took 
 Winterbourne's rebuke with docility. " I 
 told the Signorina it was a grave indis- 
 cretion ; but when was the Signorina ever 
 prudent : " 
 
 "I never was sick, and I don't mean to 
 be ! " the Signorina declared. " I don't 
 look like much, but I'm healthy! I was 
 bound to see the Colosseum by moonlight ; 
 I shouldn't have wanted to go home without 
 that ; and we have had the most beautiful 
 time, haven't we, Mr. Giovanelli ? If there 
 has been any danger, Eugenic can give me 
 some pills. He has got some splendid 
 pills." 
 
130 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 " I should advise you," said Winterbourne, 
 " to drive home as fast as possible and take 
 one ! " 
 
 " What you say is very wise," Giovanelli 
 rejoined. " I will go and make sure the 
 carriage is at hand." And he went forward 
 rapidly. 
 
 Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He 
 kept looking at her ; she seemed not in 
 the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said 
 nothing ; Daisy chattered about the beauty 
 of the place. "Well, I have seen the 
 Colosseum by moonlight ! " she exclaimed. 
 "That's one good thing." Then, noticing 
 Winterbourne's silence, she asked him why 
 he didn't speak. He made no answer ; he 
 only began to laugh. They passed under 
 one of the dark archways ; Giovanelli was 
 in front with the carriage. Here Daisy 
 stopped a moment, looking at the young 
 American. "Did you believe I was engaged 
 the other day ? " she asked. 
 
 " It doesn't matter what I believed the 
 other day," said Winterbourne, still laughing. 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 131 
 
 " Well, what do you believe now ? " 
 
 " I believe that it makes very little differ- 
 ence whether you are engaged or not ! " 
 
 He felt the young girl's pretty eyes fixed 
 upon him through the thick gloom of the 
 archway; she was apparently going to 
 answer. But Giovanelli hurried her forward. 
 " Quick, quick," he said ; " if we get in by 
 midnight we are quite safe." 
 
 Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and 
 the fortunate Italian placed himself beside 
 her. " Don't forget Eugenio's pills ! " said 
 Winterbourne, as he lifted his hat. 
 
 "I don't care," said Daisy, in a little 
 strange tone, "whether I have Roman fever 
 or not ! " Upon this the cab-driver cracked 
 his whip, and they rolled away over the 
 desultory patches of the antique pavement. 
 
 Winterbourne to do him justice, as it 
 were mentioned to no one that he had en~ 
 countered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the 
 Colosseum with a gentleman ; but neverthe- 
 less, a couple of days later, the fact of her 
 
 having been there under these circumstances 
 
 E 2 
 
132 DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 
 
 was known to every member of the little 
 American circle, and commented accord- 
 ingly. Winterbourne reflected that they 
 had of course known it at the hotel, and 
 that, after Daisy's return, there had been 
 an exchange of jokes between the porter 
 and the cab-driver. But the young man 
 was conscious at the same moment that 
 it had ceased to be a matter of serious 
 regret to him that the little American 
 flirt should be " talked about " by low- 
 minded menials. These people, a day or 
 two later, had serious information to give: 
 the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. 
 Winterbourne, when the rumour came to 
 him, immediately went to the hotel for more 
 news. He found that two or three charitable 
 friends had preceded him, and that they were 
 being entertained in Mrs. Miller's salon by 
 Randolph. 
 
 " It's going round at night," said Randolph 
 " that's what made her sick. She's always 
 going round at night. I shouldn't think 
 she'd want to it's so plaguey dark. You 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 133 
 
 can't see anything here at night, except 
 when there's a moon. In America there's 
 always a moon!" Mrs. Miller was invisible; 
 she was now, at least, giving her daughter 
 the advantage of her society. It was evident 
 that Daisy was dangerously ill. 
 
 Winterbourne went often to ask for news 
 of her, and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, 
 though deeply alarmed, was rather to his 
 surprise perfectly composed, and, as it 
 appeared, a most efficient and judicious 
 nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr. 
 Davis, but Winterbourne paid her the com- 
 pliment of saying to himself that she was 
 not, after all, such a monstrous goose. 
 "Daisy spoke of you the other day," she 
 said to him. " Half the time she doesn't 
 know what she's saying, but that time I 
 think she did. She gave me a message; 
 she told me to tell you. She told me 
 to tell you that she never was engaged 
 to that handsome Italian. I am sure I 
 am very glad ; Mr. Giovanelli hasn't 
 been near us since she was taken ill. I 
 
134 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 
 
 thought he was so much of a gentleman ; 
 but I don't call that very polite ! A lady 
 told me that he was afraid I was angry 
 with him for taking Daisy round at night. 
 Well, so I am ; but I suppose he knows 
 I'm a lady. I would scorn to scold him. 
 Any way, she says she's not engaged. I 
 don't know why she wanted you to know ; 
 but she said to me three times ' Mind you 
 tell Mr. Winterbourne.' And then she 
 told me to ask if you remembered the time 
 you went to that castle, in Switzerland. But 
 I said I wouldn't give any such messages 
 as that. Only, if she is not engaged, I'm 
 sure I'm glad to know it." 
 
 But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered 
 very little. A week after this the poor girl 
 died; it had been a terrible case of the 
 fever. Daisy's grave was in the little 
 Protestant cemetery, in an angle of the wall 
 of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses 
 and the thick spring-flowers. Winterbourne 
 stood there beside it, with a number of other 
 mourners; a number larger than the scandal 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 135 
 
 excited by the young lady's career would 
 have led you to expect. Near him stood 
 Giovanelli, who came nearer still before 
 Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli was 
 very pale ; on this occasion he had no flower 
 in his button-hole ; he seemed to wish to 
 say something. At last he said, " She was the 
 most beautiful young lady I ever saw, and 
 the most amiable." And then he added in a 
 moment, " And she was the most innocent." 
 
 Winterbourne looked at him, and pre- 
 sently repeated his words, "And the most 
 innocent ? " 
 
 " The most innocent ! " 
 
 Winterbourne felt sore and angry. 
 " Why the devil," he asked, " did you take 
 take her to that fatal place?" 
 
 Mr. Giovanelli's urbanity was apparently 
 imperturbable. He looked on the ground 
 a moment, and then he said, "For my- 
 self, I had no fear ; and she wanted to 
 
 go" 
 
 " That was no reason ! " Winterbourne 
 declared. 
 
136 DAISY MILLER : A STUDY. 
 
 The subtle Roman again dropped his 
 eyes. " If she had lived, I should have got 
 nothing. She would never have married 
 me, I am sure." 
 
 " She would never have married you ? " 
 " For a moment I hoped so. But no. I 
 
 am sure." 
 
 Winterbourne listened to him ; he stood 
 staring at the raw protuberance among the 
 April daisies. When he turned away again 
 Mr. Giovanelli, with his light slow step, had 
 retired. 
 
 Winterbourne almost immediately left 
 Rome ; but the following summer he again 
 met his aunt, Mrs. Costello, at Vevey. Mrs. 
 Costello was fond of Vevey. In the interval 
 Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy 
 Miller and her mystifying manners. One day 
 he spoke of her to his aunt said it was on his 
 conscience that he had done her injustice. 
 
 "I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. 
 Costello. "How did your injustice affect 
 her?" 
 
 " She sent me a message before her death 
 
DAISY MILLER: A STUDY. 137 
 
 which I didn't understand at the time. But 
 I have understood it since. She would have 
 appreciated one's esteem." 
 
 t( Is that a modest way," asked Mrs. 
 Costello, "of saying that she would have 
 reciprocated one's affection ? " 
 
 Winterbourne offered no answer to this 
 question ; but he presently said, " You were 
 right in that remark that you made last 
 summer. I was booked to make a mistake. 
 I have lived too long in foreign parts." 
 
 Nevertheless, he went back to live at 
 Geneva, whence there continue to come the 
 most contradictory accounts of his motives of 
 sojourn: a report that he is "studying" hard 
 an intimation that he is much interested 
 in a very clever foreign lady. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 I. 
 
 FOUR years age in 1874 two young 
 Englishmen had occasion to go to the 
 United States. They crossed the ocean at 
 midsummer, and, arriving in New York on 
 the first day of August, were much struck 
 with the fervid temperature of that city. 
 Disembarking upon the wharf, they climbed 
 into one of those huge high-hung coaches 
 which convey passengers to the hotels, and 
 with a great deal of bouncing and bumping, 
 took their course through Broadway. The 
 midsummer aspect of New York is not 
 perhaps the most favourable one ; still, it is 
 not without its picturesque and even brilliant 
 side. Nothing could well resemble less a 
 typical English street than the interminable 
 
142 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 avenue, rich in incongruities, through which 
 our two travellers advanced looking out on 
 each side of them at the comfortable 
 animation of the sidewalks, the high-coloured, 
 heterogeneous architecture, the huge white 
 marble facades, glittering in the strong, 
 crude light and bedizened with gilded letter- 
 ing, the multifarious awnings, banners and 
 streamers, the extraordinary number of 
 omnibuses, horse-cars and other democratic 
 vehicles, the vendors of cooling fluids, the 
 white trousers and big straw-hats of the 
 policemen, the tripping gait of the modish 
 young persons on the pavement, the general 
 brightness, newness, juvenility, both of people 
 and things. The young men had exchanged 
 few observations ; but . in crossing Union 
 Square, in front of the monument to Wash- 
 ington in the very shadow, indeed, projected 
 by the image of the pater patrice one of 
 them remarked to the other, " It seems a 
 rum-looking place." 
 
 " Ah, very odd, very odd," said the other, 
 who was the clever man of the two. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 143 
 
 "Pity it's so beastly hot," resumed the 
 first speaker, after a pause. 
 
 " You know we are in a low latitude," said 
 his friend. 
 
 " I daresay," remarked the other. 
 
 " I wonder," said the second speaker, 
 presently, u if they can give one a bath." 
 
 "I daresay not," rejoined the other. 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " cried his comrade. 
 
 This animated discussion was checked by 
 their arrival at the hotel, which had been 
 recommended to them by an American 
 gentleman whose acquaintance they made 
 with whom, indeed, they became very 
 intimate on the steamer, and who had 
 proposed to accompany them to the inn and 
 introduce them, in a friendly way, to the 
 proprietor. This plan, however, had been 
 defeated by their friend's finding that his 
 "partner" was awaiting him on the wharf, 
 and that his commercial associate desired 
 him instantly to come and give his attention 
 to certain telegrams received from St. Louis. 
 But the two Englishmen, with nothing but 
 
144 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 their national prestige and personal graces to 
 recommend them, were very well received at 
 the hotel, which had an air of capacious 
 hospitality. They found that a bath was 
 not unattainable, and were indeed struck 
 with the facilities for prolonged and 
 reiterated immersion with which their apart- 
 ment was supplied. After bathing a good 
 deal more indeed than they had ever done 
 before on a single occasion they made their 
 way into the dining-room of the hotel, 
 which was a spacious restaurant, with a 
 fountain in the middle, a great many tall 
 plants in ornamental tubs, and an array of 
 French waiters. The first dinner on land, 
 after a sea-voyage, is under any circum- 
 stances a delightful occasion, and there was 
 something particularly agreeable in the 
 circumstances in which our young English- 
 men found themselves. They were ex- 
 tremely good-natured young men ; they 
 were more observant than they appeared ; 
 in a sort of inarticulate, accidentally dis- 
 simulative fashion, they were highly appre 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 145 
 
 dative. This was perhaps especially the case 
 with the elder, who was also, as I have said, 
 the man of talent. They sat down at a little 
 table which was a very different affair from 
 the great clattering see-saw in the saloon of 
 the steamer. The wide doors and windows 
 of the restaurant stood open, beneath large 
 awnings, to a wide pavement, where there 
 were other plants in tubs, and rows of 
 spreading trees, and beyond which there was 
 a large shady square, without any palings and 
 with marble-paved walks. And above the 
 vivid verdure rose other fa9ades of white 
 marble and of pale chocolate-coloured stone, 
 squaring themselves against the deep blue 
 sky. Here, outside, in the light and the 
 shade and the heat, there was a great tinkling 
 of the bells of innumerable street-cars, and 
 a constant strolling and shuffling and 
 rustling of many pedestrians, a large pro- 
 portion of whom were young women 
 in Pompadour-looking dresses. Within, 
 the place was cool and vaguely-lighted; 
 with the plash of water, the odour 
 
146 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 of flowers and the flitting of French 
 waiters, as I have said, upon soundless 
 carpets. 
 
 "It's rather like Paris, you know," said 
 the younger of our two travellers. 
 
 " It's like Paris only more so," his 
 companion rejoined. 
 
 " I suppose it's the French waiters," said 
 the first speaker. "Why don't they have 
 French waiters in London ? " 
 
 " Fancy a French waiter at a club," said 
 his friend. 
 
 The young Englishman stared a little, as 
 if he could not fancy it. " In Paris I'm very 
 apt to dine at a place where there's an 
 English waiter. Don't you know, what's- 
 his-name's, close to the thingumbob ? 
 They always set an English waiter at 
 me. I suppose they think I can't speak 
 French." 
 
 " No, more you can." And the elder of 
 the young Englishmen unfolded his napkin. 
 
 His companion took no notice whatever of 
 this declaration. " I say," he resumed, in a 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 147 
 
 moment, " I suppose we must learn to speak 
 American. I suppose we must take 
 lessons." 
 
 " I can't understand them," said the clever 
 man. 
 
 " What the deuce is he saying ? " asked 
 his comrade, appealing from the French 
 waiter. 
 
 " He is recommending some soft-shell 
 crabs," said the clever man. 
 
 And so, in desultory observation of the 
 idiosyncrasies of the new society in which 
 they found themselves, the young English- 
 men proceeded to dine going in largely, as 
 the phrase is, for cooling draughts and 
 dishes, of which their attendant offered them 
 a very long list. After dinner they went out 
 and slowly walked about the neighbouring 
 streets. The early dusk of waning summer 
 was coming on, but the heat was still very 
 great. The pavements were hot even to the 
 stout boot-soles of the British travellers, and 
 the trees along the kerb-stone emitted 
 
 strange exotic odours. The young men 
 
 L 2 
 
148 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 wandered through the adjoining square 
 that queer place without palings, and with 
 marble walks arranged in black and white 
 lozenges. There were a great many benches, 
 crowded with shabby-looking people, and 
 the travellers remarked, very justly, that it 
 was not much like Belgrave Square. On 
 one side was an enormous hotel, lifting up 
 into the hot darkness an immense array of 
 open, brightly-lighted windows. At the base 
 of this populous structure was an eternal 
 jangle of horse-cars, and all round it, in the 
 upper dusk, was a sinister hum of mosqui- 
 toes. The ground-floor of the hotel seemed 
 to be a huge transparent cage, flinging a 
 wide glare of gaslight into the street, of 
 which it formed a sort of public adjunct, 
 absorbing and emitting the passers-by pro- 
 miscuously. The young Englishmen went 
 in with every one else, from curiosity, and 
 saw a couple of hundred men sitting on 
 divans along a great marble-paved corridor, 
 with their legs stretched out, together with 
 several dozen more standing in a queue, as at 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 149 
 
 the ticket-office of a railway station, before a 
 brilliantly-illuminated counter, of vast extent. 
 These latter persons, who carried portman- 
 teaux in their hands, had a dejected, ex- 
 hausted look ; their garments were not very 
 fresh, and they seemed to be rendering some 
 mysterious tribute to a magnificent young 
 man with a waxed moustache and a shirt 
 front adorned with diamond buttons, who 
 every now and then dropped an absent 
 glance over their multitudinous patience. 
 They were American citizens doing homage 
 to an hotel-clerk. 
 
 " I'm glad he didn't tell us to go there,"' 
 said one of our Englishmen, .alluding to 
 their friend on the steamer, who had told 
 them so many things. They walked up the 
 Fifth Avenue, where, for instance, he had 
 told them that all the first families lived. 
 But the first families were out of town, and 
 our young travellers had only the satisfaction 
 of seeing some of the second or perhaps 
 even the third taking the evening air upon 
 balconies and high flights of doorsteps, in 
 
ISO AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 the streets which radiate from the more 
 ornamental thoroughfare. They went a 
 little way down one of these side-streets, and 
 they saw young ladies in white dresses 
 charming-looking persons seated in grace- 
 ful attitudes on the chocolate-coloured steps 
 In one or two places these young ladies were 
 conversing across the street with other 
 young ladies seated in similar postures and 
 costumes in front of the opposite houses, and 
 in the warm night air their colloquial tones 
 sounded strange in the ears of the young 
 Englishmen. One of our friends, neverthe- 
 less the younger one intimated that he 
 felt a disposition to intercept a few of 
 these soft familiarities; but his companion 
 observed, pertinently enough, that he had 
 better be careful. " We must not begin 
 with making mistakes/' said his companion. 
 
 " But he told us, you know he told us," 
 urged the young man, alluding again to the 
 friend on the steamer. 
 
 " Never mind what he told us !" answered 
 his comrade, who, if he had greater 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 151 
 
 talents, was also apparently more of a 
 moralist. 
 
 By bed-time in their impatience to taste 
 of a terrestrial couch again our seafarers went 
 to bed early it was still insufferably hot, and 
 the buzz of the mosquitoes at the open 
 windows might have passed for an audible 
 crepitation of the temperature. " We can't 
 stand this, you know," the young English- 
 men said to each other ; and they tossed 
 about all night more boisterously than they 
 had tossed upon the Atlantic billows. On 
 the morrow, their first thought was that they 
 would re-embark that day for England ; and 
 then it occurred to them that they might 
 find an asylum nearer at hand. The cave of 
 ^Eolus became their ideal of comfort, and 
 they wondered where the Americans went 
 when they wished to cool off. They had 
 not the least idea, and they determined to 
 apply for information to Mr. J. L. West- 
 gate. This was the name inscribed in a bold 
 hand on the back of a letter carefully pre- 
 served in the pocket-book of our junior 
 
152 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 traveller. Beneath the address, in the left- 
 hand corner of the envelope, were the words, 
 "Introducing Lord Lambeth and Percy 
 Beaumont, Esq." The letter had been given 
 to the two Englishmen by a good friend of 
 theirs in London, who had been in America 
 two years previously and had singled out Mr. 
 J. L. Westgate from the many friends he had 
 left there as the consignee, as it were, of his 
 compatriots. " He is a capital fellow," the 
 Englishman in London had said, " and he 
 has got an awfully pretty wife. He's tre- 
 mendously hospitable he will do everything 
 in the world for you ; and as he knows 
 every one over there, it is quite needless I 
 should give you any other introduction. He 
 will make you see every one ; trust to him 
 for putting you into circulation. He has got 
 a tremendously pretty wife." It was natural 
 that in the hour of tribulation Lord Lambeth 
 and Mr. Percy Beaumont should have be- 
 thought themselves of a gentleman whose 
 attractions had been thus vividly depicted ; 
 all the more so that he lived in the Fifth 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 153 
 
 Avenue and that the Fifth Avenue, as they 
 had ascertained the night before, was con- 
 tiguous to their hotel. " Ten to one he'll be 
 out of town," said Percy Beaumont ; " but 
 we can at least find out where he has gone, 
 and we can immediately start in pursuit. 
 He can't possibly have gone to a hotter 
 place, you know." 
 
 " Oh, there's only one hotter place," said 
 Lord Lambeth, " and I hope he hasn't gone 
 there." 
 
 They strolled along the shady side of 
 the street to the number indicated upon 
 the precious letter. The house presented 
 an imposing chocolate-coloured expanse, 
 relieved by facings and window-cornices of 
 florid sculpture, and by a couple of dusty 
 rose-trees, which clambered over the balconies 
 and the portico. This last-mentioned feature 
 was approached by a monumental flight of 
 steps. 
 
 " Rather better than a London house," 
 said Lord Lambeth, looking down from this 
 altitude, after they had rung the bell. 
 
154 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " It depends upon what London house you 
 mean/' replied his companion. "You have 
 a tremendous chance to get wet between the 
 house-door and your carnage." 
 
 "Well," said Lord Lambeth, glancing at 
 the burning heavens, " I e guess ' it doesn't 
 rain so much here ! " 
 
 The door was opened by a long negro in 
 a white jacket, who grinned familiarly when 
 Lord Lambeth asked for Mr. Westgate. 
 
 " He ain't at home, sir ; he's down town at 
 his o'fice." 
 
 "Oh, at his office?" said the visitors. 
 " And when will he be at home ? " 
 
 66 Well, sir, when he goes out dis way in 
 de mo'ning, he ain't liable to come home all 
 day." 
 
 This was discouraging; but the address 
 of Mr. Westgate's office was freely imparted 
 by the intelligent black, and was taken down 
 by Percy Beaumont in his pocket-book. 
 The two gentlemen then returned, languidly, 
 to their hotel, and sent for a hackney-coach ; 
 and in this commodious vehicle they rolled 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 155 
 
 comfortably down town. They measured 
 the whole length of Broadway again, and 
 found it a path of fire ; and then, deflecting 
 to the left, they were deposited by their 
 conductor before a fresh, light, ornamental 
 structure, ten stories high, in a street 
 crowded with keen-faced, light-limbed young 
 men, who were running about very quickly 
 and stopping each other eagerly at corners 
 and in doorways. Passing into this brilliant 
 building, they were introduced by one of 
 the keen-faced young men he was a 
 charming fellow, in wonderful cream-col- 
 oured garments and a hat with a blue 
 ribbon, who had evidently perceived them 
 to be aliens and helpless to a very snug 
 hydraulic elevator, in which they took their 
 place with many other persons, and which, 
 shooting upward in its vertical socket, pre- 
 sently projected them into the seventh 
 horizontal compartment of the edifice. 
 Here, after brief delay, they found them- 
 selves face to face with the friend of their 
 friend in London. His office was composed 
 
156 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 1 
 
 of several different rooms, and they waited 
 very silently in one of these after they had 
 sent in their letter and their cards. The 
 letter was not one which it would take Mr. 
 Westgate very long to read, but he came 
 out to speak to them more instantly than 
 they could have expected ; he had evidently 
 jumped up from his work. He was a tall, 
 lean personage, and was dressed all in fresh 
 white linen ; he had a thin, sharp, familiar 
 face, with an expression that was at one and 
 the same time sociable and business-like, a 
 quick, intelligent eye, and a large brown 
 moustache, which concealed his mouth and 
 made his chin, beneath it, look small. Lord 
 Lambeth thought he looked tremendously 
 clever. 
 
 "How do you do, Lord Lambeth how 
 do you do, sir ? " he said, holding the open 
 letter in his hand. " I'm very glad to see 
 you I hope you're very well. You had 
 better come in here I think it's cooler;" 
 and he led the way into another room,- 
 where there were law-books and papers, and 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 157 
 
 windows wide open beneath striped awnings. 
 Just opposite one of the windows, on a 
 line with his eyes, Lord Lambeth observed 
 the weather-vane of a church steeple. 
 The uproar of the street sounded in- 
 finitely far below, and Lord Lambeth felt 
 very high in the air. " I say it's cooler," 
 pursued their host, " but everything is re- 
 lative. How do you stand the heat ? " 
 
 " I can't say we like it," said Lord Lam- 
 beth; "but Beaumont likes it better than I." 
 
 " Well, it won't last/' Mr. Westgate very 
 cheerfully declared ; " nothing " unpleasant 
 lasts over here. It was very hot when 
 Captain Littledale was here ; he did nothing 
 but drink sherry-cobblers. He expresses 
 some doubt in his letter whether I shall 
 remember him -as if I didn't remember 
 making six sherry-cobblers for him one day, 
 in about twenty minutes. I hope you left 
 him well ; two years having elapsed since 
 then." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he's all right," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
158 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " I am always very glad to see your 
 countrymen," Mr. Westgate pursued. " I 
 thought it would be time some of you 
 should be coming along. A friend of mine 
 was saying to me only a day or two ago, 
 ' It's time for the water-melons and the 
 Englishmen.' " 
 
 "The Englishmen and the water-melons 
 just now are about the same thing," Percy 
 Beaumont observed, wiping his dripping 
 forehead. 
 
 " Ah, well, we'll put you on ice, as we 
 do the melons. You must go down to 
 Newport." 
 
 " We'll go anywhere ! " said Lord Lam- 
 beth. 
 
 " Yes, you want to go to Newport that's 
 what you want to do," Mr. Westgate 
 affirmed. " But let's see when did you get 
 here?" 
 
 " Only yesterday," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " Ah, yes, by the ' Russia.' Where are 
 you staying ? " 
 
 " At the ' Hanover,' I think they call it." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 159 
 
 "Pretty comfortable?" inquired Mr. 
 Westgate. 
 
 "It seems a capital place, bat I can't say 
 we like the gnats," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 Mr. Westgate stared and laughed. " Oh, 
 no, of course you don't like the gnats. We 
 shall expect you to like a good many things 
 over here, but we shan't insist upon your 
 liking the gnats ; though certainly you'll 
 admit that, as gnats, they are fine, eh ? But 
 you oughtn't to remain in the city." 
 
 " So we think," said Lord Lambeth. " If 
 you would kindly suggest something " 
 
 " Suggest something, my dear sir ? " and 
 Mr. Westgate looked at him, narrowing his 
 eyelids. " Open your mouth and shut your 
 eyes! Leave it to me, and I'll put you 
 through. It's a matter of national pride 
 with me that all Englishmen should have a 
 good time ; and, as I have had considerable 
 practice, I have learned to minister to their 
 wants. I find they generally want the right 
 thing. So just please to consider yourselves 
 my property ; and if any one should try to 
 
160 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 appropriate you, please to say, c Hands off; 
 too late for the market.' But let's see," 
 continued the American, in his slow, 
 humorous voice, with a distinctness of 
 utterance which appeared to his visitors to 
 be part of a facetious intention a strangely 
 leisurely, speculative voice for a man evidently 
 so busy and, as they felt, so professional 
 " let's see ; are you going to make some- 
 thing of a stay, Lord Lambeth ? " 
 
 "Oh dear no," said the young English- 
 man ; " my cousin was coming over on some 
 business, so I just came across, at an hour's 
 notice, for the lark." 
 
 "Is it your first visit to the United 
 States ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, yes." 
 
 " I was obliged to come on some busi- 
 ness," said Percy Beaumont, " and I brought 
 Lambeth with me." 
 
 " And you have been here before, sir ? " 
 
 " Never never." 
 
 " I thought, from your referring to busi- 
 ness " said Mr. Westgate. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 161 
 
 " Oh, you see Fm by way of being a 
 barrister," Percy Beaumont answered. " I 
 know some people that think of bringing a 
 suit against one of your railways, and they 
 asked me to come over and take measures 
 accordingly." 
 
 Mr. Westgate gave one of his slow, keen 
 looks again. " What's your railroad ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " The Tennessee Central." 
 
 The American tilted back his chair a little, 
 and poised it an instant. " Well, I'm sorry 
 you want to attack one of our institutions," 
 he said, smiling. "But I guess you had 
 better enjoy yourself first /" 
 
 " I'm certainly rather afraid I can't work in 
 this weather," the young barrister confessed. 
 
 "Leave that to the natives," said Mr. 
 Westgate. " Leave the Tennessee Central 
 to me, Mr. Beaumont. Some day we'll 
 talk it over, and I guess I can make it 
 square. But I didn't know you English- 
 men ever did any work, in the upper 
 classes." 
 
162 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Oh, we do a lot of work ; don't we, 
 Lambeth ?" asked Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " I must certainly be at home by the 1 9th 
 of September," said the younger Englishman, 
 irrelevantly, but gently. 
 
 " For the shooting, eh ? or is it the 
 hunting or the fishing ? " inquired his 
 entertainer. 
 
 " Oh, I must be in Scotland," said Lord 
 Lambeth, blushing a little. 
 
 "Well then," rejoined Mr. Westgate, 
 " you had better amuse yourself first, also. 
 You must go down and see Mrs. Westgate." 
 
 " We should be so happy if you would 
 kindly tell us the train," said Percy Beau- 
 mont. 
 
 " It isn't a train it's a boat." 
 
 " Oh, I see. And what is the name of a 
 the a town ? " 
 
 "It isn't a town," said Mr. Westgate, 
 laughing. " It's a well, what shall I call 
 it? It's a watering-place. In short, it's 
 Newport. You'll see what it is. It's cool ; 
 that's the principal thing. You will greatly 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 163 
 
 oblige me by going down there and putting 
 yourself into the hands of Mrs. Westgate. 
 It isn't perhaps for me to say it ; but you 
 couldn't be in better hands. Also in those 
 of her sister, who is staying with her. She 
 is very fond of Englishmen. She thinks 
 there is nothing like them." 
 
 " Mrs. Westgate or a her sister ? " asked 
 'Percy Beaumont, modestly, yet in the tone 
 of an inquiring traveller. 
 
 " Oh, I mean my wife," said Mr. West- 
 gate. " I don't suppose my sister-in-law 
 knows much about them. She has always led 
 a very quiet life ; she has lived in Boston." 
 
 Percy Beaumont listened with interest. 
 " That, I believe," he said, " is the most a 
 intellectual town ? " 
 
 " I believe it is very intellectual. I don't 
 go there much," responded his host. 
 
 " I say, we ought to go there," said Lord 
 Lambeth to his companion. 
 
 " Oh, Lord Lambeth, wait till the great 
 heat is over ! " Mr. Westgate interposed. 
 " Boston in this weather would be very trying ; 
 
164 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 it's not the temperature for intellectual 
 exertion. At Boston, you know, you have 
 to pass an examination at the city limits ; 
 and when you come away they give you 
 a kind of degree." 
 
 Lord Lambeth stared, blushing a little ; 
 and Percy Beaumont stared a little also but 
 only with his fine natural complexion ; 
 glancing aside after a moment to see that' 
 his companion was not looking too credu- 
 lous, for he had heard a great deal about 
 American humour. "I daresay it is very 
 jolly," said the younger gentleman. 
 
 "I daresay it is," said Mr. Westgate. 
 "Only I must impress upon you that at 
 present to-morrow morning, at an early 
 hour you will be expected at Newport. 
 We have a house there ; half the people in 
 New York go there for the summer. I am 
 not sure that at this very moment my wife 
 can take you in ; she has got a lot of people 
 staying with her ; I don't know who they all 
 are ; only she may have no room. But you 
 can begin with the hotel, and meanwhile you 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 165 
 
 can live at my house. In that way simply 
 sleeping at the hotel you will find it toler- 
 able. For the rest, you must make yourself 
 at home at my place. You mustn't be shy, 
 you know ; if you are only here for a month 
 that will be a great waste of time. Mrs. 
 Westgate won't neglect you, and you had 
 better not try to resist her. I know some- 
 thing about that. I expect you'll find some 
 pretty girls on the premises. I shall write to 
 my wife by this afternoon's mail, and to- 
 morrow she and Miss Alden will look out 
 for you. Just walk right in and make your- 
 self comfortable. Your steamer leaves from 
 this part of the city, and I will immediately 
 send out and get you a cabin. Then, at 
 half-past four o'clock, just call for me here, 
 and I will go with you and put you on board. 
 It's a big boat ; you might get lost. A few 
 days hence, at the end of the week, I will 
 come down to Newport and see how you are 
 getting on." 
 
 The two young Englishmen inaugurated 
 the policy of not resisting Mrs. Westgate by 
 
1 66 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 submitting, with great docility and thankful- 
 ness, to her husband. He was evidently a 
 very good fellow, and he made an impression 
 upon his visitors ; his hospitality seemed to 
 recommend itself, consciously with a 
 friendly wink, as it were as if it hinted, 
 judicially, that you could not possibly make 
 a better bargain. Lord Lambeth and his 
 cousin left their entertainer to his labours 
 and returned to their hotel, where they spent 
 three or four hours in their respective 
 shower-baths. Percy Beaumont had sug- 
 gested that they ought to see something of 
 the town ; but " Oh, damn the town ! " his 
 noble kinsman had rejoined. They returned 
 to Mr. Westgate's office in a carriage, with 
 their luggage, very punctually ; but it must 
 be reluctantly recorded that, this time, he 
 kept them waiting so long that they felt 
 themselves missing the steamer and were 
 deterred only by an amiable modesty from 
 dispensing with his attendance and starting 
 on a hasty scramble to the wharf. But 
 when at last he appeared, and the carriage 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 167 
 
 plunged into the purlieus of Broadway, they 
 jolted and jostled to such good purpose that 
 they reached the huge white vessel while the 
 bell for departure was still ringing and the 
 absorption of passengers still active. It was 
 indeed, as Mr. Westgate had said, a big 
 boat, and his leadership in the innumerable 
 and interminable corridors and cabins, with 
 which he seemed perfectly acquainted, and 
 of which any one and every one appeared to 
 have the entree, was very grateful to the 
 slightly bewildered voyagers. He showed 
 them their state-room a spacious apartment, 
 embellished with gas-lamps, mirrors en pied 
 and sculptured furniture and then, long 
 after they had been intimately convinced that 
 the steamer was in motion and launched upon 
 the unknown stream that they were about to 
 navigate, he bade them a sociable farewell. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, Lord Lambeth," he said. 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Percy Beaumont ; I hope 
 you'll have a good time. Just let them do 
 what they want with you. I'll come down 
 by-and-by and look after you." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE young Englishmen emerged from 
 their cabin and amused themselves with 
 wandering about the immense labyrinthine 
 steamer, which struck them as an extra- 
 ordinary mixture of a ship and an hotel. It 
 was densely crowded with passengers, the 
 larger number of whom appeared to be 
 ladies and very young children ; and in the 
 big saloons, ornamented in white and gold, 
 which followed each other in surprising suc- 
 cession, beneath the swinging gas-lights and 
 among the small side-passages where the 
 negro domestics of both sexes assembled 
 with an air of philosophic leisure, every one 
 was moving to and fro and exchanging loud 
 and familiar observations. Eventually, at 
 the instance of a discriminating black, our 
 young men went and had some "supper," 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 169 
 
 in a wonderful place arranged like a theatre, 
 where, in a gilded gallery upon which little 
 boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra 
 was playing operatic selections, and, below, 
 people were handing about bills of fare, as if 
 they had been programmes. All this was 
 sufficiently curious ; but the agreeable thing, 
 later, was to sit out on one of the great 
 white decks of the steamer, in the warm, 
 breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, 
 to make out the line of low, mysterious 
 coast. The young Englishmen tried Ameri- 
 can cigars those of Mr. Westgate and 
 talked together as they usually talked, with 
 many odd silences, lapses of logic and incon- 
 gruities of transition ; like people who have 
 grown old together and learned to supply 
 each other's missing phrases ; or, more espe- 
 cially, like people thoroughly conscious of a 
 common point of view, so that a style of 
 conversation superficially lacking in finish 
 might suffice for a reference to a fund of 
 associations in the light of which everything 
 was all right. 
 
170 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 
 
 " We really seem to be going out to sea," 
 Percy Beaumont observed. "Upon my 
 word, we are going back to England. He 
 has shipped us off again. I call that ' real 
 mean.' ' 
 
 " I suppose it's all right," said Lord Lam- 
 beth. "I want to see those pretty girls at 
 Newport. You know he told us the place was 
 an island ; and aren't all islands in the sea ? " 
 
 "Well," resumed the elder traveller after 
 a while, " if his house is as good as his cigars, 
 we shall do very well." 
 
 " He seems a very good fellow," said Lord 
 Lambeth, as if this idea had just occurred to 
 him. 
 
 " I say, we had better remain at the inn," 
 rejoined his companion, presently. " I don't 
 think I like the way he spoke of his house. 
 I don't like stopping in the house with such 
 a tremendous lot of women." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind," said Lord Lambeth. 
 And then they smoked awhile in silence. 
 "Fancy his thinking we do no work in 
 England ! " the young man resumed. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 171 
 
 " I daresay he didn't really think so," said 
 Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " Well, I guess they don't know much 
 about England over here ! " declared Lord 
 Lambeth, humorously. And then there 
 was another long pause. " He was devilish 
 civil," observed the young nobleman. 
 
 " Nothing, certainly, could have been more 
 civil," rejoined his companion. 
 
 "Littledale said his wife was great fun," 
 said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Whose wife Littledale's ? " 
 
 " This American's Mrs. Westgate. 
 What's his name } J. L." 
 
 Beaumont was silent a moment. " What 
 was fun to Littledale," he said at last, rather 
 sententiously, " may be death to us." 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " asked 
 his kinsman. " I am as good a man as 
 Littledale." 
 
 "My dear boy, I hope you won't begin 
 to flirt," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " I don't care. I daresay I shan't begin." 
 
 " With a married woman, if she's bent 
 
172 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 upon it, it's all very well," Beaumont ex- 
 pounded. " But our friend mentioned a. 
 young lady a sister, a sister-in-law. For 
 God's sake, don't get entangled with her." 
 
 " How do you mean, entangled ? " 
 
 "Depend upon it she will try to hook 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, bother ! " said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " American girls are very clever," urged 
 his companion. 
 
 "So much the better," the young man 
 declared. 
 
 " I fancy they are always up to some 
 game of that sort," Beaumont continued. 
 
 "They can't be worse than they are in 
 England," said Lord Lambeth, judicially. 
 
 " Ah, but in England," replied Beaumont, 
 " you have got your natural protectors. 
 You have got your mother and sisters." 
 
 " My mother and sisters " began the 
 young nobleman, with a certain energy. 
 But he stopped in time, puffing at his cigar. 
 
 " Your mother spoke to me about it, with 
 tears in her eyes," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 173 
 
 " She said she felt very nervous. I promised 
 to keep you out of mischief." 
 
 "You had better take care of yourself," 
 said the object of maternal and ducal 
 solicitude. 
 
 "Ah," rejoined the young barrister, "I 
 haven't the expectation of a hundred 
 thousand a year not to mention other 
 
 attractions." 
 
 "Well," said Lord Lambeth, "don't cry 
 out before you're hurt ! " 
 
 It was certainly very much cooler at 
 Newport, where our travellers found them- 
 selves assigned to a couple of diminutive 
 bed-rooms in a far-away angle of an im- 
 mense hotel. They had gone ashore in the 
 early summer twilight, and had very 
 promptly put themselves to bed ; thanks to 
 which circumstance and to their having, 
 during the previous hours, in their commo- 
 dious cabin, slept the sleep of youth and 
 health, they began to feel, towards eleven 
 o'clock, very alert and inquisitive. They 
 looked out of their windows across a row of 
 
1/4 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 small green fields, bordered with low stone 
 dykes, of rude construction, and saw a deep 
 blue ocean lying beneath a deep blue sky 
 and flecked now and then with scintillating 
 patches of foam. A strong, fresh breeze 
 came in through the curtainless casements 
 and prompted our young men to observe, 
 generously, that it didn't seem half a bad 
 climate. They made other observations 
 after they had emerged from their rooms in 
 pursuit of breakfast a meal of which they 
 partook in a huge bare hall, where a 
 hundred negroes, in white jackets, were 
 shuffling about upon an uncarpeted floor ; 
 where the flies were superabundant and the 
 tables and dishes covered over with a 
 strange, voluminous integument of coarse 
 blue gauze ; and where several little boys 
 and girls, who had risen late, were seated in 
 fastidious solitude at the morning repast. 
 These young persons had not the morning 
 paper before them, but they were engaged 
 in languid perusal of the bill of fare. 
 
 This latter document was a great puzzle 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 175 
 
 to our friends, who, on reflecting that its 
 bewildering categories had relation to break- 
 fast alone, had an uneasy prevision of an 
 encyclopaedic dinner-list. They found a 
 great deal of entertainment at the hotel, an 
 enormous wooden structure, for the erection 
 of which it seemed to them that the virgin 
 forests of the West must have been terribly 
 deflowered. It was perforated from end to 
 end with immense bare corridors,, through 
 which a strong draught was blowing 
 bearing along wonderful figures of ladies in 
 white morning-dresses and clouds of Valen- 
 ciennes lace, who seemed to float down the 
 long vistas with expanded furbelows, like 
 angels spreading their wings. In front was a 
 gigantic verandah, upon which an army 
 might have encamped a vast wooden 
 terrace, with a roof as lofty as the nave of a 
 cathedral. Here our young Englishmen 
 enjoyed, as they supposed, a glimpse of 
 American society, which was distributed 
 over the measureless expanse in a variety of 
 sedentary attitudes, and appeared to consist 
 
176 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 largely of pretty young girls, dressed as if 
 for &fete champetre, swaying to and fro in 
 rocking-chairs, fanning themselves with large 
 straw fans, and enjoying an enviable 
 exemption from social cares. Lord Lam- 
 beth had a theory, which it might be 
 interesting to trace to its origin, that it 
 would be not only agreeable, but easily 
 possible, to enter into relations with one of 
 these young ladies ; and his companion 
 found occasion to check the young noble- 
 man's colloquial impulses. 
 
 "You had better take care," said Percy 
 Beaumont, "or you will have an offended 
 father or brother pulling out a bowie-knife." 
 
 " I assure you it is all right," Lord Lam- 
 beth replied. " You know the Americans 
 come to these big hotels to make ac- 
 quaintances." 
 
 " I know nothing about it, and neither do 
 you," said his kinsman, who, like a clever 
 man, had begun to perceive that the ob- 
 servation of American society demanded a 
 readjustment of one's standard. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 177 
 
 " Hang it, then, let's find out ! " cried 
 Lord Lambeth with some impatience. 
 " You know, I don't want to miss anything." 
 
 "We will find out/' said Percy Beau- 
 mont, very reasonably. "We will go and 
 see Mrs. Westgate and make all the proper 
 inquiries." 
 
 And so the two inquiring Englishmen, 
 who had this lady's address inscribed in her 
 husband's hand upon a card, descended from 
 the verandah of the big hotel and took their 
 way, according to direction, along a large 
 straight road, past a series of fresh-looking 
 villas, embosomed in shrubs and flowers and 
 enclosed in an ingenious variety of wooden 
 palings. The morning was brilliant and 
 cool, the villas were smart and snug, and 
 the walk of the young travellers was very 
 entertaining. Everything looked as if it 
 had received a coat of fresh paint the day 
 before the red roofs, the green shutters, the 
 clean, bright browns and buffs of the house- 
 fronts. The flower-beds on the little lawns 
 seemed to sparkle in the radiant air, aid the 
 
i;8 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 gravel in the short carriage-sweeps to flash 
 and twinkle. Along the road came a 
 hundred little basket-phaetons, in which, 
 almost always, a couple of ladies were sitting 
 ladies in white dresses and long white 
 gloves, holding the reins and looking at the 
 two Englishmen, whose nationality was not 
 elusive, through thick blue veils, tied tightly 
 about their faces as if to guard their 
 complexions. At last the young men came 
 within sight of the sea again, and then, 
 having interrogated a gardener over the 
 paling of a villa, they turned into an open 
 gate. Here they found themselves face to 
 face with the ocean and with a very pictur- 
 esque structure, resembling a magnified 
 chalet, which was perched upon a green 
 embankment just above it. The house had 
 a verandah of extraordinary width all around 
 it, and a great many doors and windows 
 standing open to the verandah. These 
 various apertures had, in common, such an 
 accessible, hospitable air, such a breezy 
 flutter, within, of light curtains, such expan- 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 179 
 
 sive thresholds and reassuring interiors, that 
 our friends hardly knew which was the 
 regular entrance, and, after hesitating a 
 moment, presented themselves at one of the 
 windows. The room within was dark, but 
 in a moment a graceful figure vaguely 
 shaped itself in the rich-looking gloom, and 
 a lady came to meet them. Then they saw 
 that she had been seated at a table, writing, 
 and that she had heard them and had got 
 up. She stepped out into the light ; she 
 wore a frank, charming smile, with which 
 she held out her hand to Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "Oh, you must be Lord Lambeth and 
 Mr. Beaumont," she said. " I have heard 
 from my husband that you would come. I 
 am extremely glad to see you." And she 
 shook hands with each of her visitors. Her 
 visitors were a little shy, but they had very 
 good manners; they responded with smiles 
 and exclamations, and they apologised for not 
 knowing the front door. The lady rejoined, 
 with vivacity, that when she wanted to see 
 people very much she did not insist upon 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE, 
 
 those distinctions, and that Mr. Westgate 
 had written to her of his English friends 
 in terms that made her really anxious. " He 
 said you were so terribly prostrated," said 
 Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "Oh, you mean by the heat?" replied 
 Percy Beaumont. "We were rather 
 knocked up, but we feel wonderfully better. 
 We had such a jolly a voyage down 
 here. It's so very good of you to mind." 
 
 " Yes, it's so very kind of you," murmured 
 Lord Lambeth. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate stood smiling ; she was 
 extremely pretty. "Well, I did mind," 
 she said ; " and I thought of sending for 
 you this morning, to the Ocean House. I 
 am very glad you are better, and I am 
 charmed you have arrived. You must come 
 round to the other side of the piazza." 
 And she led the way, with a light, smooth 
 step, looking back at the young men and 
 smiling. 
 
 The other side of the piazza was, as 
 Lord Lambeth presently remarked, a very 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 181 
 
 jolly place. It was of the most liberal 
 proportions, and with its awnings, its fanci- 
 ful chairs, its cushions and rugs, its view 
 of the ocean, close at hand, tumbling along 
 the base of the low cliffs whose level tops 
 intervened in lawnlike smoothness, it formed 
 a charming complement to the drawing- 
 room. As such it was in course of use 
 at the present moment; it was occupied 
 by a social circle. There were several 
 ladies and two or three gentlemen, to whom 
 Mrs. Westgate proceeded to introduce 
 the distinguished strangers. She men- 
 tioned a great many names, very freely 
 and distinctly ; the young Englishmen, 
 shuffling about and bowing, were rather 
 bewildered. But at last they were provided 
 with chairs low wicker chairs, gilded and 
 tied with a great many ribbons and one 
 of the ladies (a very young person, with a 
 little snub nose and several dimples) offered 
 Percy Beaumont a fan. The fan was also 
 adorned with pink love-knots ; but Percy 
 Beaumont declined it, although he was very 
 
182 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 hot. Presently, however, it became cooler; 
 the breeze from the sea was delicious, the 
 view was charming, and the people sitting 
 there looked exceedingly fresh and comfort- 
 able. Several of the ladies seemed to be 
 young girls, and the gentlemen were slim, 
 fair youths, such as our friends had seen the 
 day before in New York. The ladies were 
 working upon bands of tapestry, and one 
 of the young men had an open book in his 
 lap. Beaumont afterwards learned from one 
 of the ladies that this young man had been 
 reading aloud that he was from Boston and 
 was very fond of reading aloud. Beaumont said 
 it was a great pity that they had interrupted 
 him ; he should like so much (from all he had 
 -heard) to hear a Bostonian read. Couldn't 
 the young man be induced to go on ? 
 
 " Oh no," said his informant, very freely ; 
 " he wouldn't be able to get the young ladies 
 to attend to him now." 
 
 There was something very friendly, 
 Beaumont perceived, in the attitude of the 
 company ; they looked at the young 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 183 
 
 Englishmen with an air of animated sym- 
 pathy and interest; they smiled, brightly 
 and unanimously, at everything either of 
 the visitors said. Lord Lambeth and his 
 companion felt that they were being made 
 very welcome. Mrs. Westgate seated herself 
 between them, and, talking a great deal to 
 each, they had occasion to observe that 
 she was as pretty as their friend Littledale 
 had promised. She was thirty years old, 
 with the eyes and the smile of a girl of 
 seventeen, and she was extremely light 
 and graceful, elegant, exquisite. Mrs. 
 Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She 
 was very frank and demonstrative, and 
 appeared always while she looked at you 
 delightedly with her beautiful young eyes 
 to be making sudden confessions and 
 concessions, after momentary hesitations. 
 
 " We shall expect to see a great deal of 
 you," she said to Lord Lambeth, with a kind 
 of joyous earnestness. "We are very fond 
 of Englishmen here ; that is, there are a 
 great many we have been fond of. After 
 
184 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 a day or two you must come and stay with 
 us ; we hope you will stay a long time. 
 Newport's a very nice place when you come 
 really to know it, when you know plenty 
 of people. Of course, you and Mr. Beau- 
 mont will have no difficulty about that. 
 Englishmen are very well received here ; 
 there are almost always two or three of 
 them about. I think they always like it, 
 and I must say I should think they would. 
 They receive ever so much attention. I 
 must say I think they sometimes get 
 spoiled ; but I am sure you and Mr. 
 Beaumont are proof against that. My 
 husband tells me you are a friend of Captain 
 Littledale; he was such a charming man. 
 He made himself most agreeable here, and I 
 am sure I wonder he didn't stay. It couldn't 
 have been pleasanter for him in his own 
 country. Though I suppose it is very 
 pleasant in England, for English people. 
 I don't know myself; I have been there 
 very little. I have been a great deal abroad, 
 but I am always on the Continent. I must 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 185 
 
 say I'm extremely fond of Paris ; you know 
 we Americans always are ; we go there when 
 we die. Did you ever hear that before ? 
 that was said by a great wit. I mean the 
 good Americans ; but we are all good ; 
 you'll see that for yourself. All I know of 
 England is London, and all I know of 
 London is that place on that little corner, 
 you know, where you buy jackets jackets 
 with that coarse braid and those big buttons. 
 They make very good jackets in London, 
 I will do you the justice to say that. And 
 some people like the hats ; but about the 
 hats I was always a heretic ; I always got 
 my hats in Paris. You can't wear an 
 English hat at least, I never could unless 
 you dress your hair a V Anglaise ; and I 
 must say that is a talent I never possessed. 
 In Paris they will make things to suit your 
 peculiarities ; but in England I think you 
 like much more to have how shall I say 
 it t one thing for everybody. I mean as 
 regards dress. I don't know about other 
 things ; but I have always supposed that in 
 
186 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 other things everything was different. I 
 mean according to the people according 
 to the classes, and all that. I am afraid 
 you will think that I don't take a very 
 favourable view ; but you know you can't 
 take a very favourable view in Dover Street, 
 in the month of November. That has 
 always been my fate. Do you know Jones's 
 Hotel, in Dover Street ? That's all I know 
 of England. Of course, every one admits 
 that the English hotels are your weak point. 
 There was always the most frightful fog ; 
 I couldn't see to try my things on. When 
 I got over to America into the light I 
 usually found they were twice too big. The 
 next time I mean to go in the season; I 
 think I shall go next year. I want very much 
 to take my sister ; she has never been to 
 England. I don't know whether you know 
 what I mean by saying that the Englishmen 
 who come here sometimes get spoiled. I 
 mean that they take things as a matter of 
 course things that are done for them. 
 Now, naturally, they are only a matter of 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 187 
 
 course when the Englishmen are very nice. 
 But, of course, they are almost always very 
 nice. Of course, this isn't nearly such an 
 interesting country as England ; there are 
 not nearly so many things to see, and 
 we haven't your country life. I have 
 never seen anything of your country 
 life ; when I am in Europe I am always 
 on the Continent. But I have heard a 
 great deal about it ; I know that when 
 you are among yourselves in the country 
 you have the most beautiful time. Of 
 course, we have nothing of that sort, we 
 have nothing on that scale. I don't apolo- 
 gise, Lord Lambeth ; some Americans are 
 always apologising; you must have noticed 
 that. We have the reputation of always 
 boasting and bragging and waving the 
 American flag; but I must say that what 
 strikes me is that we are perpetually making 
 excuses and trying to smooth things over. 
 The American flag has quite gone out of 
 fashion ; it's very carefully folded up, like 
 an old tablecloth. Why should we apolo- 
 
188 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 gise ? The English never apologise do 
 they? No, I must say I never apologise. 
 You must take us as we come with all our 
 imperfections on our heads. Of course we 
 haven't your country life, and your old 
 ruins, and your great estates, and your 
 leisure - class, and all that. But if we 
 haven't, I should think you might find it 
 a pleasant change I think any country is 
 pleasant where they have pleasant manners. 
 Captain Littledale told me he had never 
 seen such pleasant manners as at Newport ; 
 and he had been a great deal in European 
 society. Hadn't he been in the diplomatic 
 service ? He told me the dream of his life 
 was to get appointed to a diplomatic post in 
 Washington. But he doesn't seem to have 
 succeeded. I suppose that in England 
 promotion and all that sort of thing is 
 fearfully slow. With us, you know, it's a 
 great deal too fast. You see I admit our 
 drawbacks. But I must confess I think 
 Newport is an ideal place. I don't know 
 anything like it anywhere. Captain Little- 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 189 
 
 dale told me he didn't know anything like 
 it anywhere. It's entirely different from 
 most watering-places ; it's a most charming 
 life. I must say I think that when one 
 goes to a foreign country, one ought to 
 enjoy the differences. Of course there 
 are differences ; otherwise what did one 
 come abroad for ? Look for your pleasure 
 in the differences. Lord Lambeth; that's 
 the way to do it ; and then I am sure you 
 will find American society at least New- 
 port society most charming and most inter- 
 esting. I wish very much my husband 
 were here; but he's dreadfully confined to 
 New York. I suppose you think that is 
 very strange for a gentleman. But you 
 see we haven't any leisure-class." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate's discourse, delivered in 
 a soft, sweet voice, flowed on like a miniature 
 torrent and was interrupted by a hundred 
 little smiles, glances, and gestures, which 
 might have figured the irregularities and 
 obstructions of such a stream. Lord Lam- 
 beth listened to her with, it must be 
 
190 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 confessed, a rather ineffectual attention, 
 although he indulged in a good many little 
 murmurs and ejaculations of assent and 
 deprecation. He had no great faculty for 
 apprehending generalisations. There were 
 some three or four indeed which, in the 
 play of his own intelligence, he had 
 originated, and which had seemed con- 
 venient at the moment ; but at the present 
 time he could hardly have been said 
 to follow Mrs. Westgate as she darted 
 gracefully about in the sea of speculation. 
 Fortunately she asked for no especial 
 rejoinder, for she looked about at the rest 
 of the company as well, and smiled at Percy 
 Beaumont, on the other side of her, as if 
 he too must understand her and agree with 
 her. He was rather more successful than 
 his companion ; for besides being, as we 
 know, cleverer, his attention was not vaguely 
 distracted by close vicinity to a remarkably 
 interesting young girl, with dark hair and 
 blue eyes. This was the case with Lord 
 Lambeth, to whom it occurred after a while 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. igf 
 
 that the young girl with blue eyes and 
 dark hair was the pretty sister of whom 
 Mrs. Westgate had spoken. She presently 
 turned to him with a remark which estab- 
 lished her identity. 
 
 ''It's a great pity you couldn't have 
 brought my brother-in-law with you. It's 
 a great shame he should be in New York 
 in these days." 
 
 " Oh yes ; it's so very hot," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 " It must be dreadful," said the young 
 girl. 
 
 " I daresay he is very busy," Lord Lam- 
 beth observed. 
 
 "The gentlemen in America work too 
 much," the young girl went on. 
 
 " Oh, do they ? I daresay they like it," 
 said her interlocutor. 
 
 " I don't like it. One never sees them." 
 
 "Don't you, really?" asked Lord 
 Lambeth. "I shouldn't have fancied that." 
 
 "Have you come to study American 
 manners r " asked the young girl. 
 
192 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I just came over for 
 a lark. I haven't got long." Here there 
 was a pause, and Lord Lambeth began again. 
 "But Mr. Westgate will come down here, 
 will not he ? " 
 
 " I certainly hope he will. He must help 
 to entertain you and Mr. Beaumont." 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a little 
 with his handsome brown eyes. "Do you 
 suppose he would have come down with 
 us, if we had urged him ? " 
 
 Mr. Westgate's sister-in-law was silent a 
 moment, and then " I daresay he would, " 
 she answered. 
 
 "Really!" said the young Englishman. 
 u He was immensely civil to Beaumont and 
 me," he added. 
 
 " He is a dear good fellow," the young 
 lady rejoined. c{ And he is a perfect husband. 
 But all Americans are that," she continued, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Really ! " Lord Lambeth exclaimed again ; 
 and wondered whether all American ladies had 
 such a passion for generalising as these two. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 193 
 
 III. 
 
 HE sat there a good while : there was a great 
 deal of talk ; it was all very friendly and 
 lively and jolly. Every one present, sooner 
 or later, said something to him, and seemed 
 to make a particular point of addressing him 
 by name. Two or three other persons came 
 in, and there was a shifting of seats and 
 changing of places; the gentlemen all 
 entered into intimate conversation with the 
 two Englishmen, made them urgent offers of 
 hospitality and hoped they might frequently 
 be of service to them. They were afraid 
 Lord Lambeth and Mr. Beaumont were not 
 very comfortable at their hotel that it was 
 not, as one of them said, "so private as those 
 dear little English inns of yours." This last 
 gentleman went on to say that unfortunately, 
 as yet, perhaps, privacy was not quite so 
 
194 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 easily obtained in America as might be 
 desired ; still, he continued, you could gener- 
 ally get it by paying for it ; in fact you 
 could get everytnmg in America nowadays 
 by paying for it. American life was cer- 
 tainly growing a great deal more private ; it 
 was growing very much like England. 
 Everything at Newport, for instance, was 
 thoroughly private; Lord Lambeth would 
 probably be struck with that. It was also 
 represented to the strangers that it mattered 
 very little whether their hotel was agreeable, 
 as every one would want them to make visits ; 
 they would stay with other people, and, in 
 any case, they would be a great deal at Mrs. 
 Westgate's. They would find that very 
 charming; it was the pleasantest house in 
 Newport. It was a pity Mr. Westgate was 
 always away; he was a man of the highest 
 ability very acute, very acute. He worked 
 like a horse and he left his wife well, to do 
 about as she liked. He liked her to enjoy 
 herself, and she seemed to know how. 
 She was extremely brilliant, and a splendid 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 195 
 
 talker. Some people preferred her sister ; 
 but Miss Alden was very different; she 
 was in a different style altogether. Some 
 people even . thought her prettier, and, cer- 
 tainly, she was not so sharp. She was more 
 in the Boston style ; she had lived a great 
 deal in Boston and she was very highly 
 educated. Boston girls, it was intimated, 
 were more like English young ladies. 
 
 Lord Lambeth had presently a chance to 
 test the truth of this proposition ; for on the 
 company rising in compliance with a sug- 
 gestion from their hostess that they should 
 walk down to the rocks and look at the sea, 
 the young Englishman again found himself, 
 as they strolled across the grass, in proximity 
 to Mrs. Westgate's sister. Though she was 
 but a girl of twenty, she appeared to feel the 
 obligation to exert an active hospitality ; and 
 this was perhaps the more to be noticed as 
 she seemed by nature a reserved and retiring 
 person, and had little of her sister's 
 fraternising quality. She was perhaps rather 
 too thin, and she was a little pale ; but as 
 
 o 2 
 
196 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 she moved slowly over the grass, with her 
 arms hanging at her sides, looking gravely 
 for a moment at the sea and then brightly, 
 for all her gravity, at him, Lord Lambeth 
 thought her at least as pretty as Mrs. 
 Westgate, and reflected that if this was the 
 Boston style the Boston style was very 
 charming. He thought she looked very 
 clever; he could imagine that she was 
 highly educated; but at the same time she 
 seemed gentle and graceful. For all her 
 cleverness, however, he felt that she had to 
 think a little what to say ; she didn't say the 
 first thing that came into her head ; he had 
 come from a different part of the world 
 and from a- different society, and she was 
 trying to adapt her conversation. The 
 others were scattering themselves near the 
 rocks ; Mrs. Westgate had charge of Percy 
 Beaumont. 
 
 " Very jolly place, isn't it ? " said Lord 
 Lambeth. " It's a very jolly place to sit." 
 
 " Very charming," said the young girl ; 
 " I often sit here ; there are all kinds of cosy 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 197 
 
 corners as if they had been made on 
 purpose." 
 
 " Ah ! I suppose you have had some of 
 them made/' said the young man. 
 
 Miss Alden looked at him a moment. 
 " Oh no, we have had nothing made. It's 
 pure nature." 
 
 "I should think you would have a few 
 little benches rustic seats and that sort of 
 thing. It might be so jolly to sit here, you 
 know," Lord Lambeth went on. 
 
 " I am afraid we haven't so many of 
 those things as you/' said the young girl, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " I daresay you go in for pure nature as 
 you were saying. Nature, over here, must 
 be so grand, you know." And Lord Lam- 
 beth looked about him. 
 
 The little coast-line hereabouts was very 
 pretty, but it was not at all grand ; and Miss 
 Alden appeared to rise to a perception of this 
 fact. " I am afraid it seems to you very 
 rough," she said. " It's not like the coast 
 scenery in Kingsley's novels." 
 
198 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Ah, the novels always overdo it, you 
 know,"' Lord Lambeth rejoined. "You 
 must not go by the novels." 
 
 They were wandering about a little on the 
 rocks, and they stopped and looked down 
 into a narrow chasm where the rising tide 
 made a curious bellowing sound. It was 
 loud enough to prevent their hearing each 
 other, and they stood there for some 
 moments in silence. The young girl looked 
 at her companion, observing him attentively 
 but covertly, as women, even when very 
 young, know how to do. Lord Lambeth 
 repaid observation ; tail, straight and strong, 
 he was handsome as certain young English- 
 men, and certain young Englishmen almost 
 alone, are handsome ; with a perfect finish of 
 feature and a look of intellectual repose and 
 gentle good temper which seemed somehow 
 to be consequent upon his well-cut nose and 
 chin. And to speak of Lord Lambeth's 
 expression of intellectual repose is not simply 
 a civil way of saying that he looked stupid. 
 He was evidently not a young man of an 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 199 
 
 irritable imagination ; he was not, as he 
 would himself have said, tremendously 
 clever ; but, though there was a kind of 
 appealing dulness in his eye, he looked 
 thoroughly reasonable and competent, and 
 his appearance proclaimed that to be a 
 nobleman, an athlete, and an excellent 
 fellow, was a sufficiently brilliant combin- 
 ation of qualities. The young girl beside 
 him, it may be attested without farther 
 delay, thought him the handsomest young 
 man she had ever seen ; and Bessie Alden's 
 imagination, unlike that of her companion, 
 was irritable. He, however, was also making 
 up his mind that she was uncommonly 
 pretty. 
 
 " I daresay it's very gay here that you 
 have lots of balls and parties," he said ; for, if 
 he was not tremendously clever, he rather 
 prided himself on having, with women, a 
 sufficiency of conversation. 
 
 " Oh yes, there is a great deal going on," 
 Bessie Alden replied. "There are not so 
 many balls, but there are a good many other 
 
200 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 things. You will see for yourself; we live 
 rather in the midst of it." 
 
 " It's very kind of you to say that. But 
 I thought you Americans were always 
 dancing." 
 
 " I suppose we dance a good deal ; but I 
 have never seen much of it. We don't do 
 it much, at any rate, in summer. And I am 
 sure," said Bessie Alden, " that we don't have 
 so many balls as you have in England." 
 
 " Really ! " exclaimed Lord Lambeth. 
 " Ah, in England it all depends, you 
 know." 
 
 u You will not think much of our gaieties/' 
 said the young girl, looking at him with a 
 little mixture of interrogation and decision 
 which was peculiar to her. The interroga- 
 tion seemed earnest and the decision seemed 
 arch; but the mixture, at any rate, was 
 charming. "Those things, with us, are 
 much less splendid than in England." 
 
 " I fancy you don't mean that," said Lord 
 Lambeth, laughing. 
 
 " I assure you I mean everything I say," 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 201 
 
 the young girl declared. " Certainly, from 
 what I have read about English society, it is 
 very different." 
 
 "Ah, well, you know," said her com- 
 panion, " those things are often described 
 by fellows who know nothing about 
 them. You mustn't mind what you 
 read/' 
 
 " Oh, I shall mind what I read ! " Bessie 
 Alden rejoined. "When I read Thackeray 
 and George Eliot, how can I help minding 
 them?" 
 
 " Ah, well, Thackeray and George Eliot," 
 said the young nobleman ; " I haven't read 
 much of them." 
 
 "Don't you suppose they know about 
 society ? " asked Bessie Alden. 
 
 u Oh, I daresay they know ; they were so 
 very clever. But those fashionable novels," 
 said Lord Lambeth, " they are awful rot, you 
 know." 
 
 His companion looked at him a moment 
 with her dark blue eyes, and then she looked 
 down into the chasm where the water was 
 
202 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 tumbling about. "Do you mean Mrs. 
 Gore, for instance ? " she said presently, 
 raising her eyes. 
 
 " I am afraid I haven't read that either," 
 was the young man's rejoinder, laughing a 
 little and blushing. " I am afraid you'll 
 think I am not very intellectual." 
 
 " Reading Mrs. Gore is no proof of in- 
 tellect. But I like reading everything about 
 English life even poor books. I am so 
 curious about it." 
 
 " Aren't ladies always curious ? " asked the 
 young man, jestingly. 
 
 But Bessie Alden appeared to desire to 
 answer his question seriously. " I don't think 
 so I don't think we are enough so that we 
 care about many things. So it's all the more 
 ot a compliment," she added, " that I should 
 want to know so much about England." 
 
 The logic here seemed a little close ; but 
 Lord Lambeth, conscious of a compliment, 
 found his natural modesty just at hand. " I 
 am sure you know a great deal more than I 
 do." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 203 
 
 " I really think I know a great deal for a 
 person who has never been there." 
 
 " Have you really never been there ? " 
 cried Lord Lambeth. " Fancy ! " 
 
 " Never except in. imagination/' said the 
 young girl. 
 
 " Fancy ! " repeated her companion. 
 " But I daresay you'll go soon, won't 
 you?" 
 
 "It's the dream of my life!" declared 
 Bessie Alden, smiling. 
 
 "But your sister seems to know a tre- 
 mendous lot about London," Lord Lambeth 
 went on. 
 
 The young girl was silent a moment. 
 " My sister and I are two very different per- 
 sons/' she presently said. " She has been a 
 great deal in Europe. She has been in 
 England several times. She has known a 
 great many English people." 
 
 " But you must have known some, too," 
 said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " I don't think that I have ever spoken to 
 one before. You are the first Englishman 
 
204 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 that to my knowledge I have ever talked 
 with." 
 
 Bessie Alden made this statement with a 
 certain gravity almost, as it seemed to Lord 
 Lambeth, an impressiveness. Attempts at 
 impressiveness always made him feel awk- 
 ward, and he now began to laugh and swing 
 his stick. "Ah, you would have been sure 
 to know ! " he said. And then he added, 
 after an instant " I'm sorry I am not a 
 better specimen." 
 
 The young girl looked away; but she 
 smiled, laying aside her impressiveness. 
 ." You must remember that you are only a 
 beginning," she said. Then she retraced her 
 steps, leading the way back to the lawn, 
 where they saw Mrs. Westgate come 
 towards them with Percy Beaumont still at 
 her side. " Perhaps I shall go to England 
 next year," Miss Alden continued ; " I want 
 to, immensely. My sister is going to 
 Europe, and she has asked me to go with 
 her. If we go, I shall make her stay as long 
 as possible in London." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 205 
 
 " Ah, you must come in July," said Lord 
 Lambeth. " That's the time when there is 
 most going on." 
 
 " I don't think I can wait till July," the 
 young girl rejoined. " By the first of May 
 I shall be very impatient." They had gone 
 farther, and Mrs. Westgate and her com- 
 panion were near them. " Kitty," said Miss 
 Alden, " I have given out that we are going 
 to London next May. So please to conduct 
 yourself accordingly." 
 
 Percy Beaumont wore a somewhat ani- 
 mated even a slightly irritated air. He 
 was by no means so handsome a man as his 
 cousin, although in his cousin's absence he 
 might have passed for a striking specimen of 
 the tall, muscular, fair-bearded, clear-eyed 
 Englishman. Just now Beaumont's clear 
 eyes, which were small and of a pale grey 
 colour, had a rather troubled light, and, after 
 glancing at Bessie Alden while she spoke, 
 he rested them upon his kinsman. Mrs. 
 Westgate meanwhile, with her superfluously 
 pretty gaze, looked at every one alike. 
 
206 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " You had better wait till the time comes," 
 she said to her sister. "Perhaps next May 
 you won't care so much about London. Mr. 
 Beaumont and I," she went on, smiling at 
 her companion, "have had a tremendous 
 discussion. We don't agree about anything. 
 It's perfectly delightful." 
 
 " Oh, I say, Percy ! " exclaimed Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 "I disagree," said Beaumont, stroking 
 down his black hair, " even to the point of 
 not thinking it delightful." 
 
 " Oh, I say !" cried Lord Lambeth again. 
 
 "I don't see anything delightful in my 
 disagreeing with Mrs. Westgate," said Percy 
 Beaumont. 
 
 " Well, I do ! " Mrs. Westgate declared ; 
 and she turned to her sister. " You know 
 you have to go to town. The phaeton 
 is there. You had better take Lord 
 Lambeth." 
 
 At this point Percy Beaumont certainly 
 looked straight at his kinsman ; he tried to 
 catch his eye. But Lord Lambeth would 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 207 
 
 not look at him ; his own eyes were better 
 occupied. "I shall be very happy," cried 
 Bessie Alden. "I am only going to some 
 shops. But I will drive you about and show 
 you the place." 
 
 " An American woman who respects her- 
 self/' said Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beau- 
 mont with her bright expository air, " must 
 buy something every day of her life. If she 
 cannot do it herself, she must send out some 
 member of her family for the purpose. So 
 Bessie goes forth to fulfil my mission." 
 
 The young girl had walked away, with 
 Lord Lambeth by her side, to whom she 
 was talking still ; and Percy Beaumont 
 watched them as they passed towards the 
 house. "She fulfils her own mission," he 
 presently said ; " that of being a very 
 attractive young lady." 
 
 "I don't know that I should say very 
 attractive," Mrs. Westgate rejoined. "She 
 is not so much that as she is charming when 
 you really know her. She is very shy." 
 
 " Oh indeed ? " said Percy Beaumont. 
 
2o8 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Extremely shy/' Mrs. Westgate repeated. 
 " But she is a dear good girl ; she is a charm- 
 ing species of girl. She is not in the least a 
 flirt ; that isn't at all her line ; she doesn't 
 know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She 
 is very simple very serious. She has lived 
 a great deal in Boston, with another sister of 
 mine the eldest of us who married a Bos- 
 tonian. She is very cultivated, not at all like 
 me I am not in the least cultivated. She 
 has studied immensely and read everything ; 
 she is what they call in Boston 'thought- 
 ful/ " 
 
 "A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get 
 hold of! " his lordship's kinsman privately 
 reflected. 
 
 "I really believe," Mrs. Westgate con- 
 tinued, " that the most charming girl in the 
 world is a Boston superstructure upon a 
 New Yorkfonds; or perhaps a New York 
 superstructure upon a Boston fonds. At any 
 rate it's the mixture," said Mrs. Westgate, 
 who continued to give Percy Beaumont a 
 great deal of information. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 209 
 
 Lord Lambeth got into a little basket- 
 phaeton with Bessie Alden, and she drove 
 him down the long avenue, whose extent he 
 had measured on foot a couple of hours 
 before, into the ancient town, as it was called 
 in that part of the world, of Newport. The 
 ancient town was a curious affair a collection 
 of fresh-looking little wooden houses, painted 
 white, scattered over a hill-side and clustered 
 about a long, straight street, paved with 
 enormous cobble-stones. There were plenty 
 of shops a large proportion of which 
 appeared to be those of fruit-vendors, with 
 piles of huge water-melons and pumpkins 
 stacked in front of them ; and, drawn up 
 before the shops, or bumping about on the 
 cobble-stones, were innumerable other 
 basket-phaetons freighted with ladies of high 
 fashion, who greeted each other from vehicle 
 to vehicle and conversed on the edge of the 
 pavement in a manner that struck Lord 
 Lambeth as demonstrative with a great 
 many "Oh, my dears," and little quick 
 exclamations and caresses. His companion 
 
210 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 went into seventeen shops he amused him- 
 self with counting them and accumulated, 
 at the bottom of the phaeton, a pile of 
 bundles that hardly left the young English- 
 man a place for his feet. As she had no 
 groom nor footman, he sat in the phaeton to 
 hold the ponies ; where, although he was not 
 a particularly acute observer, he saw much to 
 entertain him especially the ladies just 
 mentioned, who wandered up and down with 
 the appearance of a kind of aimless intent- 
 ness, as if they were looking for something 
 to buy, and who, tripping in and out of their 
 vehicles, displayed remarkably pretty feet. 
 It all seemed to Lord Lambeth very odd, 
 and bright, and gay. Of course, before 
 they got back to the villa, he had had a great 
 deal of desultory conversation with Bessie 
 Alden. 
 
 The young Englishmen spent the whole 
 of that day and the whole of many success- 
 ive days in what the French call the intimite 
 of their new friends. They agreed that it 
 was extremely jolly that they had never 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 211 
 
 known anything more agreeable. It is not 
 proposed to narrate minutely the incidents 
 of their sojourn on this charming shore; 
 though if it were convenient I might present 
 a record of impressions none the less 
 delectable that they were not exhaustively 
 analysed. Many of them still linger in the 
 minds of our travellers, attended by a train 
 of harmonious images images of brilliant 
 mornings on lawns and piazzas that over- 
 looked the sea ; of innumerable pretty girls ; 
 of infinite lounging and talking and laugh- 
 ing and flirting and lunching and dining ; of 
 universal friendliness and frankness ; of occa- 
 sions on which they knew every one and 
 everything and had an extraordinary sense 
 of ease; of drives and rides in the late 
 afternoon, over gleaming beaches, on long 
 sea-roads, beneath a sky lighted up by 
 marvellous sunsets ; of tea-tables, on the 
 return, informal, irregular, agreeable; of 
 evenings at open windows or on the per- 
 petual verandahs, in the summer starlight, 
 above the warm Atlantic. The young 
 
 p 2 
 
212 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Englishmen were introduced to everybody, 
 entertained by everybody, intimate with 
 everybody. At the end of three days they 
 had removed their luggage from the hotel, 
 and had gone to stay with Mrs. Westgate 
 a step to which Percy Beaumont at first 
 offered some conscientious opposition. I call 
 his opposition conscientious because it was 
 founded upon some talk that he had had, on 
 the second day, with Bessie Alden. He had 
 indeed had a good deal of talk with her, for 
 she was not literally always in conversation 
 with Lord Lambeth. He had meditated 
 upon Mrs. Westgate' s account of her sister 
 and he discovered, for himself, that the 
 young lady was clever and appeared to have 
 read a great deal. She seemed very nice, 
 though he could not make out that, as 
 Mrs. Westgate had said, she was shy. If 
 she was shy she carried it off very well. 
 
 " Mr. Beaumont," she had said, " please 
 tell me something about Lord Lambeth's 
 family. How would you say it in England ? 
 his position." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 213 
 
 " His position ? " Percy Beaumont re- 
 peated. 
 
 " His rank or whatever you call it. Un- 
 fortunately we haven't got a ( Peerage,' like 
 the people in Thackeray." 
 
 "That's a great pity," said Beaumont. 
 " You would find it all set forth there so 
 much better than I can do it." 
 
 " He is a great noble, then ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, he is a great noble." 
 
 " Is he a peer ? " 
 
 Almost." 
 
 " And has he any other title than Lord 
 Lambeth ? " 
 
 "His title is the Marquis of Lambeth," 
 said Beaumont; and then he was silent; 
 Bessie Alden appeared to be looking at him 
 with interest. " He is the son of the Duke 
 of Bayswater," he added, presently. 
 
 "The eldest son?" 
 
 " The only son." 
 
 " And are his parents living ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; if his father were not living he 
 would be a duke." 
 
214 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 "So that when his father dies," pursued 
 Bessie Alden, with more simplicity than 
 might have been expected in a clever girl, 
 " he will become Duke of Bayswater ? " 
 
 " Of course/' said Percy Beaumont. 
 " But his father is in excellent health." 
 
 " And his mother ? " 
 
 Beaumont smiled a little. " The Duchess 
 is uncommonly robust." 
 
 " And has he any sisters ? " 
 
 "Yes, there are two." 
 
 " And what are they called ? " 
 
 " One of them is married. She is the 
 Countess of Pimlico." 
 
 " And the other r " 
 
 " The other is unmarried ; she is plain 
 Lady Julia." 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a moment. 
 "Is she very plain ? " 
 
 Beaumont began to laugh again. "You 
 would not find her so handsome as her 
 brother," he said ; and it was after this that 
 he attempted to dissuade the heir of the 
 Duke of Bayswater from accepting Mrs. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 215 
 
 Westgate's invitation. "Depend upon it," 
 he said, " that girl means to try for you." 
 
 " It seems to me you are doing your best 
 to make a fool of me/' the modest young 
 nobleman answered. 
 
 "She has been asking me/' said Beau- 
 mont, "all about your people and your 
 possessions." 
 
 " I am sure it is very good of her ! " Lord 
 Lambeth rejoined. 
 
 "Well, then," observed his companion, 
 " if you go, you go with your eyes open." 
 
 " Damn my eyes ! " exclaimed Lord Lam- 
 beth. " If one is to be a dozen times a day 
 at the house, it is a great deal more 
 convenient to sleep there. I am sick 
 of travelling up and down this beastly 
 Avenue." 
 
 Since he had determined to go, Percy 
 Beaumont would of course have been very 
 sorry to allow him to go alone ; he was a 
 man of conscience, and he remembered his 
 promise to the Duchess. It was obviously 
 the memory of this promise that made him 
 
216 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 say to his companion a couple of days later 
 that he rather wondered he should be so 
 fond of that girl. 
 
 " In the first place, how do you know 
 how fond I am of her?" asked Lord 
 Lambeth. "And in the second place, 
 why shouldn't I be fond of her ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't think she would be in your 
 line." 
 
 " What do you call my c line ' ? You 
 don't set her down as ' fast ' ? " 
 
 "Exactly so. Mrs. Westgate tells me 
 that there is no such thing as the ( fast 
 girl ' in America ; that it's an English 
 invention, and that the term has no meaning 
 here." 
 
 "All the better. It's an animal I detest." 
 
 " You prefer a blue-stocking." 
 
 "Is that what you call Miss Alden ? " 
 
 "Her sister tells me," said Percy Beau- 
 mont, " that she is tremendously literary." 
 
 " I don't know anything about that. She 
 is certainly very clever." 
 
 " Well," said Beaumont, " I should have 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 217 
 
 supposed you would have found that sort of 
 thing awfully slow." 
 
 "In point of fact," Lord Lambeth re- 
 joined, " I find it uncommonly lively." 
 
 After this, Percy Beaumont held his 
 tongue; but on August loth he wrote to 
 the Duchess of Bayswater. He was, as I 
 have said, a man of conscience, and he had 
 a strong, incorruptible sense of the pro- 
 prieties of life. His kinsman, meanwhile, 
 was having a great deal of talk with Bessie 
 Alden on the red sea-rocks beyond the 
 lawn ; in the course of long island rides, 
 with a slow return in the glowing twilight ; 
 on the deep verandah, late in the evening. 
 Lord Lambeth, who had stayed at many 
 houses, had never stayed at a house in 
 which it was possible for a young man to 
 converse so frequently with a young lady. 
 This young lady no longer applied to Percy 
 Beaumont for information concerning his 
 lordship. She addressed herself directly to 
 the young nobleman. She asked him a 
 great many questions, some of which bored 
 
2i8 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 him a little ; for he took no pleasure in 
 talking about himself. 
 
 " Lord Lambeth," said Bessie Alden, " are 
 you an hereditary legislator ? " 
 
 " Oh, I say," cried Lord Lambeth, " don't 
 make me call myself such names as 
 that." 
 
 " But you are a member of Parliament," 
 said the young 'girl. 
 
 " I don't like the sound of that either." 
 
 " Doesn't your father sit in the House of 
 Lords ? " Bessie Alden went on. 
 
 " Very seldom," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "Is it an important position ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh dear no," said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " I should think it would be very grand," 
 said Bessie Alden, " to possess simply by an 
 accident of birth the right to make laws for 
 a great nation." 
 
 "Ah, but one doesn't make laws. It's a 
 great humbug." 
 
 "I don't believe that," the young girl 
 declared. " It must be a great privilege, 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 219 
 
 and I should think that if one thought of it 
 in the right way from a high point of 
 view it would be very inspiring." 
 
 "The less one thinks of it the better," 
 Lord Lambeth affirmed. 
 
 " I think it's tremendous/' said Bessie 
 Alden ; and on another occasion she asked 
 him if he had any tenantry. Hereupon it 
 was that, as I have said, he was a little 
 bored. 
 
 " Do you want to buy up their leases ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Well have you got any livings ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " he cried. " Have you got 
 a clergyman that is looking out ? " But she 
 made him tell her that he had a Castle ; he 
 confessed to but one. It was the place in 
 which he had been born and brought up, 
 and, as he had an old-time liking for it, he 
 was beguiled into describing it a little and 
 saying it was really very jolly. Bessie Alden 
 listened with great interest, and declared that 
 she would give the world to see such a 
 
220 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 place. Whereupon "It would be awfully- 
 kind of you to come and stay there," said 
 Lord Lambeth. He took a vague satis- 
 faction in the circumstance that Percy 
 Beaumont had not heard him make the 
 remark I have just recorded. 
 
 Mr. Westgate, all this time, had not, as 
 they said at Newport, " come on." His wife 
 more than once announced that she expected 
 him on the morrow ; but on the morrow she 
 wandered about a little, with a telegram in 
 her jewelled fingers, declaring it was very 
 tiresome that his business detained him in 
 New York; that he could only hope the 
 Englishmen were having a good time. " I 
 must say," said Mrs. Westgate, " that it is 
 no thanks to him if you are!" And she 
 went on to explain, while she continued that 
 slow -paced promenade which enabled her 
 well-adjusted skirts to display themselves 
 so advantageously, that unfortunately in 
 America there was no leisure-class. It was 
 Lord Lambeth's theory, freely propounded 
 when the young men were together, that 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 221 
 
 Percy Beaumont was having a very good 
 time with Mrs. Westgate, and that under the 
 pretext of meeting for the purpose of animated 
 discussion, they were indulging in practices 
 that imparted a shade of hypocrisy to the 
 lady's regret for her husband's absence. 
 
 " I assure you we are always discussing 
 and differing," said Percy Beaumont. " She 
 is awfully argumentative. American ladies 
 certainly don't mind contradicting you. 
 Upon my word I don't think I was ever 
 treated so by a woman before. She's so 
 devilish positive." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate's positive quality, however, 
 evidently had its attractions ; for Beaumont 
 was constantly at his hostess's side. He 
 detached himself one day to the extent of 
 going to New York to talk over the 
 Tennessee Central with Mr. Westgate ; but 
 he was absent only forty-eight hours, during 
 which, with Mr. Westgate's assistance, he 
 comoletelv settled this piece of business. 
 "They certainly do things quickly in New 
 York," he observed to his cousin ; and he 
 
222 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 added that Mr. Westgate had seemed very 
 uneasy lest his wife should miss her visitor 
 he had been in such an awful hurry to .send 
 him back to her. " I'm afraid you'll never 
 come up to an American husband if that's 
 what the wives expect/' he said to Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, however, was not to enjoy 
 much longer the entertainment with which 
 an indulgent husband had desired to keep 
 her provided. On August 2ist Lord 
 Lambeth received a telegram from his 
 mother, requesting him to return immedi- 
 ately to England; his father had been t'iken 
 ill, and it was his filial duty to come to 
 him. 
 
 The young Englishman was visibly an- 
 noyed. "What the deuce does it mean?" 
 he asked of his kinsman. " What am I to 
 do?" 
 
 Percy Beaumont was annoyed as well ; he 
 ha<i deemed it his duty, as I have narrated, 
 to write to the Duchess, but he had not 
 expected that this distinguished woman 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 223 
 
 would act so promptly upon his hint. 
 "It means," he said, "that your father 
 is laid up. I don't suppose it's any- 
 thing serious ; but you have no option. 
 Take the first steamer; but don't be 
 alarmed." 
 
 Lord Lambeth made his farewells ; but 
 the few last words that he exchanged with 
 Bessie Alden are the only ones that have a 
 place in our record. " Of course I needn't 
 assure you," he said, " that if you should 
 come to England next year, I expect to 
 be the first person that you inform of 
 it." 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a little and 
 she smiled. " Oh, if we come to London," 
 she answered, " I should think you would 
 hear of it." 
 
 Percy Beaumont returned with his cousin, 
 and his sense of duty compelled him, one 
 windless afternoon, in mid-Atlantic, to say 
 to Lord Lambeth that he suspected that the 
 Duchess's telegram was in part the result of 
 something he himself had written to her. 
 
224 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " I wrote to her as I explicitly notified you 
 I had promised to do that you were ex- 
 tremely interested in a little American girl." 
 
 Lord Lambeth was extremely angry, and 
 he indulged for some moments in the simple 
 language of resentment. But I have said 
 that he was a reasonable young man, and 
 I can give no better proof of it than the 
 fact that he remarked to his companion 
 at the end of half-an-hour " You were 
 quite right after all. I am very much in- 
 terested in her. Only, to be fair," he 
 added, "you should have told my mother 
 also that she is not seriously interested 
 in me." 
 
 Percy Beaumont gave a little laugh. 
 " There is nothing so charming as modesty 
 in a young man in your position. That 
 speech is a capital proof that you are sweet 
 on her." 
 
 " She is not interested she is not ! " 
 Lord Lambeth repeated. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said his companion, 
 "you are very far gone." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 225 
 
 IV. 
 
 IN point of fact, as Percy Beaumont would 
 have said, Mrs. Westgate disembarked on 
 the 1 8th of May on the British coast. She 
 was accompanied by her sister, but she was 
 not attended by any other member of her 
 family. To the deprivation of her husband's 
 society Mrs. Westgate was, however, habitu- 
 ated ; she had made half-a-dozen journeys to 
 Europe without him, and she now accounted 
 for his absence, to interrogative friends on 
 this side of the Atlantic, by allusion to the 
 regrettable but conspicuous fact that in 
 America there was no leisure-class. The 
 two ladies came up to London and alighted 
 at Jones's Hotel, where Mrs. Westgate, who 
 had made on former occasions the most 
 agreeable impression at this establishment, 
 
 received an obsequious greeting. Bessie 
 
 Q 
 
226 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Alden had felt much excited about coming 
 to England ; she had expected the " associ- 
 ations " would be very charming, that it 
 would be an infinite pleasure to rest her 
 eyes upon the things she had read about in 
 the poets and historians. She was very fond 
 of the poets and historians, of the pictur- 
 esque, of the past, of retrospect, of mementoes 
 and reverberations of greatness ; so that on 
 coming into the great English world, where 
 strangeness and familiarity would go hand in 
 hand, she was prepared for a multitude of 
 fresh emotions. They began very promptly 
 these tender, fluttering sensations ; they 
 began with the sight of the beautiful English 
 landscape, whose dark richness was quickened 
 and brightened by the season ; with the 
 carpeted fields and flowering hedge-rows,, as 
 she looked at them from the window of the 
 train ; with the spires of the rural churches, 
 peeping above the rook-haunted tree-tops; 
 with the oak-studded parks, the ancient 
 homes, the cloudy light, the speech, the 
 manners, the thousand differences. Mrs. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 227 
 
 Westgate's impressions had of course much 
 less novelty and keenness, and she gave but 
 a wandering attention to her sister's ejacula- 
 tions and rhapsodies. 
 
 " You know my enjoyment of England is 
 not so intellectual as Bessie's/' she said to 
 several of her friends in the course of her 
 visit to this country. " And yet if it is not 
 intellectual, I can't say it is physical. I 
 don't think I can quite say what it is, my 
 enjoyment of England." When once 
 it was settled that the two ladies should 
 come abroad and should spend a few 
 weeks in England on their way to the 
 Continent, they of course exchanged a 
 good many allusions to their London 
 acquaintance. 
 
 "It will certainly be much nicer having 
 friends there," Bessie Alden had said one 
 day, as she sat on the sunny deck of the 
 steamer, at her sister's feet, on a large blue 
 rug. 
 
 " Whom do you mean by friends r " Mrs. 
 
 Westgate asked. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 "All those English gentlemen whom 
 you have known and entertained. Captain 
 Littledale, for instance. And Lord Lam- 
 beth and Mr. Beaumont/' added Bessie 
 Alden. 
 
 " Do you expect them to give us a very 
 grand reception ? " 
 
 Bessie reflected a moment; she was ad- 
 dicted, as we know, to reflection. " Well, 
 yes." 
 
 " My poor sweet child ! " murmured her 
 sister. 
 
 "What have I said that is so silly?" 
 asked Bessie. 
 
 " You are a little too simple ; just a little. 
 It is very becoming, but it pleases people at 
 your expense." 
 
 " I am certainly too simple to understand 
 you," said Bessie. 
 
 " Shall I tell you a story?" asked her 
 sister. 
 
 " If you would be so good. That is what 
 they do to amuse simple people." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate consulted her memory, 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 229 
 
 while her companion sat gazing at the 
 shining sea. " Did you ever hear of the 
 Duke of Green-Erin ? " 
 
 " I think not," said Bessie. 
 
 " Well, it's no matter/ 7 her sister went on. 
 
 " It's a proof of my simplicity." 
 
 " My story is meant to illustrate that of 
 some other people," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 " The Duke of Green-Erin is what they call 
 in England a great swell ; and some five 
 years ago he came to America. He spent 
 most of his time in New York, and in New 
 York he spent his days and his nights at the 
 Butterworths'. You have heard at least of 
 the Butterworths. Bien. They did every- 
 thing in the world for him they turned 
 themselves inside out. They gave him a 
 dozen dinner-parties and balls, and were the 
 means of his being invited to fifty more. 
 At first he used to come into Mrs. Butter- 
 worth's box at the opera in a tweed travelling- 
 suit ; but some one stopped that. At any 
 rate, he had a beautiful time, and they parted 
 the best friends in the world. Two years 
 
230 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 elapse, and the Butterworths come abroad 
 and go to London. The first thing they see 
 in all the papers in England those things 
 are in the most prominent place is that the 
 Duke of Green-Erin has arrived in town for 
 the Season. They wait a little, and then 
 Mr. Butterworth as polite as ever goes 
 and leaves a card. They wait a little more ; 
 the visit is not returned ; they wait three 
 weeks silence de mort the Duke gives no 
 sign. The Butterworths see a lot of other 
 people, put down the Duke of Green-Erin as 
 a rude, ungrateful man, and forget all about 
 him. One fine day they go to Ascot Races, 
 and there they meet him face to face. He 
 stares a moment and then comes up to Mr. 
 Butterworth, taking something from his 
 pocket-book something which proves to be 
 a bank-note. ( I'm glad to see you, Mr. 
 Butterworth,' he says, c so that I can pay you 
 that ten pounds I lost to you in New York. 
 I saw the other day you remembered our 
 bet; here are the ten pounds, Mr. Butter- 
 worth. Good-bye, Mr. Butterworth/ And 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 231 
 
 off he goes, and that's the last they see of the 
 Duke of Green-Erin." 
 
 " Is that your story ? " asked Bessie 
 Alden. 
 
 "Don't you think it's interesting?" her 
 sister replied. 
 
 " T don't believe it," said the young girl. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Mrs. Westgate, "you are 
 not so simple after all. Believe it or not 
 as you please ; there is no smoke without 
 fire." 
 
 "Is that the way," asked Bessie after a 
 moment, "that you expect your friends to 
 treat you ? " 
 
 " I defy them to^ treat me very ill, because 
 I shall not give them the opportunity. 
 With the best will in the world, in that case, 
 they can't be very disobliging." 
 
 Bessie Alden was silent a moment. " I 
 don't see what makes you talk that way," 
 she said. "The English are a great 
 people." 
 
 " Exactly ; and that is just the way they 
 have grown great by dropping you when 
 
232 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 you have ceased to be useful. People say 
 they are not clever ; but I think they are 
 very clever." 
 
 "You know you have liked them all 
 the Englishmen you have seen," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " They have liked me," her sister rejoined ; 
 " it would be more correct to say that. And 
 of course one likes that." 
 
 Bessie Alden resumed for some moments 
 her studies in sea-green. "Well," she 
 said, " whether they like me or not, I mean 
 to like them. And happily," she added, 
 "Lord Lambeth does not owe me ten 
 pounds/' 
 
 During the first few days after their 
 arrival at Jones's Hotel our charming 
 Americans were much occupied with what 
 they would have called looking about them. 
 They found occasion to make a large 
 number of purchases, and their opportunities 
 for conversation were such only as were' 
 offered by the deferential London shopmen. 
 Bessie Alden, even in driving from the 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 233 
 
 station, took an immense fancy to the 
 British metropolis, and, at the risk of 
 exhibiting her as a young woman of vulgar 
 tastes, it must be recorded that for a consider- 
 able period she desired no higher pleasure 
 than to drive about the crowded streets 
 in a Hansom cab. To her attentive eyes 
 they were full of a strange picturesque life, 
 and it is at least beneath the dignity of 
 our historic muse to enumerate the trivial 
 objects and incidents which this simple 
 young lady from Boston found so enter- 
 taining. It may be freely mentioned, 
 however, that whenever, after a round of 
 visits in Bond Street and Regent Street, 
 she was about to return with her sister 
 to Jones's Hotel, she made an earnest 
 request that they should be driven home 
 by way of Westminster Abbey. She had 
 begun by asking whether it would not 
 be possible to take the Tower on the way 
 to their lodgings ; but it happened that at 
 a more primitive stage of her culture Mrs. 
 Westgate had paid a visit to this venerable 
 
234 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 monument, which she spoke of ever after- 
 wards, vaguely, as a dreadful disappoint- 
 ment ; so that she expressed the liveliest 
 disapproval of any attempt to combine 
 historical researches with the purchase ot 
 hair-brushes and note-paper. The most 
 she would consent to do in this line was 
 to spend half-an-hour at Madame Tussaud's, 
 where she saw several dusty wax effigies 
 of members of the Royal Family. She 
 told Bessie that if she wished to go to the 
 Tower she must get some one else to take 
 her. Bessie expressed hereupon an earnest 
 disposition to go alone ; but upon this 
 proposal as well Mrs. Westgate sprinkled 
 cold water. 
 
 "Remember," she said, "that you are 
 not in your innocent little Boston. It is 
 not a question of walking up and down 
 Beacon Street.' Then she went on to 
 explain that there were two classes of 
 American girls in Europe those that 
 walked about alone and those that did not. 
 " You happen to belong, my dear," she 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 235 
 said to her sister, u to the class that does 
 
 not." 
 
 "It is only/' answered Bessie, laughing, 
 " because you happen to prevent me." And 
 she devoted much private meditation to 
 this question of effecting a visit to the 
 Tower of London. 
 
 Suddenly it seemed as if the problem 
 might be solved; the two ladies at Jones's 
 Hotel received a visit from Willie Woodley. 
 Such was the social appellation of a young 
 American who had sailed from New York 
 a few days after their own departure, and 
 who, having the privilege of intimacy with 
 them in that city, had lost no time, on 
 his arrival in London, in coming to pay 
 them his respects. He had, in fact, gone 
 to see them directly after going to see his 
 tailor; than which there can be no greater 
 exhibition of promptitude on the part of 
 a young American who has just alighted 
 at the Charing Cross Hotel. He was a 
 slim, pale youth, of the most amiable 
 disposition, famous for the skill with which 
 
236 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 he led the " German " in New York. 
 Indeed, by the young ladies who habitually 
 figured in this fashionable frolic he was 
 believed to be "the best dancer in the 
 world;" it was in these terms that he was 
 always spoken of, and that his identity was 
 indicated. He was the gentlest, softest 
 young man it was possible to meet ; he was 
 beautifully dressed " in the English style " 
 and he knew an immense deal about 
 London. He had been at Newport during 
 the previous summer, at the time of our 
 young Englishmen's visit, and he took 
 extreme pleasure in the society of Bessie 
 Alden, whom he always addressed as " Miss 
 Bessie." She immediately arranged with 
 him, in the presence of her sister, that he 
 should conduct her to the scene of Lady 
 Jane Grey's execution. 
 
 "You may do as you please," said 
 Mrs. Westgate. " Only if you desire the 
 information it is not the custom here for 
 young ladies to knock about London with 
 young men." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 237 
 
 " Miss Bessie has waltzed with me so 
 often," observed Willie Woodley ; " she can 
 surely go out with me in a Hansom." 
 
 " I consider waltzing," said Mrs. West- 
 gate, " the most innocent pleasure of our 
 time." 
 
 " It's a compliment to our time ! " 
 exclaimed the young man, with a little 
 laugh, in spite of himself. 
 
 "I don't see why I should regard what 
 is done here," said Bessie Alden. "Why 
 should I suffer the restrictions of a society 
 of which I enjoy none of the privileges ? " 
 
 " That's very good very good," mur- 
 mured Willie Woodley. 
 
 " Oh, go to the Tower, and feel the axe, 
 if you like ! " said Mrs. Westgate. " 1 
 consent to your going with Mr. Woodley; 
 but I should not let you go with an 
 Englishman." 
 
 " Miss Bessie wouldn't care to go with 
 an Englishman ! " Mr. Woodley declared, 
 with a faint asperity that was, perhaps, not 
 unnatural in a young man who, dressing 
 
238 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 in the manner that I have indicated, and 
 knowing a great deal, as I have said, about 
 London, saw no reason for drawing these 
 sharp distinctions. He agreed upon a day 
 with Miss Bessie a day of that same week. 
 
 An ingenious mind might, perhaps, trace 
 a connection between the young girl's allusion 
 to her destitution of social privileges and a 
 question she asked on the morrow as she 
 sat with her sister at lunch. 
 
 "Don't you mean to write to to any 
 one ? " said Bessie. 
 
 " I wrote this morning to Captain Little- 
 dale," Mrs. Westgate replied. 
 
 "But Mr. Woodley said that Captain 
 Littledale had gone to India." 
 
 " He said he thought he had heard so ; 
 he knew nothing about it." 
 
 For a moment Bessie Alden said nothing 
 more ; then, at last, " And don't you intend 
 to write to to Mr. Beaumont ? " she 
 inquired. 
 
 " You mean to Lord Lambeth," said her 
 sister. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 239 
 
 "I said Mr. Beaumont because he was 
 so good a friend of yours." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate looked at the young girl 
 with sisterly candour. "I don't care two 
 straws for Mr. Beaumont." 
 
 " You were certainly very nice to 
 him." 
 
 " I am nice to every one/' said Mrs. 
 Westgate, simply. 
 
 "To every one but me," rejoined Bessie, 
 smiling. 
 
 Her sister continued to look at her; 
 then, at last, "Are you in love with Lord 
 Lambeth ? " she asked. 
 
 The young girl stared a moment, and 
 the question was apparently too humorous 
 even to make her blush. " Not that I 
 know of," she answered. 
 
 "Because if you are," Mrs. Westgate 
 went on, " I shall certainly not send for 
 him." 
 
 "That proves what I said/' declared 
 Bessie, smiling " that you are not nice 
 
 to me." 
 
240 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 "It would be a poor service, my dear 
 child," said her sister. 
 
 "In what sense? There is nothing 
 against Lord Lambeth, that I know of." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate was silent a moment. 
 " You are in love with him, then ? " 
 
 Bessie stared again ; but this time she 
 blushed a little. " Ah ! if you won't be 
 serious," she answered, "we will not mention 
 him again." 
 
 For some moments Lord Lambeth was 
 not mentioned again, and it was Mrs. 
 Westgate who, at the end of this period, 
 reverted to him. "Of course I will let 
 him know we are here ; because I think 
 he would be hurt justly enough if we 
 should go away without seeing him. It is 
 fair to give him a chance to come and thank 
 me for the kindness we showed him. But 
 I don't want to seem eager." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Bessie, with a little 
 laugh. 
 
 "Though I confess," added her sister, "that 
 I am curious to see how we will behave." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 241 
 
 " He behaved very well at Newport." 
 
 "Newport is not London. At Newport 
 he could do as he liked; but here, it is 
 another affair. He has to have an eye to 
 consequences." 
 
 " If he had more freedom, then, at 
 Newport," argued Bessie, "it is the more 
 to his credit that he behaved well; and 
 if he has to be so careful here, it is 
 possible he will behave even better." 
 
 " Better better," repeated her sister. 
 " My dear child, what is your point of 
 
 view ? " 
 
 " How do you mean my point of 
 
 view ? " 
 
 "Don't you care for Lord Lambeth a 
 little?" 
 
 This time Bessie Alden was displeased ; 
 she slowly got up from table, turning her 
 face away from her sister. " You will 
 oblige me by not talking so," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate sat watching her for some 
 moments as she moved slowly about the 
 room and went and stood at the window. 
 
242 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " I will write to him this afternoon/' she 
 said at last. 
 
 " Do as you please ! " Bessie answered ; 
 and presently she turned round. " I am 
 not afraid to say that I like Lord Lambeth. 
 I like him very much." 
 
 "He is not clever/' Mrs. Westgate 
 declared. 
 
 "Well, there have been clever people 
 whom I have disliked," said Bessie Alden ; 
 " so that I suppose I may like a stupid one. 
 Besides, Lord Lambeth is not stupid." 
 
 " Not so stupid as he looks ! " exclaimed 
 her sister, smiling. 
 
 "If I were in love with Lord Lambeth, 
 as you said just now, it would be bad policy 
 on your part to abuse him." 
 
 "My dear child, don't give me lessons 
 in policy!" cried Mrs. Westgate. "The 
 policy I mean to follow is very deep." 
 
 The young girl began to walk about the 
 room again ; then she stopped before her 
 sister. "I have never heard in the course 
 of five minutes," she said, " so many hints 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 243 
 
 and innuendoes. I wish you would tell 
 me in plain English what you mean." 
 
 "I mean that you may be much an- 
 noyed." 
 
 "That is still only a hint," said Bessie. 
 
 Her sister looked at her, hesitating an 
 instant. "It will be said of you that you 
 have come after Lord Lambeth that you 
 followed him." 
 
 Bessie Alden threw back her pretty head 
 like a startled hind, and a look flashed into 
 her face that made Mrs. Westgate rise from 
 her chair. " Who says such things as 
 that ? " she demanded. 
 
 "People here." 
 
 " I don't believe it," said Bessie. 
 
 "You have a very convenient faculty of 
 doubt. But my policy will be, as I say, very 
 deep. I shall leave you to find out this kind 
 of thing for yourself." 
 
 Bessie fixed her eyes upon her sister, and 
 Mrs. Westgate thought for a moment there 
 were tears in them. "Do they talk that way 
 
 here ? " she asked. 
 
 B 2 
 
244 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " You will see. I shall leave you alone." 
 
 " Don't leave me alone/' said Bessie Alden. 
 " Take me away." 
 
 " No ; I want to see what you make of it," 
 her sister continued. 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 " You will understand after Lord Lambeth 
 has come," said Mrs. Westgate, with a little 
 laugh. 
 
 The two ladies had arranged that on this 
 afternoon Willie Woodley should go with 
 them to Hyde Park, where Bessie Alden 
 expected to derive much entertainment from 
 sitting on a little green chair, under the great 
 trees, beside Rotten Row. The want of a 
 suitable escort had hitherto rendered this 
 pleasure inaccessible ; but no escort, now, for 
 such an expedition, could have been more 
 suitable than their devoted young country- 
 man, whose mission in life, it might almost 
 be said, was to find chairs for ladies, and who 
 appeared on the stroke of half-past five with a 
 white camellia in his button-hole. 
 
 "I have written to Lord Lambeth, my 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 245 
 
 dear/' said Mrs. Westgate to her sister, on 
 coming into the room where Bessie Alden, 
 drawing on her long grey gloves, was enter- 
 taining their visitor. 
 
 Bessie said nothing, but Willie Woodley 
 exclaimed that his lordship was in town ; he 
 had seen his name in the Morning Post. 
 
 " Do you read the Morning Post ? " asked 
 Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " Oh yes ; it's great fun," Willie Woodley 
 affirmed. 
 
 " I want so to see it," said Bessie, " there is 
 so much about it in Thackeray." 
 
 " I will send it to you every morning," 
 said Willie Woodley. 
 
 He found them what Bessie Alden thought 
 excellent places, under the great trees, beside 
 the famous avenue whose humours had been 
 made familiar to the young girl's childhood 
 by the pictures in Punch. The day was 
 bright and warm, and the crowd of riders 
 and spectators and the great procession of 
 carriages were proportionately dense and 
 brilliant. The scene bore the stamp of the 
 
246 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 London Season at its height, and Bessie 
 Alden found more entertainment in it than 
 she was able to express to her companions. 
 She sat silent, under her parasol, and her 
 imagination, according to its wont, let itself 
 loose into the great changing assemblage of 
 striking and suggestive figures. They stirred 
 up a host of old impressions and precon- 
 ceptions, and she found herself fitting a 
 history to this person and a theory to that, 
 and making a place for them all in her 
 little private museum of types. But if she 
 said little, her sister on one side and Willie 
 Woodley on the other expressed themselves 
 in lively alternation. 
 
 " Look at that green dress with blue 
 flounces," said 'Mrs. Westgate. " Quelle 
 toilette!" 
 
 " That's the Marquis of Blackborough," 
 said the young man " the one in the white 
 coat. I heard nim speak the other night in 
 the House of Lords ; it was something about 
 ramrods ; he called them wamwods. He's 
 an awful swell." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 247 
 
 " Did you ever see anything like the way 
 they are pinned back?" Mrs. Westgate 
 resumed. "They never know where to 
 stop." 
 
 "They do nothing but stop," said Willie 
 Woodley. " It prevents them from walking. 
 Here comes a great celebrity Lady Beatrice 
 Bellevue. She's awfully fast ; see what little 
 steps she takes." 
 
 " Well, my dear," Mrs. Westgate pursued, 
 " I hope you are getting some ideas for your 
 couturier e f " 
 
 " I am getting plenty of ideas," said Bessie, 
 " but I don't know that my couturiere would 
 appreciate them." 
 
 Willie Woodley presently perceived a 
 friend on horseback, who drove up beside 
 the barrier of the Row and beckoned to him. 
 He went forward and the crowd of pedes- 
 trians closed about him, so that for some 
 ten minutes he was hidden from sight. 
 At last he reappeared, bringing a gentle- 
 man with him a gentleman whom Bessie 
 at first supposed to be his friend dis- 
 
248 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 mounted. But at a second glance she found 
 herself looking at Lord Lambeth, who was 
 shaking hands with her sister. 
 
 "I found him over there," said Willie 
 Woodley, " and I told him you were here." 
 ,,:., And then Lord Lambeth, touching his 
 hat a little, shook hands with Bessie. 
 " Fancy your being here ! " he said. He 
 was blushing and smiling ; he looked very- 
 handsome, and he had a kind of splendour 
 that he had not had in America. Bessie 
 Alden's imagination, as we know, was just 
 then in exercise ; so that the tall young 
 Englishman, as he stood there looking 
 down at her, had the benefit of it. " He 
 is handsomer and more splendid than any- 
 thing I have ever seen," she said to herself. 
 And then she remembered that he- was a 
 Marquis, and she thought he looked like a 
 Marquis. 
 
 " Really, you know," he cried, " you ought 
 to have let a man know you were here ! " 
 
 " I wrote to you an hour ago," said Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 249 
 
 " Doesn't all the world know it ? " asked 
 Bessie, smiling. 
 
 " I assure you I didn't know it ! " cried 
 Lord Lambeth. " Upon my honour I 
 hadn't heard of it. Ask Woodley now ; had 
 1. Woodley ? " 
 
 " Well, I think you are rather a humbug," 
 said Willie Woodley. 
 
 " You don't believe that do you, Miss 
 Alden ? " asked his lordship. " You don't 
 believe I'm a humbug, eh ? " 
 
 "No," said Bessie, "I don't" 
 
 " You are too tall to stand up, Lord Lam- 
 beth," Mrs. Westgate observed. " You are 
 only tolerable when you sit down. Be so 
 good as to get a chair." 
 
 He found a chair and placed it sidewise, 
 close to the two ladies. " If I hadn't met 
 Woodley I should never have found you," 
 he went on. " Should I, Woodley ? " 
 
 " Well, I guess not," said the young 
 American. 
 
 "Not even with my letter?" asked Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
2$o AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 "Ah, well, I haven't got your letter 
 yet ; I suppose I shall get it this even- 
 ing. It was awfully kind of you to 
 write." 
 
 "So I said to Bessie," observed Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
 "Did she say so, Miss Alden?" Lord 
 Lambeth inquired. "I daresay you have 
 been here a month." 
 
 "We have been here three," said Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
 " Have you been here three months ? " the 
 young man asked again of Bessie. 
 
 " It seems a long time," Bessie answered. 
 
 " I say, after that you had better not call 
 me a humbug ! " cried Lord Lambeth. " I 
 have only been in town three weeks ; but you 
 must have been hiding away. I haven't seen 
 you anywhere." 
 
 " Where should you have seen us where 
 should we have gone ? " asked Mrs. West- 
 gate. 
 
 " You should have gone to Hurlingham," 
 said Willie Woodley. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 251 
 
 "No, let Lord Lambeth tell us," Mrs. 
 Westgate insisted. 
 
 "There are plenty of places to go to," 
 said Lord Lambeth "each one stupider 
 than the other. I mean people's houses ; 
 they send you cards." 
 
 " No one has sent us cards," said Bessie. 
 
 " We are very quiet," her sister declared. 
 " We are here as travellers/' 
 
 "We have been to Madame Tussaud's," 
 Bessie pursued. 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " cried Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "We thought we should find your image 
 there," said Mrs. Westgate " yours and Mr. 
 Beaumont's." 
 
 " In the Chamber of Horrors ? " laughed 
 the young man. 
 
 " It did duty very well for a party," 
 said Mrs. Westgate. " All the women 
 were de'colletees, and many of the figures 
 looked as if they could speak if they 
 tried." 
 
 "Upon my word," Lord Lambeth re- 
 joined, " you see people at London parties 
 
252 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 that look as if they couldn't speak if they 
 tried." 
 
 "Do you think Mr. Woodley could 
 find us Mr. Beaumont ? " asked Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
 Lord Lambeth stared and looked round 
 him. ".I daresay he could. Beaumont 
 often comes here. Don't you think you 
 could find him, Woodley? Make a dive 
 into the crowd." 
 
 " Thank you ; I have had enough diving," 
 said Willie Woodley. " I will wait till Mr. 
 Beaumont comes to the surface." 
 
 " I will bring him to see you," said Lord 
 Lambeth ; " where are you staying r " 
 
 " You will find the address in my letter 
 Jones's Hotel." 
 
 "Oh, one of those places just out of 
 Piccadilly ? Beastly hole, isn't it ? " Lord 
 Lambeth inquired. 
 
 " I believe it's the best hotel in London," 
 said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " But they give you awful rubbish to 
 eat, don't they r " his lordship went on. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 253 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I always feel so sorry for the people that 
 come up to town and go to live in those 
 places," continued the young man. " They 
 eat nothing but poison." 
 
 Oh, I say ! " cried Willie Woodley. 
 
 "Well, how do you like London, Miss 
 Alden ? " Lord Lambeth asked, unperturbed 
 by this ejaculation. 
 
 "I think it's grand," said Bessie Alden. 
 
 "My sister likes it, in spite of the 
 "poison" !" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. 
 
 " I hope you are going to stay a long 
 time." 
 
 " As long as I can," said Bessie. 
 
 "And where is Mr. Westgate?" asked 
 Lord Lambeth of this gentleman's wife. 
 
 "He's where he always is in that tire- 
 some New York." 
 
 " He must be tremendously clever," said 
 the young man. 
 
 " I suppose he is," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 Lord Lambeth sat for nearly an hour 
 with his American friends ; but it is not our 
 
254 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 purpose to relate their conversation in full. 
 He addressed a great many remarks to Bessie 
 Alden, and finally turned towards her alto- 
 gether, while Willie Woodley entertained 
 Mrs. Westgate. Bessie herself said very 
 little ; she was on her guard, thinking of 
 what her sister had said to her at lunch. 
 Little by little, however, she interested her- 
 self in Lord Lambeth again, as she had done 
 at Newport ; only it seemed to her that here 
 he might become more interesting. He 
 would be an unconscious part of the 
 antiquity, the impressiveness, the picturesque- 
 ness of England ; and poor Bessie Alden, 
 like many a Yankee maiden, was terribly at 
 the mercy of picturesqueness. 
 
 " 1 have often wished I were at Newport 
 again," said the young man. " Those days 
 I spent at your sister's were awfully jolly." 
 
 "We enjoyed them very much; I hope 
 your father is better." 
 
 " Oh dear, yes. When I got to England, 
 he was out grouse-shooting. It was what 
 you call in America a gigantic fraud. My 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 255 
 
 mother had got nervous. My three weeks 
 at Newport seemed like a happy dream." 
 
 " America certainly is very different from 
 England," said Bessie. 
 
 " I hope you like England better, eh ? " 
 Lord Lambeth rejoined, almost persuasively. 
 
 "No Englishman can ask that seriously 
 of a person of another country." 
 
 Her companion looked at her for a 
 moment. " You mean it's a matter of 
 course ? " 
 
 " If I were English/' said Bessie, " it would 
 certainly seem to me a matter of course 
 that every one should be a good patriot." 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ; patriotism is everything," 
 said Lord Lambeth, not quite following, but 
 very contented. " Now, what are you going 
 to do here r " 
 
 "On Thursday I am going to the 
 Tower." 
 
 "The Tower?" 
 
 " The Tower of London. Did you never 
 hear of it ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, I have been there," said Lord 
 
256 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Lambeth. "I was taken there by my 
 governess, when I was six years old. It's a 
 rum idea, your going there." 
 
 "Do give me a few more rum ideas," said 
 Bessie. "I want to see everything of that 
 sort. I am going to Hampton Court, 
 and to Windsor, and to the Dulwich 
 Gallery." 
 
 Lord Lambeth seemed greatly amused. 
 " I wonder you don't go to the Rosherville 
 Gardens." 
 
 " Are they interesting ? " asked Bessie. 
 
 " Oh, wonderful ! " 
 
 " Are they very old ? That's all I care 
 for," said Bessie. 
 
 "They are tremendously old ; they are all 
 falling to ruins." 
 
 " I think there is nothing so charming 
 as an old ruinous garden," said the young 
 girl. " We must certainly go there." 
 
 Lord Lambeth broke out into merriment. 
 "I say, Woodley," he cried, "here's Miss 
 Alden wants to go to the Rosherville 
 Gardens!" 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 257 
 
 Willie Woodley looked a little blank ; he 
 was caught in the fact of ignorance of an 
 apparently conspicuous feature of London 
 life. But in a moment he turned it off. 
 "Very well," he said, "I'll write for a 
 permit." 
 
 Lord Lambeth's exhilaration increased. 
 " 'Gad, I believe you Americans would go 
 anywhere ! " he cried. 
 
 " We wish to go to Parliament," said 
 Bessie. " That's one of the first things." 
 
 " Oh, it would bore you to death ! " cried 
 the young man. 
 
 " We wish to hear you speak." 
 
 "I never speak except to young ladies," 
 said Lord Lambeth, smiling. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him awhile; 
 smiling, too, in the shadow of her parasol. 
 " You are very strange," she murmured. " I 
 don't think I approve of you." 
 
 " Ah, now, don't be severe, Miss Alden ! " 
 said Lord Lambeth, smiling still more. 
 a Please don't be severe. I want you to like 
 me awfully." 
 
258 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " To like you awfully ? You must not 
 laugh at me, then, when I make mistakes. 
 I consider it my right as a free-born 
 American to make as many mistakes as I 
 choose." 
 
 " Upon my word, I didn't laugh at you," 
 said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " And not only that," Bessie went on ; 
 " but I hold that all my mistakes shall be set 
 down to my credit. You must think the 
 better of me for them." 
 
 " I can't think better of you than I do," 
 the young man declared. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him a moment 
 again. " You certainly speak very well to 
 young ladies. But why don't you address 
 the House ? isn't that what they call 
 it?" 
 
 "Because I have nothing to say," said 
 Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Haven't you a great position ? " asked 
 Bessie Alden. 
 
 He looked a moment at the back of his 
 glove. " I'll set that down," he said, " as 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 259 
 
 one of your mistakes to your credit." 
 And, as if he disliked talking about his 
 position, he changed the subject. " I wish 
 you would let me go with you to the Tower, 
 and to Hampton Court, and to all those 
 other places." 
 
 " We shall be most happy, " said Bessie. 
 
 "And of course I shall be delighted to 
 show you the Houses of Parliament some 
 day that suits you. There are a lot of things 
 I want to do for you. I want you to have a 
 good time. And I should like very much 
 to present some of my friends to you, if it 
 wouldn't bore you. Then it would be 
 awfully kind of you to come down to 
 Branches." 
 
 " We are much obliged to you, Lord Lam- 
 beth," said Bessie. "What is Branches ? " 
 
 "It's a house in the country. 1 think you 
 might like it." 
 
 Willie Woodley and Mrs. Westgate, at 
 this moment, were sitting in silence, and the 
 young man's ear caught these last words of 
 Lord Lambeth's. "He's inviting Miss 
 
 S 2 
 
260 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Bessie to one of his castles/' he murmured 
 to his companion. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, foreseeing what she men- 
 tally called " complications," immediately 
 got up ; and the two ladies, taking leave 
 of Lord Lambeth, returned, under Mr 
 Woodley's conduct, to Jones's Hotel 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 261 
 
 V. 
 
 LORD LAMBETH came to see them on the 
 morrow, bringing Percy Beaumont with him 
 the latter having instantly declared his 
 intention of neglecting none of the usual 
 offices of civility. This declaration, however, 
 when his kinsman informed him of the 
 advent of their American friends, had been 
 preceded by another remark. 
 
 "Here they are, then, and you are in 
 for it." 
 
 " What am I in for ? " demanded Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 " I will let your mother give it a name. 
 With all respect to whom," added Percy 
 Beaumont, " I must decline on this occasion 
 to do any more police duty. Her Grace 
 must look after you herself." 
 
 "I will give her a chance," said her 
 
262 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Grace's son, a trifle grimly. "I shall make 
 her go and see them." 
 
 " She won't do it, my boy." 
 
 "We'll see if she doesn't," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 But if Percy Beaumont took a sombre 
 view of the arrival of the two ladies at Jones's 
 Hotel, he was sufficiently a man of the world 
 to offer them a smiling countenance. He 
 fell into animated conversation conversa- 
 tion, at least, that was animated on her side 
 with Mrs. Westgate, while his companion 
 made himself agreeable to the younger lady. 
 Mrs. Westgate began confessing and pro- 
 testing, declaring and expounding. 
 
 " I must say London is a great deal 
 brighter and prettier just now than it was 
 when I was here last in the month ot 
 November. There is evidently a great deal 
 going on, and you seem to have a good 
 many flowers. I have no doubt it is very 
 charming for all you people, and that you 
 amuse yourselves immensely. It is very 
 good of you to let Bessie and me come and 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 263 
 
 sit and look at you. I suppose you will 
 think I am very satirical, but I must 
 confess that that's the feeling I have in 
 London." 
 
 "I am afraid I don't quite understand 
 to what feeling you allude," said Percy 
 Beaumont. 
 
 " The feeling that it's all very well for you 
 English people. Everything is beautifully 
 arranged for you." 
 
 " It seems to me it is very well for some 
 Americans, sometimes," rejoined Beaumont. 
 
 " For some of them, yes if they like to 
 be patronised. But I must say I don't like 
 to be patronised. I may be very eccentric 
 and undisciplined and unreasonable ; but I 
 confess I never was fond of patronage. I 
 like to associate with people on the same 
 terms as I do in my own country ; that's a 
 peculiar taste that I have. But here people 
 seem to expect something else Heaven 
 knows what ! I am afraid you will think I 
 am very ungrateful, for I certainly have 
 received a great deal of attention. The last 
 
264 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 time I was here, a lady sent me a message 
 that I was at liberty to come and see 
 her." 
 
 "Dear me, I hope you didn't go," ob- 
 served Percy Beaumont. 
 
 " You are deliciously naif, I must say that 
 for you!" Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "It 
 must be a great advantage to you here in 
 London. I suppose that if I myself had a 
 little more naivete, I should enjoy it more. 
 I should be content to sit on a chair in the 
 Park, and see the people pass, and be told 
 that this is the Duchess of Suffolk, and that 
 is the Lord Chamberlain, and that I must 
 be thankful for the privilege of beholding 
 them. I daresay it is very wicked and 
 critical of me to ask for anything else. But 
 I was always critical, and I freely confess to 
 the sin of being fastidious. I am told there 
 is some remarkably superior second-rate 
 society provided here for strangers. Merci ! 
 I don't want any superior second-rate 
 society. I want the society that I have 
 been accustomed to. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 265 
 
 " I hope you don't call Lambeth and me 
 second-rate," Beaumont interposed. 
 
 "Oh, I am accustomed to you!" said 
 Mrs. Westgate. "Do you know that you 
 English sometimes make the most wonder- 
 ful speeches? The first time I came to 
 London, I went out to dine as I told you, 
 I have received a great deal of attention. 
 After dinner, in the drawing-room, I had 
 some conversation with an old lady; I 
 assure you I had. I forget what we talked 
 about ; but she presently said, in allusion to 
 something we were discussing, 'Oh, you 
 know, the aristocracy do so-and-so; but in 
 one's own class of life it is very different/ 
 In one's own class of life ! What is a poor 
 unprotected American woman to do in a 
 country where she is liable to have that sort 
 of thing said to her ? " 
 
 "You seem to get hold of some very 
 queer old ladies ; I compliment you on your 
 acquaintance ! " Percy Beaumont exclaimed. 
 "If you are trying to bring me to admit 
 that London is an odious place, you'll not 
 
2 66 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 succeed. I'm extremely fond of it, and I 
 think it the j oiliest place in the world." 
 
 " Pour vous autres. I never said the 
 contrary," Mrs. Westgate retorted. I make 
 use of this expression because both inter- 
 locutors had begun to raise their voices. 
 Percy Beaumont naturally did not like to 
 hear his country abused, and Mrs. Westgate, 
 no less naturally, did not like a stubborn 
 debater. 
 
 " Hallo ! " said Lord Lambeth ; " what are 
 they up to now ? " And he came away 
 from the window, where he had been standing 
 with Bessie Alden. 
 
 " I quite agree with a very clever country- 
 woman of mine," Mrs. Westgate continued, 
 with charming ardour, though with imperfect 
 relevancy. She smiled at the two gentlemen 
 fjr a moment with terrible brightness, as if 
 to toss at their feet upon their native heath 
 the gauntlet of defiance. " For me, there 
 are only two social positions worth speaking 
 of that of an American lady and that of 
 the Emperor of Russia." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 267 
 
 "And what do you do with the American 
 gentlemen ? " asked Lord Lambeth. 
 
 "She leaves them in America!" said 
 Percy Beaumont. 
 
 On the departure of their visitors, Bessie 
 Alden told her sister that Lord Lambeth 
 would come the next day, to go with them 
 to the Tower, and that he had kindly offered 
 to bring his " trap," and drive them thither. 
 Mrs. Westgate listened in silence to this 
 communication, and for some time after- 
 wards she said nothing. But at last, " If 
 you had not requested me the other day 
 not to mention it," she began, "there is 
 something I should venture to ask you." 
 Bessie frowned a little ; her dark blue eyes 
 were more dark than blue. But her sister 
 went on. "As it is, I will take the risk. 
 You are not in love with Lord Lambeth : I 
 believe it, perfectly. Very good. But is there, 
 by chance, any danger of your becoming so ? 
 It's a very simple question ; don't take offence, 
 I have a particular reason," said Mrs. West- 
 gate, " for wanting to know." 
 
268 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Bessie Alden for some moments said 
 nothing ; she only looked displeased. " No ; 
 there is no danger," she answered at last, 
 curtly. 
 
 "Then I should like to frighten them," 
 declared Mrs. Westgate, clasping her 
 jewelled hands. 
 
 " To frighten whom ? " 
 
 " All these people ; Lord Lambeth's family 
 and friends." 
 
 " How should you frighten them ? " asked 
 the young girl. 
 
 " It wouldn't be I it would be you. 
 It would frighten them to think that 
 you should absorb his lordship's young 
 affections." 
 
 Bessie Alden, with her clear eyes still 
 overshadowed by her dark brows, continued 
 to interrogate. " Why should that frighten 
 them?" 
 
 Mrs. Westgate poised her answer with a 
 smile before delivering it. "Because they 
 think you are not good enough. You 
 are a charming girl, beautiful and amiable, 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 269 
 
 intelligent and clever, and as bien-elevee as it 
 is possible to be; but you are not a fit 
 match for Lord Lambeth." 
 
 Bessie Alden was immensely disgusted. 
 "Where do you get such extraordinary 
 ideas ? " she asked. " You have said some 
 such strange things lately. My dear Kitty, 
 where do you collect them ? " 
 
 Kitty was evidently enamoured of her 
 idea. " Yes, it would put them on pins and 
 needles, and it wouldn't hurt you. Mr. 
 Beaumont is already most uneasy ; I could 
 soon see that." 
 
 The young girl meditated a moment. 
 " Do you mean that they spy upon him 
 that they interfere with him ? " 
 
 "I don't know what power they have to 
 interfere, but I know that a British mamma 
 may worry her son's life out." 
 
 It has been intimated that, as regards 
 certain disagreeable things, Bessie Alden had 
 a fund of scepticism. She abstained on the 
 present occasion from expressing disbelief, 
 for she wished not to irritate her sister. 
 
270 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 But she said to herself that Kitty had been 
 misinformed that this was a traveller's tale. 
 Though she was a girl of a lively imagina- 
 tion, there could in the nature of things be, 
 to her sense, no reality in the idea of her 
 belonging to a vulgar category. What 
 she said aloud was "I must say that 
 in that case I am very sorry for Lord 
 Lambeth." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, more and more exhilarated 
 by her scheme, was smiling at her again. 
 " If I could only believe it was safe ! " she 
 exclaimed. "When you begin to pity him, 
 I, on my side, am afraid." 
 
 " Afraid of what ? " 
 
 " Of your pitying him too much." 
 
 Bessie Alden turned away impatiently ; 
 but at the end of a minute she turned back. 
 "What if I should pity him too much?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate hereupon turned away, 
 but after a moment's reflection she also 
 faced her sister again. "It would come, 
 after all, to the same thing," she said. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 271 
 
 Lord Lambeth came the next day with 
 his trap, and the two ladies, attended by 
 Willie Woodley, placed themselves under 
 his guidance and were conveyed eastward, 
 through some of the duskier portions of the 
 metropolis, to the great turreted donjon 
 which overlooks the London shipping. 
 They all descended from their vehicle and 
 entered the famous enclosure; and they 
 secured the services of a venerable beefeater, 
 who, though there were many other claimants 
 for legendary information, made a fine 
 exclusive party of them and marched them 
 through courts and corridors, through 
 armouries and prisons. He delivered his 
 usual peripatetic discourse, and they stopped 
 and stared, and peeped and stooped, accord- 
 ing to the official admonitions. Bessie 
 Alden asked the old man in the crimson 
 doublet a great many questions ; she thought 
 it a most fascinating place. Lord Lambeth 
 was in high good-humour; he was 
 constantly laughing; he enjoyed what he 
 would have called the lark. Willie Woodley 
 
272 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 kept looking at the ceilings and tapping the 
 walls with the knuckle of a pearl-grey glove ; 
 and Mrs. Westgate, asking at frequent 
 intervals to be allowed to sit down and wait 
 till they came back, was as frequently 
 informed that they would never come back. 
 To a great many of Bessie's questions 
 chiefly on collateral points of English history 
 the ancient warder was naturally unable to 
 reply; whereupon she always appealed to 
 Lord Lambeth. But his lordship was very 
 ignorant. He declared that he knew nothing 
 about that sort of thing, and he seemed 
 greatly diverted at being treated as an 
 authority. 
 
 " You can't expect every one to know as 
 much as you," he said. 
 
 " I should expect you to know a great 
 deal more," declared Eessie Alden. 
 
 "Women always know more than men 
 about names and dates, and that sort of 
 thing," Lord Lambeth rejoined. "There 
 was Lady Jane Grey we have just been 
 hearing about, who went in for Latin 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 273 
 
 and Greek and all the learning of her 
 age." 
 
 " You have no right to be ignorant, at all 
 events," said Bessie. 
 
 " Why haven't I as good a right as any 
 one else ? " 
 
 "Because you have lived in the midst of 
 all these things." 
 
 " What things do you mean ? Axes and 
 blocks and thumbscrews : " 
 
 " All these historical things. You belong 
 to an historical family." 
 
 "Bessie is really too historical," said 
 Mrs. Westgate, catching a word of this 
 dialogue. 
 
 " Yes, you are too historical," said Lord 
 Lambeth, laughing, but thankful for a 
 formula. "Upon my honour, you are too 
 historical ! " 
 
 He went with the ladies a couple of days 
 later to Han.pton Court, Willie Woodley 
 being also of the party. The afternoon was 
 charming, the famous horse-chestnuts were 
 in blossom, and Lord Lambeth, who quite 
 
274 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 entered into the spirit of the cockney 
 excursionist, declared that it was a jolly old 
 place. Bessie Alden was in ecstasies ; .she 
 went about murmuring and exclaiming. 
 
 " It's too lovely," said the young girl, " it's 
 too enchanting ; it's too exactly what it 
 ought to be ! " 
 
 At Hampton Court the little flocks of 
 visitors are not provided with an official bell- 
 wether, but are left to browse at discretion 
 upon the local antiquities. It happened in 
 this manner that, in default of another in- 
 formant, Bessie Alden, who on doubtful 
 questions was able to suggest a great many 
 alternatives, found herself again applying for 
 intellectual assistance to Lord Lambeth. 
 But he again assured her that he was utterly 
 helpless in such matters that his education 
 had been sadly neglected. 
 
 "And I am sorry it makes you unhappy," 
 he added in a moment. 
 
 " You are very disappointing, Lord 
 Lambeth," she said. 
 
 " Ah, now, don't say that ! " he cried. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 275 
 
 "That's the worst thing you could possibly 
 say." 
 
 " No," she rejoined ; " it is not so bad as to 
 say that I had expected nothing of you." 
 
 " I don't know. Give me a notion of the 
 sort of thing you expected." 
 
 "Well," said Bessie Alden, "that you 
 would be more what I should like to be 
 what I should try to be in your place." 
 
 "Ah, my place!" exclaimed Lord 
 Lambeth ; " you are always talking about 
 my place." 
 
 The young girl looked at him ; he 
 thought she coloured a little ; and for a 
 moment she made no rejoinder. 
 
 "Does it strike you that I am always 
 talking about your place ? " she asked. 
 
 " I am sure you do it a great honour," he 
 said, fearing he had been uncivil. 
 
 " I have often thought about it," she went 
 on after a moment. " I have often thought 
 about your being an hereditary legislator. 
 An hereditary legislator ought to know a 
 
 great many things." 
 
 T 2 
 
276 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Not if he doesn't legislate." 
 
 " But you will legislate ; it's absurd your 
 saying you won't. You are very much 
 looked up to here I am assured of 
 that." 
 
 " I don't know that I ever noticed it." 
 
 "It is because you are used to it, then. 
 You ought to fill the place." 
 
 "How do you mean, to fill it?" asked 
 Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " You ought to be very clever and 
 brilliant, and to know almost everything." 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. 
 "Shall I tell you something?" he asked. 
 " A young man in my position, as you call 
 
 it " 
 
 " I didn't invent the term, " interposed 
 Bessie Alden. " I have seen it in a great 
 many books." 
 
 " Hang it, you are always at your books ! 
 A fellow in my position, then, does very 
 well, whatever he does. That's about what 
 I mean to say." 
 
 " Well, if your own people are content 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 277 
 
 with you," said Bessie Alden, laughing, "it 
 is not for me to complain. But I shall 
 always think that, properly, you should have 
 a great mind a great character." 
 
 " Ah, that's very theoretic ! ". Lord 
 Lambeth declared. " Depend upon it, that's 
 a Yankee prejudice." 
 
 " Happy the country," said Bessie Alden, 
 "where even people's prejudices are so ele- 
 vated!" 
 
 "Well, after all," observed Lord Lambeth, 
 " I don't know that I am such a fool as you 
 are trying to make me out." 
 
 " I said nothing so rude as that ; but I 
 must repeat that you are disappointing." 
 
 " My dear Miss Alden," exclaimed the 
 young man, " I am the best fellow in the 
 world!" 
 
 " Ah, if it were not for that ! " said Bessie 
 Alden, with a smile. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate had a good many more 
 friends in London than she pretended, and 
 before long she had renewed acquaintance 
 with most of them. Their hospitality was 
 
278 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 extreme, so that, one thing leading to another, 
 she began, as the phrase is, to go out. Bessie 
 Alden, in this way, saw something of what 
 she found it a great satisfaction to call to 
 herself English society. She went to balls 
 and danced, she went to dinners and talked, 
 she went to concerts and listened (at 
 concerts Bessie always listened), she went 
 to exhibitions and wondered. Her enjoy- 
 ment was keen and her curiosity insatiable, 
 and, grateful in general for all her oppor- 
 tunities, she especially prized the privilege of 
 meeting certain celebrated persons authors 
 and artists, philosophers and statesmen of 
 whose renown she had been a humble and 
 distant beholder, and who now, as a part 
 of the habitual furniture of London drawing- 
 rooms, struck her as stars fallen from the 
 firmament and become palpable revealing 
 also, sometimes, on contact, qualities not 
 to have been predicted of bodies sidereal. 
 Bessie, who knew so many of her contem- 
 poraries by reputation, had a good many 
 personal disappointments ; but, on the other 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 279 
 
 hand, she had innumerable satisfactions and 
 enthusiasms, and she communicated the 
 emotions of either class to a dear friend, of 
 her own sex, in Boston, with whom she was 
 in voluminous correspondence. Some of her 
 reflections, indeed, she attempted to impart 
 to Lord Lambeth, who came almost every 
 day to Jones's Hotel, and whom Mrs. 
 Westgate admitted to be really devoted. 
 Captain Littledale, it appeared, had gone 
 to India; and of several others of Mrs. 
 Westgate's ex-pensioners gentlemen who, 
 as she said, had made, in New York, a 
 club-house of her drawing-room no tidings 
 were to be obtained; but Lord Lambeth 
 was certainly attentive enough to make up 
 for the accidental absences, the short 
 memories, all the other irregularities, of 
 every one else. He drove them in the 
 Park, he took them to visit private col- 
 lections of pictures, and having a house of 
 his own, invited them to dinner. Mrs. 
 Westgate, following the fashion of many 
 of her compatriots, caused herself and her 
 
28o AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 sister to be presented at the English Court 
 by her diplomatic representative for it 
 was in this manner that she alluded to 
 the American Minister to England, inquiring 
 what on earth he was put there for, if not 
 to make the proper arrangements for one's 
 going to a Drawing Room. 
 
 Lord Lambeth declared that he hated 
 Drawing Rooms, but he participated in the 
 ceremony on the day on which the two 
 ladies at Jones's Hotel repaired to Bucking- 
 ham Palace in a remarkable coach which his 
 lordship had sent to fetch them. He had 
 on a gorgeous uniform, and Bessie Alden 
 was particularly struck with his appearance 
 especially when on her asking him, rather 
 foolishly as she felt, if he were a loyal 
 subject, he replied that he was a loyal sub- 
 ject to her. This declaration was empha- 
 sised by his dancing with her at a royal ball 
 to which the two ladies afterwards went, and 
 was not impaired by the fact that she 
 thought he danced very ill. He seemed to 
 her wonderfully kind ; she asked herself, 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 281 
 
 with growing vivacity, why he should be so 
 kind. It was his disposition that seemed 
 the natural answer. She had told her sister 
 that she liked him very much, and now that 
 she liked him more she wondered why. 
 She liked him for his disposition ; to this 
 question as well that seemed the natural 
 answer. When once the impressions of 
 London life began to crowd thickly upon 
 her she completely forgot her sister's warn- 
 ing about the cynicism of public opinion. 
 It had given her great pain at the moment ; 
 but there was no particular reason why she 
 should remember it ; it corresponded too 
 little with any sensible reality ; and it was 
 disagreeable to Bessie to remember disagree- 
 able things. So she was not haunted with 
 the sense of a vulgar imputation. She was 
 not in love with Lord Lambeth she assured 
 herself of that. It will immediately be 
 observed that when such assurances become 
 necessary the state of a young lady's affec- 
 tions is already ambiguous ; and indeed 
 Bessie Alden made no attempt to dissimulate 
 
282 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 to herself, of course a certain tenderness 
 that she felt for the young nobleman. She 
 said to herself that she liked the type to 
 which he belonged the simple, candid, 
 manly, healthy English temperament. She 
 spoke to herself of him as women speak of 
 young men they like alluded to his bravery 
 (which she had never in the least seen 
 tested), to his honesty and gentlemanliness ; 
 and was not silent upon the subject of his 
 good looks. She was perfectly conscious, 
 moreover, that she liked to think of his 
 more adventitious merits that her imagin- 
 ation was excited and gratified by the sight 
 of a handsome young man endowed with 
 such large opportunities opportunities she 
 hardly knew for what, but, as she supposed, 
 for doing great things for setting an 
 example, for exerting an influence, for con- 
 ferring happiness, for encouraging the arts. 
 She had a kind of ideal of conduct for a 
 young man who should find himself in this 
 magnificent position, and she tried to adapt 
 it to Lord Lambeth's deportment, as you 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 283 
 
 might attempt to fit a silhouette in cut 
 paper upon a shadow projected upon a wall. 
 But Bessie Alden's silhouette refused to coin- 
 cide with his lordship's image ; and this 
 want of harmony sometimes vexed her more 
 than she thought reasonable. When he was 
 absent it was of course less striking then 
 he seemed to her a sufficiently graceful 
 combination of high responsibilities and 
 amiable qualities. But when he sat there 
 within sight, laughing and talking with his 
 customary good humour and simplicity, she 
 measured it more accurately, and she felt 
 acutely that if Lord Lambeth's position was 
 heroic, there was but little of the hero in the 
 young man himself. Then her imagination 
 wandered away from him very far away; 
 for it was an incontestable fact that at such 
 moments he seemed distinctly dull. I am 
 afraid that while Bessie's imagination was 
 thus invidiously roaming, she cannot have 
 been herself a very lively companion ; but it 
 may well have been that these occasional fits 
 of indifference seemed to Lord Lambeth a 
 
284 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 part of the young girl's personal charm. It 
 had been a part of this charm from the first 
 that he felt that she judged him and 
 measured him more freely and irresponsibly 
 more at her ease and her leisure, as it were 
 than several young ladies with whom he 
 had been on the whole about as intimate. 
 To feel this, and yet to feel that she also 
 liked him, was very agreeable to Lord 
 Lambeth. He fancied he had compassed 
 that gratification so desirable to young men 
 of title and fortune being liked for himself. 
 It is true that a cynical counsellor might 
 have whispered to him, " Liked for yourself ? 
 Yes; but not so very much!" He had, at 
 any rate, the constant hope of being liked 
 more. 
 
 It may seem, perhaps, a trifle singular 
 but it is nevertheless true that Bessie 
 Alden, when he struck her as dull, devoted 
 some time, on grounds of conscience, to 
 trying to like him more. I say on grounds 
 of conscience, because she felt that he had 
 been extremely "nice" to her sister, and 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 285 
 
 because she reflected that it was no more 
 than fair that she should think as well of 
 him as he thought of her. This effort was 
 possibly sometimes not so successful as it 
 might have been, for the result of it was 
 occasionally a vague irritation, which ex- 
 pressed itself in hostile criticism of several 
 British institutions. Bessie Alden went to 
 some entertainments at which she met Lord 
 Lambeth ; but she went to others at which 
 his lordship was neither actually nor potenti- 
 ally present ; and it was chiefly on these 
 latter occasions that she encountered those 
 literary and artistic celebrities of whom 
 mention has been made. After a while she 
 reduced the matter to a principle. If Lord 
 Lambeth should appear anywhere, it was a 
 symbol that there would be no poets and 
 philosophers ; and in consequence for it 
 was almost a strict consequence she used to 
 enumerate to the young man these objects 
 of her admiration. 
 
 "You seem to be awfully fond of that 
 sort of people," said Lord Lambeth one 
 
286 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 day, as if the idea had just occurred to 
 him. 
 
 "They are the people in England I 
 am most curious to see/' Bessie Alden 
 replied. 
 
 "I suppose that's because you have read 
 so much," said Lord Lambeth, gallantly. 
 
 " I have not read so much. It is because 
 we think so much of them at home." 
 
 " Oh, I see ! " observed the young 
 nobleman. " In Boston." 
 
 " Not only in Boston ; everywhere," said 
 Bessie. "We hold them in great honour; 
 they go to the best dinner-parties." 
 
 " I dare say you are right. I can't say I 
 know many of them." 
 
 "It's a pity you don't," Bessie Alden 
 declared. " It would do you good." 
 
 " I dare say it would," said Lord Lambeth, 
 very humbly " But I must say I don't like 
 the looks of some of them." 
 
 " Neither do I of some of them. But 
 there are all kinds, and many of them are 
 charming." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 287 
 
 " I have talked with two or three of them," 
 the young man went on, "and I thought 
 they had a kind of fawning manner." 
 
 " Why should they fawn ? " Bessie Alden 
 demanded. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know. Why, indeed ? " 
 
 "Perhaps you only thought so," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 "Well, of course," rejoined her com- 
 panion, " that's a kind of thing that can't be 
 proved." 
 
 "In America they don't fawn," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 " Ah ! well, then, they must be better 
 company." 
 
 Bessie was silent a moment. "That is 
 one of the things I don't like about 
 England," she said ; " your keeping the 
 distinguished people apart." 
 
 " How do you mean, apart ? " 
 
 " Why, letting them come only to certain 
 places. You never see them." 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at her a moment. 
 " What people do you mean ? " 
 
288 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 "The eminent people the authors and 
 artists the clever people." 
 
 "Oh, there are other eminent people be- 
 sides those ! " said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " Well, you certainly keep them apart," 
 repeated the young girl. 
 
 "And there are other clever people," 
 added Lord Lambeth, simply. 
 
 Bessie Alden looked at him, and she 
 gave a light laugh. "Not many," she 
 said. 
 
 On another occasion just after a dinner- 
 party she told him that there was some- 
 thing else in England she did not like. 
 
 "Oh, I say!" he cried; "haven't you 
 abused us enough r " 
 
 " I have never abused you at all," said 
 Bessie ; " but I don't like your precedence?' 
 
 " It isn't my precedence ! " Lord Lambeth 
 declared, laughing. 
 
 "Yes, it is yours -just exactly yours; and 
 I think it's odious," said Bessie. 
 
 "I never saw such a young lady for 
 discussing things ! Has some one had the 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 289 
 
 impudence to go before you ? " asked his 
 lordship. 
 
 " It is not the going before me that I 
 object to," said Bessie ; " it is their thinking 
 that they have a right to do it a right 
 that I should recognise." 
 
 " I never saw such a young lady as you 
 are for not 'recognising/ I have no doubt 
 the thing is beastly, but it saves a lot of 
 trouble." 
 
 " It makes a lot of trouble. It's horrid ! " 
 said Bessie. 
 
 " But how would you have the first people 
 go?" asked Lord Lambeth. "They can't 
 go last." 
 
 "Whom do you mean by the first 
 people ? " 
 
 "Ah, if you mean to question first 
 principles ! " said Lord Lambeth. 
 
 " If those are your first principles, no 
 wonder some of your arrangements are 
 horrid," observed Bessie Alden, with a very 
 pretty ferocity. " I am a young girl, so of 
 course I go last ; but imagine what Kitty 
 
290 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 must feel on being informed that she is not 
 at liberty to budge until certain other ladies 
 have passed out ! " 
 
 "Oh, I say, she is not 'informed'!" 
 cried Lord Lambeth. "No one would do 
 such a thing as that." 
 
 c She is made to feel it," the young girl 
 insisted " as if they were afraid she would 
 make a rush for the door. No, you have a 
 lovely country," said Bessie Alden, "but 
 your precedence is horrid." 
 
 "I certainly shouldn't think your sister 
 would like it," rejoined Lord Lambeth, with 
 even exaggerated gravity. But Bessie Alden 
 could induce him to enter no formal protest 
 against this repulsive custom, which he 
 seemed to think an extreme convenience. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 291 
 
 VI. 
 
 PERCY BEAUMONT all this time had been a 
 very much less frequent visitor at Jones's 
 Hotel than his noble kinsman ; he had in 
 fact called but twice upon the two American 
 ladies. Lord Lambeth, who often saw him, 
 reproached him with his neglect, and 
 declared that although Mrs. Westgate had 
 said nothing about it, he was sure that 
 she was secretly wounded by it. "She 
 suffers too much to speak," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 " That's all gammon," said Percy 
 Beaumont ; " there's a limit to what people 
 can suffer ! " And, though sending no 
 apologies to Jones's Hotel, he undertook in 
 a manner to explain his absence. " You are 
 always there," he said; "and that's reason 
 
 enough for my not going." 
 
 u 2 
 
292 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " I don't see why. There is enough for 
 both of us." 
 
 " I don't care to be a witness of your 
 your reckless passion," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 Lord Lambeth looked at him with a cold 
 eye, and for a moment said nothing. " It's 
 not so obvious as you might suppose," he 
 rejoined, dryly, " considering what a demon- 
 strative beggar I am." 
 
 "I don't want to 'know anything about 
 it nothing whatever," said Beaumont. 
 " Your mother asks me every time she sees 
 me whether I believe you are really lost 
 and Lady Pimlico does the .same. I prefer 
 to be able to answer that I know nothing 
 about it that I never go there. I stay 
 away for consistency's sake. As I said the 
 other day, they must look after you them- 
 selves." 
 
 " You are devilish considerate," said Lord 
 Lambeth. "They never question me." 
 
 "They are afraid of you. They are 
 afraid of irritating you and making you 
 worse. So they go to work very cautiously, 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 293 
 
 and, somewhere or other, they get their 
 information. They know a great deal 
 about you. They know that you have 
 been with those ladies to the dome of St. 
 Paul's and where was the other place ? to 
 the Thames Tunnel." 
 
 "If all their knowledge is as accurate as 
 that, it must be very valuable," said Lord 
 Lambeth. 
 
 " Well, at any rate, they know that you 
 have been visiting the 'sights of the 
 metropolis.' They think very naturally, 
 as it seems to me that when you take to 
 visiting the sights of the metropolis with a 
 little American girl, there is serious cause for 
 alarm." Lord Lambeth responded to this 
 intimation by scornful laughter, and his 
 companion continued, after a pause : " I said 
 just now I didn't want to know anything 
 about the affair ; but I will confess that I 
 am curious to learn whether you propose to 
 marry Miss Bessie Alden." 
 
 On this point Lord Lambeth gave his 
 interlocutor no immediate satisfaction ; he 
 
294 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 was musing, with a frown. " By Jove," he 
 said, "they go rather too far. They shall 
 find me dangerous I promise them." 
 
 Percy Beaumont began to laugh. "You 
 don't redeem your promises. You said the 
 other day you would make your mother 
 call." 
 
 Lord Lambeth continued to meditate. 
 "I asked her to call," he said, simply. 
 
 " And she declined ? " 
 
 " Yes, but she shall do it yet." 
 
 " Upon my word," said Percy Beaumont, 
 "if she gets much more frightened I believe 
 she will." Lord Lambeth looked at him, 
 and he went on. " She will go to the girl 
 herself." 
 
 "How do you mean, she will go to 
 her?" 
 
 " She will beg her off, or she will bribe 
 her. She will take strong measures." 
 
 Lord Lambeth turned away in silence, 
 and his companion watched him take twenty 
 steps and then slowly return. " I have 
 invited Mrs. Westgate and Miss Alden to 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 295 
 
 Branches/' he said, " and this evening I shall 
 name a day." 
 
 " And shall you invite your mother and 
 your sisters to meet them ? " 
 
 " Explicitly ! " 
 
 "That will set the Duchess off;' said 
 Percy Beaumont. " I suspect she will 
 come." 
 
 " She may do as she pleases." 
 
 Beaumont looked at Lord Lambeth. 
 " You do really propose to marry the little 
 sister, then ? " 
 
 " I like the way you talk about it ! " cried 
 the young man. " She won't gobble me 
 down ; don't be afraid." 
 
 "She won't leave you on your knees," 
 said Percy Beaumont. " What is the 
 inducement ? " 
 
 " You talk about proposing wait till I 
 have proposed," Lord Lambeth went on. 
 
 " That's right, my dear Bellow ; think 
 about it," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 "She's a charming .girl," pursued his 
 lordship. 
 
296 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Of course she's a charming girl. I don't 
 know a girl more charming, intrinsically. 
 But there are other charming girls nearer 
 home." 
 
 " I like her spirit," observed Lord Lam- 
 beth, almost as if he were trying to torment 
 his cousin. 
 
 " What's the peculiarity of her spirit ? " 
 
 " She's not afraid, and she says things out, 
 and she thinks herself as good as any one. 
 She is the only girl I have ever seen that was 
 not dying to marry me." 
 
 " How do you know that, if you haven't 
 asked her?" 
 
 " I don't know how ; but I know it." 
 
 " I am sure she asked me questions 
 enough about your property and your titles," 
 said Beaumont. 
 
 " She has asked me questions, too ; no 
 end of them," Lord Lambeth admitted. 
 " But she asked for information, don't you 
 know." 
 
 " Information ? Ay, I'll warrant she wanted 
 it. Depend upon it that she is dying to 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 297 
 
 marry you just as much and just as little as 
 all the rest of them." 
 
 "I shouldn't like her to refuse me I 
 shouldn't like that." 
 
 " If the thing would be so disagreeable, 
 then, both to you and to her, in Heaven's 
 name leave it alone," said Percy Beaumont. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, on her side, had plenty to 
 say to her sister about the rarity of Mr. 
 Beaumont's visits and the non-appearance of 
 the Duchess of Bayswater. She professed, 
 however, to derive more satisfaction from 
 this latter circumstance than she could have 
 done from the most lavish attentions on the 
 part of this great lady. " It is most marked," 
 she said, " most marked. It is a delicious 
 proof that we have made them miserable. 
 The day we dined with Lord Lambeth I. was 
 really sorry for the poor fellow." It will 
 have been gathered that the entertainment 
 offered by Lord Lambeth to his American 
 friends had not been graced by the presence 
 of his anxious mother. He had invited 
 several choice spirits to meet them ; but the 
 
298 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 ladies of his immediate family were to Mrs. 
 Westgate's sense a sense, possibly, morbidly 
 acute conspicuous by their absence. 
 
 "I don't want to express myself in a 
 manner that you dislike," said Bessie Alden ; 
 " but I don't know why you should have so 
 many theories about Lord Lambeth's poor 
 mother. You know a great many young 
 men in New York without knowing their 
 mothers." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate looked at her sister, and 
 then turned away. " My dear Bessie, you 
 are superb ! " she said. 
 
 " One thing is certain," the young girl 
 continued. " If I believed I were a cause 
 of annoyance however unwitting to Lord 
 Lambeth's family, I should insist " 
 
 " Insist upon my leaving England," said 
 Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "No, not that. I want to go to the 
 National Gallery again ; I want to see 
 Stratford-on-Avon and Canterbury Cathe- 
 dral. But I should insist upon his coming 
 to see us no more." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 299 
 
 "That would be very modest and very 
 pretty of you but you wouldn't do it now." 
 
 " Why do you say ' now ' ? " asked 
 Bessie Alden. "Have I ceased to be 
 modest ? " 
 
 "You care for him too much. A month 
 ago, when you said you didn't, I believe it 
 was quite true. But at present, my dear 
 child,'' said Mrs. Westgate, "you wouldn't 
 find it quite so simple a matter never to 
 see Lord Lambeth again. I have seen it 
 coming on." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Bessie. "You 
 don't understand." 
 
 "My dear child, don't be perverse," 
 rejoined her sister. 
 
 " I know him better, certainly, if you 
 mean that," said Bessie. "And I like him 
 very much. But I don't like him enough 
 to make trouble for him with his family. 
 However, I don't believe in that." 
 
 " I like the way you say however ! ' J 
 Mrs. Westgate exclaimed. "Come, you 
 would not marry him ? " 
 
300 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Oh no," said the young girl. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate, for a moment, seemed 
 vexed. " Why not, pray ? " she de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Because I don't care to," said Bessie 
 Alden, 
 
 The morning after Lord Lambeth had 
 had, with Percy Beaumont, that exchange 
 of ideas which has just been narrated, the 
 ladies 'at Jones's Hotel received from his 
 lordship a written invitation to pay their 
 projected visit to Branches Castle on the 
 following Tuesday. " I think I have made 
 up a very pleasant party," the young noble- 
 man said. " Several people whom you 
 know, and my mother and sisters, who have 
 so long been regrettably prevented from 
 making your acquaintance." Bessie Alden 
 lost no time in calling her sister's attention 
 to the injustice she had done the Duchess 
 of Bayswater, whose hostility was now 
 proved to be a vain illusion. 
 
 "Wait till you see if she comes," said 
 Mrs. Westgate. "And if she is to meet 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 301 
 
 us at her son's house the obligation 
 was all the greater for her to call upon 
 
 us." 
 
 Bessie had not to wait long, and it 
 appeared that Lord Lambeth's mother now 
 accepted Mrs. Westgate's view of her duties. 
 On the morrow, early in the afternoon, two 
 cards were brought to the apartment of the 
 American ladies one of them bearing the 
 name of the Duchess of Bayswater and 
 the other that of the Countess of Pimlico. 
 Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. " It 
 is not yet four," she said ; " they have 
 come early ; they wish to see us. We will 
 receive them." And she gave orders that 
 her visitors should be admitted. A few 
 moments later they were introduced, and 
 there was a solemn exchange of amenities. 
 The Duchess was a large lady, with a fine 
 fresh colour ; the Countess of Pimlico was 
 very pretty and elegant. 
 
 The Duchess looked about her as she 
 sat down looked not especially at Mrs. 
 Westgate. " I dare say my son has told 
 
302 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 you that I have been wanting to come and 
 see you," she observed. 
 
 "You are very kind/' said Mrs. West- 
 gate, vaguely her conscience not allowing 
 her to assent to this proposition and 
 indeed not permitting her to enunciate her 
 own with any appreciable emphasis. 
 
 " He says you were so kind to him in 
 America," said the Duchess. 
 
 "We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate 
 replied, "to have been able to make him 
 a little more a little less a little more 
 comfortable." 
 
 " I think he stayed at your house," 
 remarked the Duchess of Bayswater, looking 
 at Bessie Alden. 
 
 " A very short time," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " Oh ! " said the Duchess ; and she con- 
 tinued to look at Bessie, who was engaged 
 in conversation with her daughter. 
 
 " Do you like London ? " Lady Pimlico 
 had asked of Bessie, after looking at her a 
 good deal at her face and her hands, her 
 dress and her hair. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 303 
 
 " Very much indeed," said Bessie. 
 
 " Do you like this hotel?" 
 
 " It is very comfortable," said Bessie. 
 
 " Do you like stopping at hotels ? " 
 inquired Lady Pimlico, after a pause. 
 
 " I am very fond of travelling," Bessie 
 answered, " and I suppose hotels are a 
 necessary part of it. But they are not the 
 part I am fondest of." 
 
 "Oh, I hate travelling!" said the 
 Countess of Pimlico, and transferred her 
 attention to Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 "My son tells me you are going to 
 Branches," the Duchess presently resumed. 
 
 "Lord Lambeth has been so good as 
 to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate, who per- 
 ceived that her visitor had now begun to 
 look at her, and who had her customary 
 happy consciousness of a distinguished 
 appearance. The only mitigation of her 
 felicity on this point was that, having 
 inspected her visitor's own costume, she said 
 to herself, " She won't know how well I 
 am dressed ! " 
 
304 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " He has asked me to go, but I am 
 not sure I shall be able," murmured the 
 Duchess. 
 
 " He had offered us the p the pros- 
 pect of meeting you," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I hate the country at this season," 
 responded the Duchess. 
 
 Mrs. Westgate gave a little shrug. "I 
 think it is pleasanter than London." 
 
 But the Duchess's eyes were absent again ; 
 she was looking very fixedly at Bessie. In a 
 moment she slowly rose, walked to a chair 
 that stood empty at the young girl's right 
 hand, and silently seated herself. As she 
 was a majestic, voluminous woman, this 
 little transaction had, inevitably, an air of 
 somewhat impressive intention. It diffused 
 a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, 
 as a sympathetic daughter, perhaps desired 
 to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I dare say you go out a great deal/' she 
 observed. 
 
 "No, very little. We are strangers, and 
 we didn't come here for society." 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 305 
 
 " I see," said Lady Pimlico. " It's rather 
 nice in town just now." 
 
 " It's charming," said Mrs. Westgate. 
 " But we only go to see a few people 
 whom we like." 
 
 "Of course one can't like every one," 
 said Lady Pimlico. 
 
 " It depends upon one's society," Mrs. 
 Westgate rejoined. 
 
 The Duchess, meanwhile, had addressed 
 herself to Bessie. " My son tells me the 
 young ladies in America are so clever." 
 
 " I am glad they made so good an 
 impression on him," said Bessie, smiling. 
 
 The Duchess was not smiling ; her 
 large fresh face was very tranquil. " He 
 is very susceptible," she said. "He thinks 
 every one clever, and sometimes they 
 are." 
 
 " Sometimes," Bessie assented, smiling 
 still. 
 
 The Duchess looked at her a little 
 and then went on " Lambeth is very sus- 
 ceptible, but he is very volatile, too." 
 
3o6 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 " Volatile ? " asked Bessie. 
 
 " He is very inconstant. It won't do to 
 depend on him." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Bessie ; " I don't recognise 
 that description. We have depended on 
 him greatly my sister and I and he has 
 never disappointed us." 
 
 " He will disappoint you yet/' said the t 
 Duchess. 
 
 Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were 
 amused at the Duchess's persistency. "I 
 suppose it will depend on what we expect 
 of him." 
 
 "The less you expect the better," Lord 
 Lambeth's mother declared. 
 
 " Well," said Bessie, " we expect nothing 
 unreasonable." 
 
 The Duchess, for a moment, was silent, 
 though she appeared to have more to say. 
 " Lambeth says he has seen so much of 
 you," she presently began. 
 
 " He has been to see us very often he 
 has been very kind," said Bessie Alden. 
 
 " I dare say you are used to that. I 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 307 
 
 am told there is a great deal of that in 
 America." 
 
 " A great deal of kindness ? " the young 
 girl inquired, smiling. 
 
 "Is that what you call it ? I know you 
 have different expressions." 
 
 "We certainly don't always understand 
 each other," said Mrs. Westgate, the 
 termination of whose interview with Lady 
 Pimlico allowed her to give her attention 
 to their elder visitor. 
 
 "I am speaking of the young men 
 calling so much upon the young ladies," 
 the Duchess explained. 
 
 "But surely in England," said Mrs. 
 Westgate, " the young ladies don't call 
 upon the young men ? " 
 
 " Some of them do almost ! " Lady 
 Pimlico declared. " When the young men 
 are a great parti" 
 
 " Bessie, you must make a note of that," 
 said Mrs. Westgate. "My sister," she 
 added, "is a model traveller. She writes 
 
 down all the curious facts she hears, 
 
 x 2 
 
308 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 in a little book she keeps for the pur- 
 pose." 
 
 The Duchess was a little flushed; she 
 looked all about the room, while her 
 daughter turned to Bessie. "My brother 
 told us you were wonderfully clever/' said 
 Lady Pimlico. 
 
 "He should have said my sister," Bessie 
 answered "when she says such things as 
 that." 
 
 " Shall you be long at Branches ? " the 
 Duchess asked, abruptly, of the young 
 girl. 
 
 " Lord Lambeth has asked us for three 
 days/' said Bessie. 
 
 " I shall go," the Duchess declared, " and 
 my daughter too." 
 
 "That will be charming ! " Bessie rejoined. 
 
 " Delightful ! " murmured Mrs. Westgate. 
 
 " I shall expect to see a deal of you," 
 the Duchess continued. "When I go to 
 Branches I monopolise my son's guests." 
 
 "They must be most happy," said Mrs. 
 Westgate, very graciously. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 309 
 
 " I want immensely to see it to see the 
 Castle," said Bessie to the Duchess. " I 
 have never seen one in England at least ; 
 and you know we have none in America." 
 
 " Ah ! you are fond of castles ? " inquired 
 her Grace. 
 
 " Immensely ! " replied the young girl. 
 " It has been the dream of my life to live 
 
 in one." 
 
 The Duchess looked at her a moment, 
 as if she hardly knew how to take this 
 assurance, which, from her Grace's point 
 of view, was either very artless or very 
 audacious. " Well," she said, rising, " I 
 will show you Branches myself." And 
 upon this the two great ladies took their 
 departure. 
 
 "What did they mean by it?" asked 
 Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone. 
 
 "They meant to be polite," said Bessie, 
 " because we are going to meet them." 
 
 "It is too late to be polite," Mrs. 
 Westgate replied, almost grimly. "They 
 meant to overawe us by their fine manners 
 
3io AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 and their grandeur, and to make you Idcher 
 prise" 
 
 " Lacker prise f What strange things 
 you say ! " murmured Bessie Alden. 
 
 "They meant to snub us, so that we 
 shouldn't dare to go to Branches/' Mrs. 
 Westgate continued. 
 
 " On the contrary," said Bessie, " the 
 Duchess offered to show me the place 
 herself." 
 
 " Yes, you may depend upon it she won't 
 let you out of her sight. She will show you 
 the place from morning till night." 
 
 " You have a theory for everything," said 
 Bessie. 
 
 "And you apparently have none for 
 anything." 
 
 " I saw no attempt to ' overawe ' us," said 
 the young girl. "Their manners were not 
 fine." 
 
 " They were not even good ! " Mrs. 
 Westgate declared. 
 
 Bessie was silent awhile, but in a few 
 moments she observed that she had a very 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 311 
 
 good theory. " They came to look at me ! " 
 she said, as if this had been a very ingenious 
 hypothesis. Mrs. Westgate did it justice ; 
 she greeted it with a smile and pronounced 
 it most brilliant ; while in reality she felt that 
 the young girl's scepticism, or her charity, 
 or, as she had sometimes called it, appropri- 
 ately, her idealism, was proof against irony. 
 Bessie, however, remained meditative all the 
 rest of that day and well on into the 
 morrow. 
 
 On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. West- 
 gate had occasion to go out for an hour, and 
 left her sister writing a letter. When she 
 came back she met Lord Lambeth at the 
 door of the hotel, coming away. She 
 thought he looked slightly embarrassed ; he 
 was certainly very grave. " I am sorry to 
 have missed you. Won't you come back ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 "No," said the young man, "I can't. I 
 have seen your sister. I can never come 
 back." Then he looked at her a moment, 
 and took her hand. " Good-bye, Mrs. 
 
312 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 Westgate," he said. "You have been very 
 kind to me." And with what she thought a 
 strange, sad look in his handsome young 
 face, he turned away. 
 
 She went in and she found Bessie still 
 writing her letter ; that is, Mrs. Westgate 
 perceived she was sitting at the table with 
 the pen in her hand and not writing. 
 "Lord Lambeth has been here," said the 
 elder lady at last. 
 
 Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, 
 serious face. She bent this face upon her sister 
 for some time, confessing silently and, a little, 
 pleading. " I told him," she said at last, 
 u that we could not go to Branches." 
 
 Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of 
 irritation. "He might have waited," she 
 said with a smile, "till one had seen the 
 Castle." Later, an hour afterwards, she said, 
 "Dear Bessie, I wish you might have 
 accepted him." 
 
 " I couldn't," said Bessie, gently. 
 
 " He is a dear good fellow," said Mrs. 
 Westgate. 
 
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 3*3 
 
 " I couldn't," Bessie repeated. 
 
 " If it is only," her sister added, " because 
 those women will think that they succeeded 
 that they paralysed us ! " 
 
 Bessie Alden turned away ; but presently 
 she added, " They were interesting ; I should 
 have liked to see them again." 
 
 "So should I!" cried Mrs. Westgate, 
 significantly. 
 
 "And I should have liked to see the 
 Castle," said Bessie. "But now we must 
 leave England," she added. 
 
 Her sister looked at her. "You will 
 not wait to go to the National Gallery ? " 
 
 "Not now." 
 
 " Nor to Canterbury Cathedral ? " 
 
 Bessie reflected a moment. "We can 
 stop there on our way to Paris," she 
 said. 
 
 Lord Lambeth did not tell Percy Beau- 
 mont that the contingency he was not 
 prep, red at all to like had occurred; but 
 Percy Beaumont, on hearing that the two 
 ladies had left London, wondered with some 
 
314 AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 
 
 intensity what had happened ; wondered, 
 that is, until the Duchess of Bayswater came, 
 a little, to his assistance. The two ladies 
 went to Paris, and Mrs. Westgate beguiled 
 the journey to that city by repeating several 
 times, "That's what I regret; they will 
 think they petrified us." But Bessie Alden 
 seemed to regret nothing. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 I SAW her only four times, but I remember 
 them vividly ; she made an impression upon 
 me. I thought her very pretty and very 
 interesting a charming specimen of a type. 
 I am very sorry to hear of her death ; and 
 yet, when I think of it, why should I be 
 sorry ? The last time I saw her she was 
 
 certainly not But I will describe all 
 
 our meetings in order. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE first one took place in the country, 
 at a little tea-party, one snowy night. It 
 must have been some seventeen years ago. 
 My friend Latouche, going to spend 
 Christmas with his mother, had persuaded 
 me to go with him, and the good lady 
 had given in our honour the entertainment 
 of which I speak. To me it was really 
 
3i8 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 entertaining ; I had never been in the 
 depths of New England at that season. It 
 had been snowing all day and the drifts 
 were knee-high. I wondered how the ladies 
 had made their way to the house ; but I per- 
 ceived that at Grimwinter a conversazione 
 offering the attraction of two gentlemen 
 from New York was felt to be worth an 
 effort. 
 
 Mrs. Latouche in the course of the 
 evening asked me if I " didn't want to " 
 show the photographs to some of the young 
 ladies. The photographs were in a couple 
 of great portfolios, and had been brought 
 home by her son, who, like myself, was 
 lately returned from Europe. I looked 
 round and was struck with the fact that 
 most of the young ladies were provided 
 with an object of interest more absorbing 
 than the most vivid sun-picture. But there 
 was a person standing alone near the 
 mantel-shelf, and looking round the room 
 with a small, gentle smile which seemed 
 at odds, somehow, with her isolation. I 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 319 
 
 looked at her a moment, and then said, " I 
 should like to show them to that young 
 lady." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Mrs. Latouche, " she 
 is just the person. She doesn't care for 
 flirting ; I will speak to her/' 
 
 I rejoined that if she did not care for 
 flirting, she was, perhaps, not just the 
 person ; but Mrs. Latouche had already 
 gone to propose the photographs to her. 
 
 " She's delighted," she said, coming back. 
 " She is just the person, so quiet and so 
 bright." And then she told me the young 
 lady was, by name, Miss Caroline Spencer, 
 and with this she introduced me. 
 
 Miss Caroline Spencer was not exactly 
 a beauty, but she was a charming little 
 figure. She must have been close upon 
 thirty, but she was made almost like a little 
 girl, and she had the complexion of a child. 
 She had a very pretty head, and her hair 
 was arranged as nearly as possible like the 
 hair of a Greek bust, though indeed it was 
 to be doubted if she had ever seen a Greek 
 
320 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 bust. She was " artistic/' I suspected, so far 
 as Grimwinter allowed such tendencies. She 
 had a soft, surprised eye, and thin lips, with 
 very pretty teeth. Round her neck she 
 wore what ladies call, I believe, a 
 " ruche," fastened with a very small pin in 
 pink coral, and in her hand she carried a 
 fan made of plaited straw and adorned with 
 pink ribbon. She wore a scanty black silk 
 dress. She spoke with a kind of soft pre- 
 cision, showing her white teeth between her 
 narrow but tender-looking lips, and she 
 seemed extremely pleased, even a little flut- 
 tered, at the prospect of my demonstrations. 
 These went forward very smoothly, after I 
 had moved the portfolios out of their corner 
 and placed a couple of chairs near a lamp. 
 The photographs were usually things I knew, 
 large views of Switzerland, Italy, and 
 Spain, landscapes, copies of famous build- 
 ings, pictures and statues. I said what I 
 could about them, and my companion, 
 looking at them as I held them up, sat 
 perfectly still, with her straw fan raised to 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 321 
 
 her under-lip. Occasionally, as I laid one 
 of the pictures down, she said very softly, 
 " Have you seen that place ? " I usually 
 answered that I had seen it several times 
 (I had been a great traveller), and then I 
 felt that she looked at me askance for a 
 moment with her pretty eyes. I had asked 
 her at the outset whether she had been to 
 Europe ; to this she answered, " No, no, 
 no," in a little quick, confidential whisper. 
 But after that, though she never took her 
 eyes off the pictures, she said so little that 
 I was afraid she was bored. Accordingly, 
 after we had finished one portfolio, I offered, 
 if she 'esired it, to desist. I felt that she 
 was not bored, but her reticence puzzled me 
 and I wished to make her speak. I turned 
 round to look at her, and saw that there 
 was a faint flush in each of her cheeks. She 
 was waving her little fan to and fro. 
 Instead of looking at me she fixed her eyes 
 upon the other portfolio, which was leaning 
 against the table. 
 
 " Won't you show me that ? " she asked, 
 
322 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 with a little tremor in her voice. I could 
 almost have believed she was agitated. 
 
 "With pleasure," I answered, "if you are 
 not tired." 
 
 " No, I am not tired," she affirmed. " I 
 like it I love it." 
 
 And as I took up the other portfolio 
 she laid her hand upon it, rubbing it 
 softly. 
 
 " And have you been here too ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 On my opening the portfolio it appeared 
 that I had been there. One of the first 
 photographs was a large view of the Castle 
 of Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva. 
 
 " Here," I said, " I have been many a 
 time. Is it not beautiful?" And I pointed 
 to the perfect reflection of the rugged rocks 
 and pointed towers in the clear, still water. 
 She did not say, " Oh, enchanting ! " and 
 push it away to see the next picture. She 
 looked awhile, and then she asked if it was 
 not where Bonivard, about whom Byron 
 wrote, was confined. I assented, and tried to 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 323 
 
 quote some of Byron's verses, but in this 
 attempt I succeeded imperfectly. 
 
 She fanned herself a moment and then 
 repeated the lines correctly, in a soft, 
 flat, and yet agreeable voice. By the time 
 she had finished, she was blushing. I 
 complimented her and told her she was 
 perfectly equipped for visiting Switzerland 
 and Italy. She looked at me askance 
 again, to see whether I was serious, and 
 I added, that if she wished to recognise 
 Byron's descriptions she must go abroad 
 speedily ; Europe was getting sadly dis- 
 Byronised. 
 
 " How soon must I go ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, I will give you ten years." 
 
 " I think I can go within ten years," she 
 answered very soberly. 
 
 "Well," I said, " you will enjoy it im- 
 mensely; you will find it very charming." 
 And just then I came upon a photograph of 
 some nook in a foreign city which I had 
 been very fond of, and which recalled tender 
 memories. I discoursed (as I suppose) 
 
324 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 with a certain eloquence ; my companion 
 sat listening, breathless. 
 
 "Have you been very long in foreign 
 lands ? " she asked, some time after I had 
 ceased. 
 
 " Many years," I said. 
 
 " And have you travelled everywhere ? " 
 
 " I have travelled a great deal. I am very 
 fond of it ; and, happily, I have been able." 
 
 Again she gave me her sidelong gaze. 
 "And do you know the foreign lan- 
 guages ? " 
 
 "After a fashion." 
 
 " Is it hard to speak them r " 
 
 "I don't believe you would find it hard," 
 I gallantly responded. 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn't want to speak I 
 should only want to listen," she said. Then, 
 after a pause, she added "They say the 
 French theatre is so beautiful." 
 
 " It is the best in the world." 
 
 " Did you go there very often ? " 
 
 "When I was first in Paris I went every 
 night." 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 325 
 
 " Every night ! " And she opened her 
 clear eyes very wide. "That to me is " 
 and she hesitated a moment "is very 
 wonderful." A few minutes later she asked 
 " Which country do you prefer ? " 
 
 "There is one country I prefer to all 
 others. I think you would do the same." 
 
 She looked at me a moment, and then 
 she said softly " Italy ? " 
 
 " Italy," I answered softly, too ; and for a 
 moment we looked at each other. She 
 looked as pretty as if, instead of showing 
 her photographs, I had been making love 
 to her. To increase the analogy, she 
 glanced away, blushing. There was a 
 silence, which she broke at last by saying 
 
 " That is the place, which in parti- 
 cular I thought of going to." 
 
 " Oh, that's the place that's the place ! " 
 I said. 
 
 She looked at two or three photographs 
 in silence. " They say it is not so dear." 
 
 " As some other countries ? Yes, that is 
 not the least of its charms." 
 
326 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 " But it is all very dear, is it not ? " 
 
 " Europe, you mean ? " 
 
 " Going there and travelling. That has 
 been the trouble. I have very little money. 
 I give lessons," said Miss Spencer. 
 
 "Of course one must have money," I 
 said, " but one can manage with a moderate 
 amount." 
 
 " I think I should manage. I have laid 
 something by, and I am always adding a 
 little to it. It's all for that." She paused 
 a moment, and then went on with a kind 
 of suppressed eagerness, as if telling me the 
 story were a rare, but a possibly impure, 
 satisfaction. "But it has not been only 
 the money ; it has been everything. Every- 
 thing has been against it. I have waited 
 and waited. It has been a mere castle in 
 the air. I am almost afraid to talk about 
 it. Two or three times it has been a little 
 nearer, and then I have talked about it and 
 it has melted away. I have talked about it 
 too much," she said, hypocritically; for I 
 saw that such talking was now a small 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 327 
 
 tremulous ecstasy. " There is a lady who is 
 a great friend of mine ; she doesn't want 
 to go ; I always talk to her about it. I 
 tire her dreadfully. She told me once she 
 didn't know what would become of me. I 
 should go crazy if I did not go to Europe, 
 and I should certainly go crazy if I did." 
 
 "Well," I said, "you have not gone yet 
 and nevertheless you are not crazy." 
 
 She looked at me a moment, and said 
 " I am not so sure. I don't think of any- 
 thing else. I am always thinking of it. 
 It prevents me from thinking of things that 
 are nearer home things that I ought to 
 attend to. That is a kind of craziness." 
 
 " The cure for it is to go," I said. 
 
 " I have a faith that I shall go. I have 
 a cousin in Europe ! " she announced. 
 
 We turned over some more photographs, 
 and I asked her if she had always lived at 
 Grimwinter. 
 
 "Oh, no, sir," said Miss Spencer. "I 
 have spent twenty-three months in Bos- 
 ton." 
 
328 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 I answered, jocosely, that in that case 
 foreign lands would probably prove a dis- 
 appointment to her; but I quite failed to 
 alarm her. 
 
 " I know more about them than you 
 might think," she said, with her shy, neat 
 little smile. "I mean by reading; I have 
 read a great deal. I have not only read 
 Byron ; I have read histories and guide- 
 books. I know I shall like it ! " 
 
 " I understand your case, " I rejoined. 
 "You have the native American passion 
 the passion for the picturesque. With us, 
 I think, it is primordial antecedent to ex- 
 perience. Experience comes and only shows 
 us something we have dreamt of." 
 
 " I think that is very true," said Caroline 
 Spencer. " I have dreamt of everything ; 
 I shall know it all ! " 
 
 " I am afraid you have wasted a great 
 deal of time." 
 
 " Oh yes, that has been my great wicked- 
 
 ness." 
 
 The people about us had begun to scat- 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 329 
 
 ter; they were taking their leave. She got 
 up and put out her hand to me, timidly, 
 but with a peculiar brightness in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " I am going back there," I said, as I 
 shook hands with her. "I shall look out 
 for you." 
 
 " I will tell you," she answered, " if I am 
 disappointed." 
 
 And she went away, looking delicately 
 agitated and moving her little straw fan. 
 
330 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 II. 
 
 A FEW months after this I returned to 
 Europe, and some three years elapsed. I 
 had been living in Paris, and, toward the 
 end of October, I went from that city to 
 Havre, to meet my sister and her husband, 
 who had written me that they were about 
 to arrive there. On reaching Havre I 
 found that the steamer was already in ; I 
 was nearly two hours late. I repaired di- 
 rectly to the hotel, where my relatives were 
 already established. My sister had gone to 
 bed, exhausted and disabled by her voyage ; 
 she was a sadly incompetent sailor, and 
 her sufferings on this occasion had been 
 extreme. She wished, for the moment, for 
 undisturbed rest, and was unable to see me 
 more than five minutes ; so it was agreed 
 that we should remain at Havre until the 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 331 
 
 next day. My brother-in-law, who was 
 anxious about his wife, was unwilling to 
 leave her room ; but she insisted upon his 
 going out with me to take a walk and 
 recover his land-legs. The early autumn 
 day was warm and charming, and our stroll 
 through the bright-coloured, busy streets of 
 the old French sea-port was sufficiently en- 
 tertaining. We walked along the sunny, 
 noisy quays and then turned into a wide, 
 pleasant street which lay half in sun and 
 half in shade a French provincial street, 
 that looked like an old water-colour draw- 
 ing : tall, gray, steep- roofed, red-gabled, 
 many-storied houses ; green shutters on 
 windows and old scroll-work above them ; 
 flower-pots in balconies and white-capped 
 women in door-ways. We walked in the 
 shade ; all this stretched away on the 
 sunny side of the street and made a picture. 
 We looked at it as we passed along ; then, 
 suddenly, my brother-in-law stopped 
 pressing my arm and staring. I followed 
 his gaze and saw that we had paused just 
 
332 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 before coming to a cafe, where, under 
 an awning, several tables and chairs were 
 disposed upon the pavement. The windows 
 were open behind ; half-a-dozen plants in 
 tubs were ranged beside the door; the 
 pavement was besprinkled with clean bran. 
 It was a nice little, quiet, old-fashioned cafe ; 
 inside, in the comparative dusk, I saw a stout, 
 handsome woman, with pink ribbons in her 
 cap, perched up with a mirror behind her 
 back, smiling at some one who was out of 
 sight. All this, however, I perceived after- 
 wards ; what I first observed was a lady 
 sitting alone, outside, at one of the little 
 marble-topped tables. My brother-in-law 
 had stopped to look at her. There was 
 something on the little table, but she was 
 leaning back quietly, with her hands folded, 
 looking down the street, away from us. I 
 saw her only in something less than profile ; 
 nevertheless, I instantly felt that I had seen 
 her before. 
 
 "The little lady of the steamer!" ex- 
 claimed my brother-in-law. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 333 
 
 " Was she on your steamer ? " I asked. 
 
 ( From morning till night. She was 
 never sick. She used to sit perpetually at 
 the side of the vessel with her hands crossed 
 that way, looking at the eastward horizon." 
 
 " Are you going to speak to her ? " 
 
 "I don't know her. I never made 
 acquaintance with her. I was too seedy. 
 But I used to watch her and I don't know 
 why to be interested in her. She's a dear 
 little Yankee woman. I have an idea she 
 is a school-mistress taking a holiday for 
 which her scholars have made up a purse." 
 
 She turned her face a little more into 
 profile, looking at the steep, gray house- 
 fronts opposite to her. Theu I said " I 
 shall speak to her myself." 
 
 " I wouldn't ; she is very shy," said my 
 brother-in-law. 
 
 "My dear fellow, I know her. I once 
 showed her photographs at a tea-party." 
 
 And I went up to her. She turned and 
 looked at me, and I saw she was in fact 
 Miss Caroline Spencer. But she was not so 
 
334 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 quick to recognise me ; she looked startled. 
 I pushed a chair to the table and sat 
 down. 
 
 "Well," I said, "I hope you are not dis- 
 appointed ! " 
 
 She stared, blushing a little ; then she 
 gave a small jump which betrayed recog- 
 nition. 
 
 " It was you who showed me the photo- 
 graphs at Grimwinter ! " 
 
 "Yes, it was I. This happens very 
 charmingly, for I feel as if it were for me to 
 give you a formal reception here an official 
 welcome. I talked to you so much about 
 Europe." 
 
 "You didn't say too much. I am so 
 happy ! " she softly exclaimed. 
 
 Very happy she looked. There was no 
 sign of her being older ; she was as gravely, 
 decently, demurely pretty as before. If she 
 had seemed before a thin-stemmed, mild- 
 hued flower of Puritanism, it may be imag- 
 ined whether in her present situation this 
 delicate bloom was less apparent. Beside 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 335 
 
 her an old gentleman was drinking absinthe ; 
 behind her the dame de comptoir in the pink 
 ribbons was calling " Alcibiade ! Alcibiade ! " 
 to the long-aproned waiter. I explained to 
 Miss Spencer that my companion had lately 
 been her ship-mate, and my brother-in-law 
 came up and was introduced to her. But 
 she looked at him as if she had never seen 
 him before, and I remembered that he had 
 told me that her eyes were always fixed 
 upon the eastward horizon. She had evi- 
 dently not noticed him, and, still timidly 
 smiling, she made no attempt whatever to 
 pretend that she had. I staid with her at 
 the cafe door, and he went back to the hotel 
 and to his wife. I said to Miss Spencer 
 that this meeting of ours in the first hour of 
 her landing was really very strange, but that 
 I was delighted to be there and receive her 
 first impressions. 
 
 " Oh, I can't tell you," she said ; " I feel 
 as if I were in a dream. I have been sitting 
 here for an hour, and I don't want to move. 
 Everything is so picturesque. I don't know 
 
33^ FOUR MEETINGS 
 
 whether the coffee has intoxicated me ; it's so 
 delicious." 
 
 " Really," said I, " if you are so pleased 
 with this poor prosaic Havre, you will have 
 no admiration left for better things. Don't 
 spend your admiration all the first day ; 
 remember it's your intellectual letter of 
 credit. Remember all the beautiful places 
 and things that are waiting for you ; remem- 
 ber that lovely Italy ! " 
 
 "I'm not afraid of running short," she 
 said gayly, still looking at the opposite 
 houses. " I could sit here all day, saying to 
 myself that here I am at last. It's so dark, 
 and old, and different." 
 
 " By the way," I inquired, " how come 
 you to be sitting here ? Have you not gone 
 to one of the inns ? " For I was half 
 amused, half alarmed at the good conscience 
 with which this delicately pretty woman had 
 stationed herself in conspicuous isolation on 
 the edge of the sidewalk. 
 
 "My cousin brought me here," she 
 answered. " You know I told you I had a 
 
FCUR MEETINGS. 337 
 
 cousin in Europe. He met me at the 
 steamer this morning." 
 
 " It was hardly worth his while to meet 
 you if he was to desert you so soon." 
 
 "Oh, he has only left me for half-an- 
 hour." said Miss Spencer. " He has gone to 
 get my money." 
 
 " Where is your money r " 
 
 She gave a little laugh. " It makes me 
 feel very fine to tell you! It is in some 
 circular notes." 
 
 " And where are your circular notes ? " 
 
 " In my cousin's pocket." 
 
 This statement was very serenely uttered, 
 but -I can hardly say why it gave me a 
 sensible chill. At the moment I should 
 have been utterly unable to give the reason 
 of this sensation, for I knew nothing of Miss 
 Spencer's cousin. Since he was her cousin, 
 the presumption was in his favour. But I 
 felt suddenly uncomfortable at the thought 
 that, half-an-hour after her landing, her scanty 
 funds should have passed into his hands. 
 
 " Is he to travel with you ? " I asked. 
 
338 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 " Only as far as Paris. He is an art- 
 student in Paris. I wrote to him that I was 
 coming, but I never expected him to come 
 off to the ship. I supposed he would only 
 just meet me at the train in Paris. It is very 
 kind of him. But he is very kind and 
 very bright." 
 
 I instantly became conscious of an ex- 
 treme curiosity to see this bright cousin who 
 was an art-student. 
 
 " He is gone to the banker's ? " I asked. 
 
 "Yes, to the banker's. He took me to 
 an hotel such a queer, quaint, delicious 
 little place, with a court in the middle, and a 
 gallery all round, and a lovely landlady, in 
 such a beautifully fluted cap, and such a 
 perfectly fitting dress ! After a while we 
 came out to walk to the banker's, for I 
 haven't got any French money. But I was 
 very dizzy from the motion of the vessel, 
 and I thought I had better sit down. He 
 found this place for me here, and he went 
 off to the banker's himself. I am to wait 
 here till he comes back." 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 339 
 
 It may seem very fantastic, but it passed 
 through my mind that he would never come 
 back. I settled myself in my chair beside 
 Miss Spencer and determined to await the 
 event. She was extremely observant ; there 
 was something touching in it. She noticed 
 everything that the movement of the street 
 brought before us the peculiarities of 
 costume, the shapes of vehicles, the big 
 Norman horses, the fat priests, the shaven 
 poodles. We talked of these things, and 
 there was something charming in her fresh- 
 ness of perception and the way her book- 
 nourished fancy recognised and welcomed 
 everything. 
 
 " And when your cousin comes back what 
 are you going to do ? " I asked. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " We don't 
 quite know." 
 
 " When do you go to Paris ? If you go 
 the four o'clock train I may have 
 tiie pleasure of making the journey with 
 you." 
 
 "I don't think we shall do that. My 
 
 2* 
 
340 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 cousin thinks I had better stay here a few 
 days." 
 
 " Oh ! " said I ; and for five minutes said 
 nothing more. I was wondering what her 
 cousin was, in vulgar parlance, " up to." I 
 looked up and down the street, but saw 
 nothing that looked like a bright American 
 art-student. At last I took tfhe liberty of 
 observing that Havre was hardly a place to 
 choose as one of the aesthetic stations of a 
 European tour. It was a place of conveni- 
 ence, nothing more ; a place of transit, 
 through which transit should be rapid. I 
 recommended her to go to Paris by the 
 afternoon train, and meanwhile to amuse 
 herself by driving to the ancient fortress at 
 the mouth of the harbour that picturesque, 
 circular structure which bore the name of 
 Francis the First and looked like a small 
 castle of St. Angelo. (It has lately been 
 demolished.) 
 
 She listened with much interest ; then for 
 a moment she looked grave. 
 
 "My cousin told me that when he 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 341 
 
 returned he should have something par- 
 ticular to say to me, and that we could do 
 nothing or decide nothing until I should 
 have heard it. But I will make him tell me 
 quickly, and then we will go to the ancient 
 fortress. There is no hurry to get to Paris ; 
 there is plenty of time." 
 
 She smiled with her softly severe little 
 lips as she spoke those last words. But 
 I, looking at her with a purpose, saw 
 just a tiny gleam of apprehension in her 
 eye. 
 
 "Don't tell me," I said, "that this 
 wretched man is going to give you bad 
 
 news!" 
 
 " I suspect it is a little bad, but I don't 
 believe it is very bad. At any rate, I must 
 listen to it." 
 
 I looked at her again an instant. " You 
 didn't come to Europe to listen," I said. 
 " You came to see ! " But now I was sure 
 her cousin would come back ; since he had 
 something disagreeable to say to her, he 
 certainly would turn up. We sat a while 
 
342 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 longer, and I asked her about her plans ot 
 travel. She had them on her fingers' ends, 
 and she told over the names with a kind of 
 solemn distinctness : from Paris to Dijon 
 and to Avignon, from Avignon to Marseilles 
 and the Cornice road ; thence to Genoa, to 
 Spezia, to Pisa, to Florence, to Rome. It 
 apparently had never occurred to her that 
 there could be the least incommodity in her 
 travelling alone ; and since she was unpro- 
 vided with a companion I of course scrupul- 
 ously abstained from disturbing her sense of 
 security. 
 
 At last her cousin came back. I saw him 
 turn towards us out of a side-street, and from 
 the moment my eyes rested upon him I felt 
 that this was the bright American art-student. 
 He wore a slouch hat and a rusty black 
 velvet jacket, such as I had often en- 
 countered in the Rue Bonaparte. His 
 shirt- collar revealed a large section of a 
 throat which, at a distance, was not strikingly 
 statuesque. He was tall and lean; he had 
 red hair and freckles. So much I had time 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 343 
 
 to observe while he approached the cafe, 
 staring at me with natural surprise from 
 under his umbrageous coiffure. When he 
 came up to us I immediately introduced 
 myself to him as an old acquaintance of 
 Miss Spencer. He looked at me hard with 
 a pair of little red eyes, then he made me a 
 solemn bow in the French fashion, with his 
 sombrero. 
 
 " You were not on the 'ship ? " he said. 
 
 "No, I was not on the ship. I have been 
 in Europe these three years." 
 
 He bowed once more, solemnly, and 
 motioned me to be seated again. I sat 
 down, but it was only for the purpose of 
 observing him an instant I saw it was time 
 I should return to my sister. Miss Spencer's 
 cousin was a queer fellow. Nature had not 
 shaped him for a Raphaelesque or Byronic 
 attire, and his velvet doublet and naked 
 throat were not in harmony with his facial 
 attributes. His hair was cropped close to 
 his head ; his ears were large and ill-adjusted 
 to the same. He had a lackadaisical carriage 
 
344 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 and a sentimental droop which were pecu- 
 liarly at variance with his keen, strange- 
 coloured eyes. Perhaps I was prejudiced, but 
 I thought his eyes treacherous. He said 
 nothing for some time ; he leaned his hands 
 on his cane and looked up and down the 
 street. Then at last, slowly lifting his cane 
 and pointing with it, "That's a very nice 
 bit," he remarked, softly. He had his head 
 on one side, and his little eyes were half 
 closed. I followed the direction of his stick ; 
 the object it indicated was a red cloth hung 
 out of an old window. " Nice bit of colour," 
 he continued ; and without moving his head 
 he transferred his half-closed gaze to me. 
 " Composes well," he pursued. " Make a 
 nice thing." He spoke in a hard, vulgar 
 voice. 
 
 " I see you have a great deal of eye," I 
 replied. "Your cousin tells me you are 
 studying art." He looked it me in the 
 same way without answering, and I went 
 on with deliberate urbanity " I suppose you 
 are at the studio of one of those great men." 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 345 
 
 Still he looked at me, and then he said 
 softly" Gerome." 
 
 " Do you like it ? " I asked. 
 
 " Do you understand French ? " he said. 
 
 " Some kinds," I answered. 
 
 He kept his little eyes on me ; then he 
 said " J'adore la pe'nture ! " 
 
 "Oh, I understand that kind!" I rejoined. 
 Miss Spencer laid her hand upon her 
 cousin's arm with a little pleased and flut- 
 tered movement ; it was delightful to be 
 among people who were on such easy terms 
 with foreign tongues. I got up to take 
 leave, and asked Miss Spencer where, in 
 Paris, I might have the honour of waiting 
 upon her. To what hotel would she 
 go? 
 
 She turned to her cousin inquiringly and 
 he honoured me again with his little languid 
 leer. "Do you know the Hotel des 
 Princes ? " 
 
 " I know where it is." 
 
 " I shall take her there." 
 
 "I congratulate you," I said to Caroline 
 
346 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 Spencer. " I believe it is the best inn in the 
 world ; and in case I should still have a 
 moment to call upon you here, where are 
 you lodged ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's such a pretty name," said Miss 
 Spencer, gleefully. " A la Belle Normande." 
 
 As I left them her cousin gave me a great 
 flourish with his picturesque hat. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 347 
 
 III. 
 
 MY sister, as it proved, was not sufficiently 
 restored to leave Havre by the afternoon 
 train ; so that, as the autumn dusk began to 
 fall, I found myself at liberty to call at the 
 sign of the Fair Norman. I must confess 
 that I had spent much of the interval in 
 wondering what the disagreeable thing was 
 that my charming friend's disagreeable 
 cousin had been telling her. The "Belle 
 Normande " was a modest inn in a shady by- 
 street, where it gave me satisfaction to think 
 Miss Spencer must have encountered local 
 colour in abundance. There was a crooked 
 little court, where much of the hospitality of 
 the house was carried on ; there was a stair- 
 case climbing to bedrooms on the outer side 
 of the wall ; there was a small trickling 
 fountain with a stucco statuette in the midst 
 
34? FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 of it : there was a little boy in a white cap 
 and apron cleaning copper vessels at a 
 conspicuous kitchen door; there was a 
 chattering landlady, neatly laced, arranging 
 apricots and grapes into an artistic pyramid 
 upon a pink plate. I looked about, and on 
 a green bench outside of an open door 
 labelled Salle a Manger, I perceived 
 Caroline Spencer. No sooner had I looked 
 at her than I saw that something had hap- 
 pened since the morning. She was leaning 
 back on her bench, her hands were clasped 
 in her lap : and her eyes were fixed upon the 
 landlady, at the other side of the court, 
 manipulating her apricots. 
 
 But I saw she was not thinking of 
 apricots. She was staring absently, thought- 
 fully; as I came near her I perceived that 
 she had been crying. I sat down on the 
 bench beside her before she saw me ; then, 
 when she had done so, she simply turned 
 round, without surprise, and rested her sad 
 eyes upon me. Scmething very bad indeed 
 had happened ; she was completely changed. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 349 
 
 I immediately charged her with it. 
 " Your cousin has been giving you bad 
 news ; you are in great distress. " 
 
 For a moment she said nothing, and I 
 supposed that she was afraid to speak, lest 
 her tears should come back. But presently 
 I perceived that in the short time that had 
 elapsed since my leaving her in the morning 
 she had shed them all, and that she was now 
 softly stoical intensely composed. 
 
 " My poor cousin is in distress," she said 
 at last. " His news was bad." Then, after 
 a brief hesitation " He was in terrible 
 want of money." 
 
 " In want of yours, you mean ? " 
 
 " Of any that he could get honestly. 
 Mine was the only money." 
 
 " And he has taken yours ? " 
 
 She hesitated again a moment, but her 
 glance, meanwhile, was pleading. " I gave 
 him what I had." 
 
 I have always remembered the accent of 
 those words as the most angelic bit of 
 human utterance I had ever listened to; 
 
35 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 but then, almost with a sense of personal 
 outrage, I jumped up. "Good heavens!" 
 I said, "do you call that getting it 
 honestly ? " 
 
 1 had gone too far; she blushed deeply. 
 " We will not speak of it," she said. 
 
 "We must speak of it," I answered, 
 sitting down again. " I am your friend ; it 
 seems to me you need one. What is the 
 matter with your cousin ? " 
 
 " He is in debt." 
 
 "No doubt! But what is the special 
 fitness of your paying his debts ? " 
 
 " He has told me all his story ; I am very 
 sorry for him." 
 
 "So am I ! But I hope he will give you 
 back your money." 
 
 " Certainly he will ; as soon as he can." 
 
 " When will that be ? " 
 
 " When he has finished his great picture." 
 
 " My dear young lady, conf jund his great 
 picture ! Where is this desperate cousin?" 
 
 She certainly hesitated now. Then "At 
 his dinner," she answered. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 351 
 
 I turned about and looked through the 
 open door into the salle a manger. There, 
 alone at the end of a long table, I perceived 
 the object of Miss Spencer's compassion 
 the bright young art-student. He was 
 dining too attentively to notice me at first ; 
 but in the act of setting down a well-emptied 
 wine-glass he caught sight of my observant 
 attitude. He paused in his repast, and, with 
 his head on one side and his meagre jaws 
 slowly moving, fixedly returned my gaze. 
 Then the landlady came lightly brushing by 
 with her pyramid of apricots. 
 
 " And that nice little plate of fruit is for 
 him ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 Miss Spencer glanced at it tenderly. 
 " They do that so prettily ! " she murmured. 
 
 I felt helpless and irritated. "Come now, 
 really," I said ; " do you approve of that 
 long strong fellow accepting your funds ? " 
 She looked away from me ; I was evidently 
 giving her pain. The case was hopeless; 
 the long strong fellow had " interested " her. 
 
 " Excuse me if I speak of him so uncere- 
 
352 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 moniously," I said. "But you are really 
 too generous, and he is not quite delicate 
 enough. He made his debts himself he 
 ought to pay them himself.'* 
 
 " He has been foolish," she answered ; " I 
 know that. He has told me everything. 
 We had a long talk this morning ; the poor 
 fellow threw himself upon my charity. He 
 has signed notes to a large amount." 
 
 " The more fool he ! " 
 
 " He is in extreme distress ; and it is not 
 only himself. It is his poor wife." 
 
 " Ah, he has a poor wife ? " 
 
 " I didn't know it but he confessed 
 everything. He married two years since, 
 secretly.'' 
 
 "Why secretly?' 5 
 
 Caroline Spencer glanced about her, as if 
 she feared listeners. Then softly, in a little 
 impressive tone " She was a Countess ! " 
 
 " Are you very sure of that ? " 
 
 " She has written me a most beautiful 
 letter." 
 
 " Asking you for money, eh r " 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 353 
 
 "Asking me for confidence and sympa- 
 thy," said Miss Spencer. "She has been 
 disinherited by her father. My cousin told 
 me the story and she tells it in her own 
 way, in the letter. It is like an old romance. 
 Her father opposed the marriage and when 
 he discovered that she had secretly disobeyed 
 him he cruelly cast her off. It is really 
 most romantic. They are the oldest family 
 in Provence." 
 
 I looked and listened, in wonder. It 
 really seemed that the poor woman was 
 enjoying the "romance" of having a dis- 
 carded Countess-cousin, out of Provence, so 
 deeply as almost to lose the sense of what 
 the forfeiture of her money meant for her. 
 
 " My dear young lady," I said, " you 
 don't want to be ruined for picturesqueness' 
 sake ? " 
 
 " I shall not be ruined. I shall come 
 back before long to stay with them. The 
 Countess insists upon that." 
 
 "Come back! You are going home, 
 then?" 
 
 A A 
 
354 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 She sat for a moment with her eyes 
 lowered, then with an heroic suppression ot 
 a faint tremor of the voice " I have no 
 money for travelling ! " she answered. 
 
 " You gave it all up ? " 
 
 " I have kept enough to take me 
 home." 
 
 I gave an angry groan, and at this 
 juncture Miss Spencer's cousin, the fortunate 
 possessor of her sacred savings and of the 
 hand of the Provenqal Countess, emerged 
 from the little dining-room. He stood on 
 the threshold for an instant, removing the 
 stone from a plump apricot which he had 
 brought away from the table ; then he put 
 the apricot into his mouth, and while he let 
 it sojourn there, gratefully, stood looking at 
 us, with his long legs apart and his hands 
 dropped into the pockets of his velvet jacket. 
 My companion got up, giving him a thin 
 glance which I caught in its passage, and 
 which expressed a strange commixture of 
 resignation and fascination a sort of per- 
 verted exaltation. Ugly, vulgar, pretentious, 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 355 
 
 dishonest as I thought the creature, he had 
 appealed successfully to her eager and tender 
 imagination. I was deeply disgusted, but I 
 had no warrant to interfere, and at any rate 
 I felt that it would be vain. 
 
 The young man waved his hand with a 
 pictorial gesture. " Nice old court," he ob- 
 served. " Nice mellow old place. Good tone 
 in that brick. Nice crooked old stair-case." 
 
 Decidedly, I couldn't stand it; without 
 responding I gave my hand to Caroline 
 Spencer. She looked at me an instant with 
 her little white face and expanded eyes, and 
 as she showed her pretty teeth I suppose she 
 meant to smile. 
 
 " Don't be sorry for me," she said, " I am 
 very sure I shall see something of this dear 
 old Europe yet." 
 
 I told her that I would not bid her good- 
 bye I should find a moment to come back 
 the next morning. Her cousin, who had put 
 on his sombrero again, nourished it off at 
 me by way of a bow upon which I took 
 my departure. 
 
 A A2 
 
356 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 The next morning I came back to the 
 inn, where I met in the court the landlady, 
 more loosely laced than in the evening. On 
 my asking for Miss Spencer, " Par tie, 
 monsieur," said the hostess. "She went away 
 last night at ten o'clock, with her -her 
 not her husband, eh ? in fine her Mon- 
 sieur. They went down to the American 
 ship." I turned away ; the poor girl had 
 been about thirteen hours in Europe. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 357 
 
 IV. 
 
 I MYSELF, more fortunate, was there some 
 five years longer. During this period I 
 lost my friend Latouche, who died of a 
 malarious fever during a tour in the 
 Levant. One of the first things I did on 
 my return was to go up to Grimwinter to 
 pay a consolatory visit to his poor mother. 
 I found her in deep affliction, and I sat 
 with her the whole of the morning that 
 followed my arrival (I had come in late at 
 night), listening to her tearful descant and 
 singing the praises of my friend. We 
 talked of nothing else, and our conversation 
 terminated only with the arrival of a quick 
 little woman who drove herself up to the 
 door in a " carry-all," and whom I saw toss 
 the reins upon the horse's back with the 
 briskness of a startled sleeper throwing back 
 
358 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 the bed-clothes. She jumped out of the 
 carry-all and she jumped into the room. 
 She proved to be the minister's wife and the 
 great town-gossip, and she had evidently, in 
 the latter capacity, a choice morsel to 
 communicate. I was as sure of this as I 
 was that poor Mrs. Latouche was not abso- 
 lutely too bereaved to listen to her. It 
 seemed to me discreet to retire ; I said I 
 believed I would go and take a walk before 
 dinner. 
 
 " And, by the way," I added, " if you will 
 tell me where my old friend Miss Spencer 
 lives I will walk to her house." 
 
 The minister's wife immediately re- 
 sponded. Miss Spencer lived in the fourth 
 house beyond the Baptist church ; the 
 Baptist church was the one on the right, 
 with that queer green thing over the door; 
 they called it a portico, but it looked more 
 like an old-fashioned bedstead. 
 
 "Yes, do go and see poor Caroline," said 
 Mrs. Latouche. " It will refresh her to see 
 a strange face." 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 359 
 
 " I should think she had had enough of 
 strange faces ! " cried the minister's wife. 
 
 u I mean, to see a visitor," said Mrs. 
 Latouche, amending her phrase. 
 
 " I should think she had had enough of 
 visitors ! " her companion rejoined. " But 
 you don't mean to stay ten years, " she 
 added, glancing at me. 
 
 '- Has she a visitor of that sort ? " I in- 
 quired, perplexed. 
 
 " You will see the sort ! " said the minister's 
 wife. " She's easily seen ; she generally sits 
 in the front yard. Only take care what you 
 say to her, and be very sure you are polite." 
 
 "Ah, she is so sensitive?" 
 
 The minister's wife jumped up and drop- 
 ped me a curtsey a most ironical curtsey. 
 
 " That's what she is, if you please. She's 
 a Countess ! " 
 
 And pronouncing this word with the most 
 scathing accent, the little woman seemed 
 fairly to laugh in the Countess's face. I 
 stood a moment, staring, wondering, remem- 
 bering. 
 
360 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 " Oh, I shall be very polite ! " I cried ; and 
 grasping my hat and stick, I went on my 
 way. 
 
 I found Miss Spencer's residence without 
 difficulty. The Baptist church was easily 
 identified, and the small dwelling near it, of 
 a rusty white, with a large central chimney- 
 stack and a Virginia creeper, seemed natur- 
 ally and properly the abode of a frugal old 
 maid with a taste for the picturesque. As 
 I approached I slackened my pace, for I 
 had heard that some one was always sitting 
 in the front yard, and I wished to reconnoitre. 
 I looked cautiously over the low white fence 
 which separated the small garden-space from 
 the unpaved street; but I descried nothing 
 in the shape of a Countess. A small 
 straight path led up to the crooked door- 
 step, and on either side of it was a little 
 grass-plot, fringed with currant-bushes. In 
 the middle of the grass, on either side, 
 was a large quince-tree, full of antiquity and 
 contortions, and beneath one of the quince- 
 trees were placed a small table and a couple 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 361 
 
 of chairs. On the table lay a piece of 
 unfinished embroidery and two or three 
 books in bright-coloured paper covers. I 
 went in at the gate and paused half-way 
 along the path, scanning the place for some 
 farther token of its occupant, before whom 
 I could hardly have said why I hesitated 
 abruptly to present myself. Then I saw 
 that the poor little house was very shabby. 
 I felt a sudden doubt of my right to 
 intrude ; for curiosity had been my mo- 
 tive, and curiosity here seemed singularly 
 indelicate. While I hesitated, a figure 
 appeared in the open door-way and 
 stood 4 there looking at me. I immedi- 
 ately recognised Caroline Spencer, but 
 she looked at me as if she had never 
 seen me before. Gently, but gravely and 
 timidly, I advanced to the door-step, and 
 then I said, with an attempt at friendly 
 badinage 
 
 "I waited for you over there to come 
 back, but you never came." 
 
 ''Waited where, sir?" she asked softly, 
 
362 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 and her light-coloured eyes expanded more 
 than before. 
 
 She was much older; she looked tired 
 and wasted. 
 
 " Well," I said, "I waited at Havre." 
 
 She stared ; then she recognised me. She 
 smiled and blushed and clasped her two 
 hands together. (i I remember you now," 
 she said. " I remember that day." But 
 she stood there, neither coming out nor 
 asking me to come in. She was embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 I, too, felt a little awkward. I poked 
 my stick into the path, " I kept looking 
 out for you, year after year,''* I said. 
 
 " You mean in Europe ? " murmured 
 Miss Spencer. 
 
 "In Europe, of course ! Here, ap- 
 parently, you are easy enough to 
 find." 
 
 She leaned her hand against the un painted 
 door-post, and her head fell a little to one 
 side. She looked at me for a moment 
 without speaking, and I thought I recog- 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 363 
 
 nised the expression that one sees in women's 
 eyes when tears are rising. Suddenly she 
 stepped out upon the cracked slab of stone 
 before the threshold and closed the door 
 behind her. Then she began to smile 
 intently, and I saw that her teeth were 
 as pretty as ever. But there had been 
 tears too. 
 
 " Have you been there ever since ? " she 
 asked, almost in a whisper. 
 
 " Until three weeks ago. And you 
 you never came back ? n 
 
 Still looking at me with her fixed smile, 
 she put her hand behind her and opened 
 the door again. "I am not very polite," 
 she said. " Won't you come in ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I incommode you." 
 
 " Oh no ! " she answered, smiling more 
 than ever. And she pushed back the door, 
 with a sign that I should enter. 
 
 I went in, following her. She led the 
 way to a small room on the left of the 
 narrow hall, which I supposed to be her 
 parlour, though it was at the back of the 
 
364 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 house, and we passed the closed door of 
 another apartment which apparently enjoyed 
 a view of the quince-trees. This one looked 
 out upon a small wood-shed and two 
 clucking hens. But I thought it very 
 pretty, until I saw that its elegance was of 
 the most frugal kind ; after which, presently, 
 I thought it prettier still, for I had never seen 
 faded chintz and old mezzotint engravings, 
 framed in varnished autumn leaves, disposed 
 in so graceful a fashion. Miss Spencer sat 
 down on a very small portion of the sofa, 
 with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. 
 She looked ten years older, and it would have 
 sounded very perverse now to speak of her 
 as pretty. But I thought her so ; or at 
 least I thought her touching. She was 
 peculiarly agitated. I tried to appear not 
 to notice it; but suddenly, in the most 
 inconsequent fashion it was an irresistible 
 memory of our little friendship at Havre 
 I said to her "I do incommode you. 
 You are distressed." 
 
 She raised her two hands to her face, 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 365 
 
 and for a moment kept it buried in them. 
 
 Then, taking them away "It's because 
 
 you remind me " she said. 
 
 " I remind you, you mean, of that miser- 
 able day at Havre ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " It was not 
 miserable. It was delightful." 
 
 " I never was so shocked as when, on 
 going back to your inn the next morning, 
 I found you had set sail again." 
 
 She was silent a moment ; and then she 
 said " Please let us not speak of that." 
 
 "Did you come straight back here?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " I was back here just thirty days after 
 I had gone away." 
 
 "And here you have remained ever 
 since ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! " she said gently. 
 
 " When are you going to Europe 
 again ? " 
 
 This question seemed brutal ; but there 
 was something that irritated me in the 
 softness of her resignation, and I wished 
 
366 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 to extort from her some expression of 
 impatience. 
 
 She fixed her eyes for a moment upon 
 a small sun-spot on the carpet ; then she 
 got up and lowered the window-blind a 
 little, to obliterate it. Presently, in the 
 same mild voice, answering my question, 
 she said "Never!" 
 
 " I hope your cousin repaid you your 
 money." 
 
 "I don't care for it now," she said, 
 looking away from me. 
 
 " You don't care for your money ? " 
 
 " For going to Europe." 
 
 " Do you mean that you would not go 
 if you could ? " 
 
 " I can't I can't," said Caroline Spencer. 
 " It is all over ; I never think of it." 
 
 " He never repaid you, then ! " I ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Please please," she began. 
 
 But she stopped ; she was looking toward 
 the door. There had been a rustling and 
 a sound of steps in the hall. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 367 
 
 I also looked toward the door, which 
 was open, and now admitted another person 
 a lady who paused just within the 
 threshold. Behind her came a young man. 
 The lady looked at me with a good deal 
 of fixedness long enough for my glance 
 to receive a vivid impression of herself. 
 Then she turned to Caroline Spencer, 
 and, with a smile and a strong foreign 
 accent 
 
 " Excuse my interruption ! " she said. 
 " I knew not you had company the gentle- 
 man came in so quietly." 
 
 With this, she directed her eyes toward 
 me again. 
 
 She was very strange ; yet my first feeling 
 was that I had seen her before. Then 1 
 perceived that I had only seen ladies who 
 were very much like her. But I had seen 
 them very far away from Grimwinter, and 
 it was an odd sensation to be seeing her 
 here. Whither was it the sight of her 
 seemed to transport me? To some dusky 
 landing before a shabby Parisian quatrieme 
 
368 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 to an open door revealing a greasy ante- 
 chamber, and to Madame leaning over the 
 banisters while she holds a faded dressing- 
 gown together and bawls down to the 
 portress to bring up her coffee. Miss 
 Spencer's visitor was a very large woman, 
 of middle age, with a plump, dead-white 
 face and hair drawn back a la chinoise. She 
 had a small, penetrating eye, and what is 
 called in French an agreeable smile. She 
 wore an old pink cashmere dressing-gown, 
 covered with white embroideries, and, like 
 the figure in my momentary vision, she 
 was holding it together in front with a bare 
 and rounded arm and a plump and deeply- 
 dimpled hand. 
 
 "It is only to spick about my cafe" 
 she said to Miss Spencer with her 
 agreeable smile. " I should like it 
 served in the garden under the leetle 
 tree/' 
 
 The young man behind her had now 
 stepped into the room, and he also stood 
 looking at me. He was a pretty-faced little 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 369 
 
 fellow, with an air of provincial foppishness 
 a tiny Adonis of Grimwinter. He had a 
 small, pointed nose, a small, pointed chin, 
 and, as I observed, the most diminutive 
 feet. He looked at me foolishly, with his 
 mouth open. 
 
 "You shall have your coffee," said Miss 
 Spencer, who had a faint red spot in each 
 of her cheeks. 
 
 " It is well ! " said the lady in the dressing- 
 gown. "Find your bouk," she added, 
 turning to the young man. 
 
 He looked vaguely round the room. 
 " My grammar, d'ye mean ? " he asked, 
 with a helpless intonation. 
 
 But the large lady was looking at me 
 curiously, and gathering in her dressing- 
 gown with her white arm. 
 
 " Find your bouk, my friend," she re- 
 peated. 
 
 " My poetry, d'ye mean ? " said the young 
 man, also gazing at me again. 
 
 " Never mind your bouk," said his com- 
 panion. "To-day we will talk. We will 
 
 B B 
 
370 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 make some conversation. But we must 
 not interrupt. Come," and she turned 
 away. " Under the leetle tree/' she added, 
 for the benefit of Miss Spencer. 
 
 Then she gave me a sort of salutation, 
 and a " Monsieur ! " with which she 
 swept away again, followed by the young 
 man. 
 
 Caroline Spencer stood there with her 
 eyes fixed upon the ground. 
 
 Who is that ? " I asked. 
 
 "The Countess, my cousin." 
 
 " And who is the young man ? " 
 
 " Her pupil, Mr. Mixter." 
 
 This description of the relation be- 
 tween the two persons who had just 
 left the room made me break into a 
 little laugh. Miss Spencer looked at me 
 gravely. 
 
 u She gives French lessons ; she has lost 
 her fortune." 
 
 " I see/' I said. " She is determined to 
 be a burden to no one. That is very 
 proper." 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 371 
 
 Miss Spencer looked down on the ground 
 again. " I must go and get the coffee," she 
 said. 
 
 " Has the lady many pupils ? " I asked. 
 
 "She has only Mr. Mixter. She gives 
 all her time to him." 
 
 At this I could not laugh, though I 
 smelt provocation. Miss Spencer was too 
 grave. " He pays very well/' she presently 
 added, with simplicity. "He is very rich. 
 He is very kind. He takes the Countess 
 to drive." And she was turning away. 
 
 "You are going for the Countess's 
 coffee ? " I said. 
 
 " If you will excuse me a few moments." 
 
 " Is there no one else to do it ? " 
 
 She looked at me with the softest serenity. 
 " I keep no servants." 
 
 " Can she not wait upon herself ? " 
 
 " She is not used to that." 
 
 " I see," said I, as gently as possible. 
 " But before you go, tell me this : who is 
 this lady?" 
 
 "I told you about her before that day. 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 She is the wife of my cousin, whom you 
 
 
 saw. 
 
 "The lady who was disowned by her 
 family in consequence of her marriage?" 
 
 u Yes; they have never seen her again. 
 They have cast her off." 
 
 " And where is her husband ? " 
 
 "He is dead." 
 
 " And where is your money ? " 
 
 The poor girl flinched , there was some- 
 thing too methodical in my questions. " I 
 don't know," she said wearily. 
 
 But I continued a moment. "On her 
 Imsband's death this lady came over here ? " 
 
 " Yes, she arrived one day." 
 
 " How long ago ? " 
 
 " Two years." 
 
 " She has been here ever since r " 
 
 " Every moment." 
 
 " How does she like it r " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " And how do you like it ? " 
 
 Miss Spencer laid her face in her two 
 hands an instant, as she had done ten 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 373 
 
 minutes before. Then, quickly, she went to 
 get the Countess's coffee. 
 
 I remained alone in the little parlour ; I 
 wanted to see more to learn more. At the 
 end of five minutes the young man whom 
 Miss Spencer had described as the Countess's 
 pupil came in. He stood looking at me for 
 a moment with parted lips. I saw he was a 
 very rudimentary young man. 
 
 "She wants to know if you won't come 
 out there ? " he observed at last. 
 
 " Who wants to know ? " 
 
 " The Countess. That French lady." 
 
 " She has asked you to bring me ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the young man feebly, 
 looking at my six feet of stature. 
 
 I went out with him, and we found the 
 Countess sitting under one of the little 
 quince-trees in front of the house. She was 
 drawing a needle through the piece of em- 
 broidery which she had taken from the small 
 table. She pointed graciously to the chair 
 beside her and I seated myself. Mr. 
 Mixter glanced about him, and then sat 
 
374 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 down in the grass at her feet. He gazed 
 upward, looking with parted lips from the 
 Countess to me. 
 
 " I am sure you speak French," said the 
 Countess, fixing her brilliant little eyes upon 
 me. 
 
 " I do, madam, after a fashion," I answered, 
 in the lady's own tongue. 
 
 " Foila!" she cried most expressively. 
 "I knew it so soon as I looked at you. 
 You have been in my poor dear country." 
 
 " A long time." 
 
 "You know Paris?" 
 
 "Thoroughly, madam." And with a cer- 
 tain conscious purpose I let my eyes meet 
 her own. 
 
 She presently, hereupon, moved her own 
 and glanced down at Mr. Mixter. "What 
 are we talking about ? " she demanded of her 
 attentive pupil. 
 
 He pulled his knees up, plucked at the 
 grass with his hand, stared, blushed a little. 
 "You are talking French," said Mr. Mixter. 
 
 " La belle decouverte ! " said the Countess. 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 375 
 
 "Here are ten months," she explained to 
 me, " that I am giving him lessons. Don't 
 put yourself out not to say he's a fool ; he 
 wont understand you." 
 
 " I hope your other pupils are more grati- 
 fying," I remarked. 
 
 " I have no others. They don't know 
 what French is in this place ; they don't want 
 to know. You may therefore imagine the 
 pleasure it is to me to meet a person who 
 speaks it like yourself." I replied that my 
 own pleasure was not less, and she went on 
 drawing her stitches through her embroidery, 
 with her little finger curled out. Every few 
 moments she put her eyes close to her work, 
 near-sightedly. I thought her a very dis- 
 agreeable person; she was coarse, affected, 
 dishonest, and no more a Countess than I was 
 a caliph. "Talk to me of Paris," she went 
 on. " The very name of it gives me an 
 emotion ! How long since you were 
 there?" 
 
 " Two months ago." 
 
 "Happy man ! Tell me something about 
 
3?6 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 it. What were they doing? Oh, for an 
 hour of the boulevard ! " 
 
 " They were doing about what they are 
 always doing amusing themselves a good 
 deal." 
 
 " At the theatres, eh ? " sighed the Coun- 
 tess. "At the cafes-concerts at the little 
 tables in front of the doors? Quelle exist- 
 ence! You know I am a Parisienne, mon- 
 sieur/' she added, " to my finger-tips." 
 
 "Miss Spencer was mistaken, then," I 
 ventured to rejoin, " in telling me that you 
 are a Proven^ale." 
 
 She stared a moment, then she put her 
 nose to her embroidery, which had a dingy, 
 desultory aspect. " Ah, I am a Provencale 
 by birth ; but I am a Parisienne by 
 inclination." 
 
 "And by experience, I suppose?" I 
 said. 
 
 She questioned me a moment with her 
 hard little eyes. " Oh, experience ! I could 
 talk of experience if I wished. I never 
 expected, for example, that experience had 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 377 
 
 this in store for me." And she pointed with 
 her bare elbow, and with a jerk of her head, 
 at everything that surrounded her at the 
 little white house, the quince-tree, the rickety 
 paling, even at Mr. Mixter. 
 
 " You are in exile ! " I said smiling. 
 
 " You may imagine what it is ! These 
 two years that I have been here I have 
 passed hours hours ! One gets used to 
 things, and sometimes I think I have got 
 used to this. But there are some things 
 that are always beginning over again. For 
 example, my coffee." 
 
 "Do you always have coffee at this 
 hour ? " I inquired. 
 
 She tossed back her head and measured 
 me. 
 
 "At what hour would you prefer me to 
 have it? I must have my little cup after 
 breakfast." 
 
 " Ah 5 you breakfast at this hour ? " 
 
 " At mid-day comme cela se fait. Here 
 they breakfast at a quarter past seven ! That 
 6 quarter past ' is charming ! " 
 
378 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 " But you were telling me about your 
 coffee," I observed, sympathetically. 
 
 " My cousine can't believe in it ; she can't 
 understand it. She's an excellent girl ; but 
 that little cup of black coffee, with a drop 
 of cognac, served at this hour -they exceed 
 her comprehension. So I have to break the 
 ice every day, and it takes the coffee the 
 time you see to arrive. And when it arrives, 
 monsieur! If I don't offer you any of it 
 you must not take it ill. It will be because I 
 know you have drunk it on the boulevard." 
 
 I resented extremely this scornful treat- 
 ment of poor Caroline Spencer's humble 
 hospitality ; but I said nothing, in order 
 to say nothing uncivil. I only looked on 
 Mr. Mixter, who had clasped his arms 
 round his knees and was watching my com- 
 panion's demonstrative graces in solemn 
 fascination. She presently saw that I was 
 observing him ; she glanced at me with a 
 little bold explanatory smile. " You know, 
 he adores me," she murmured, putting her 
 nose into her tapestry again. I expressed 
 
FOUR MEETINGS. 379 
 
 the promptest credence and she went on. 
 " He dreams of becoming my lover ! Yes, 
 it's his dream. He has read a French novel ; 
 it took him six months. But ever since 
 that he has thought himself the hero, and 
 me the heroine ! " 
 
 Mr. Mixter had evidently not an idea 
 that he was being talked about ; he was too 
 preoccupied with the ecstasy of contem- 
 plation. At this moment Caroline Spencer 
 came out of the house, bearing a coffee-pot 
 on a little tray. I noticed that on her way 
 from the door to the table she gave me a 
 single quick, vaguely appealing glance. I 
 wondered what it signified ; I felt that it 
 signified a sort of half-frightened longing to 
 know what, as a man of the world who had 
 been in France, I thought of the Countess. 
 It made me extremely uncomfortable. I 
 could not tell her that the Countess was 
 very possibly the runaway wife of a little 
 hair-dresser. I tried suddenly, on the con- 
 trary, to ihow a high consideration for her. 
 But I got up; I couldn't stay longer. 
 
380 FOUR MEETINGS. 
 
 It vexed me to see Caroline Spencer 
 standing there like a waiting-maid. 
 
 " You expect to remain some time at 
 Grimwinter ? " I said to the Countess. 
 
 She gave a terrible shrug. 
 
 " Who knows ? Perhaps for years. 
 When one is in misery ! # =& * Chere 
 belle" she added, turning to Miss Spencer, 
 " you have forgotten the cognac ! " 
 
 I detained Caroline Spencer as, after 
 looking a moment in silence at the little 
 table, she was turning away to procure this 
 missing delicacy. 1 silently gave her my 
 hand in farewell. She lookefl very tired, 
 but there was a strange hint of prospective 
 patience in her severely mild little face. I 
 thought she was rather glad I was going. 
 Mr. Mixter had risen to his feet and was 
 pouring out the Countess's coffee. As I 
 went back past the Baptist church I reflected 
 that poor Miss Spencer had been right in 
 her presentiment that she should still see 
 something of that dear old Europe. 
 
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