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Title: Elizabeth Visits America

Author: Elinor Glyn

Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #11900]
                Most recently updated: December 26, 2020

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Keeble, Anuradha Valsa Raj, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETH VISITS AMERICA ***


E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Keeble, Anuradha Valsa Raj, and
Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders



ELIZABETH VISITS AMERICA

BY

ELINOR GLYN

Author of

"Three Weeks,"
"The Visits of Elizabeth,"
"The Reflections of Ambrosine,"
"The Vicissitudes of Evangeline,"
"Beyond the Rocks,"
"The damsel and the Sage"

1909






[Illustration "the Marchioness of Valmond" (Elizabeth)]



CONTENTS

Heaviland Manor
Tonnerre
Cannes
Lusitania
Plaza Hotel, New York
Speistville
Plaza Hotel, New York
Latour Court, Long Island
Plaza Hotel, New York
Ringwood, Philadelphia
Plaza Hotel, New York
Niagara
Chicago
Going West
San Francisco
On the Private Car
Osages City
Camp of Moonbeams
On the Private Car Again
Osages City Again




Elizabeth Visits America




After a few years of really perfect domestic bliss Elizabeth and her
"Harry" had a rather serious quarrel, which ended in Lord Valmond's going
off to shoot big game in the wilds of Africa, leaving Elizabeth, who (in
the absence of her mother and her favourite cousin, Octavia, abroad) had
taken refuge with her great aunt Maria at Heaviland Manor, in an obstinate
and disconsolate frame of mind.

Lord Valmond was two days out on his voyage when Elizabeth wrote to her
parent:




HEAVILAND MANOR


Heaviland Manor

Dearest Mamma,--I hope you are taking every possible care of Hurstbridge
and Ermyntrude and seeing that the sweet angels do not eat pounds of
chocolate between meals. If I had known how Harry was going to behave to me
over such a simple thing as the Vicomte's letter, I could never have let
you take the children with you to Arcachon for these next months--I am
feeling so lonely.

I came to great aunt Maria's because on Saturday night when Harry refused
to say he was sorry, it seemed the only dignified thing to do. I never
thought of course that he would rush off to Africa like this, and although
I feel I was perfectly right and should act in the very same way
again--still--well, there is no use talking about it, dearest Mamma--and
please don't write me a sermon on wifely duty and submission--because it
will only make me worse.

I don't know what I shall do next or where I shall go--I mean to take the
first chance of having some fun I can get. If he could go off in a
huff--but I won't speak of him even--I am going to forget I am married and
have a good time like everyone else does. Naturally, I haven't told a soul
but you about it all--our quarrel I mean--and Aunt Maria thinks I am a poor
ill-used darling to have a husband who wants to shoot lions, but Uncle John
said it is quite natural, and Aunt Maria heard that and said, "Tut tut," at
once.

There is a tremendous excitement here! Can you imagine it, Mamma? They have
actually got an automobile! It came this morning, and if it had been a
flying machine it could not have been considered more wonderful. It is
Uncle John's fiftieth wedding present to Aunt Maria!--and they are going
in it on the same tour they took on their wedding journey! Aunt Maria, as
you know, has never been abroad since. We all went into the stable yard to
see it. The face of the coachman! (You remember him?--always the same one.)
It was a mixture of contempt and defiance. They did suggest having him
taught a chauffeur's duties, but the man who came from the place they
bought the car wisely suggested it might, at his age, be dangerous, and
Aunt Maria also feared it would be bad for his sore throat--it is still
sore!--so they have abandoned this idea.

They start on Monday--the anniversary of their wedding--and they have asked
me to go with them, and I really think I shall.

The most marvellous preparations are being made. One would think it was a
journey to the South Pole. Aunt Maria spends hours each day in writing and
rewriting lists of things she must have with her, and then Uncle John
protests that only the smallest amount of luggage can be taken. So she
consults with Janet Mackintosh, her maid, and then she turns to me and in a
loud whisper says that of course she has to be patient with poor Janet as
she is a newcomer and does not yet know her ways! She has been with her
five years now, ever since her last Methuselah died, so one would have
thought that long enough to learn, wouldn't one, Mamma?

The automobile is most remarkable, as it has a rumble on the back, because,
as Aunt Maria explained, her maid and Uncle John's valet went in the rumble
of the carriage on their wedding journey, and it is the proper place for
servants, so she insisted upon the motor being arranged in the same way.
Janet and the valet will have a suffocatingly dusty drive--enveloped in
complete coverings of leather. Agnès is to sit beside the chauffeur and we
three inside. I suppose everyone will scream with laughter as we career
through the towns, but what matter! I shall go down to Cannes with them and
join Octavia there if I find it too boring, and Harry cannot have a word to
say to my travelling with my own relations. I feel like crying, dearest
Mamma, so I won't write any more now.

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




TONNERRE


HOTEL DE LA POULE D'OR,
TONNERRE.
_(Somewhere on the way to Dijon.)_

Dearest Mamma,--We have got this far! Never have you imagined such an
affair as our trip is. Coming across the Channel was bad enough. Aunt Maria
sniffed chloroform and remained semi-conscious until we got to Boulogne,
because she said one never could trust the sea, although it looked smooth
enough from the pier; on her honeymoon she recollected just the same
deceitful appearance and they took five hours and she was very sick and
decided not to chance it again! Uncle John had to hold one of her hands and
I the bottle, but we got there safely in the usual time and not a ripple on
the water! The motor had been sent on, and after sleeping at Boulogne we
started. The little gamins shouted, "Quel drole de char triomphant! Bon
voyage, Mesdames," and Aunt Maria smiled and bowed as pleased as possible,
not having heard a word.

Uncle John was as gay and attentive as I suppose he was on the
journey--this is how they speak of it--and made one or two quite risqué
jokes down the ear trumpet, and Aunt Maria blushed and looked so coy.
Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally--did you have
them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry
and I--but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears the same
shaped bonnet now as she did then, and strangely enough it is exactly like
my new lovely chinchilla motor one Caroline sent for me to travel in. We
have the car open all the time and in the noise Aunt Maria hears much
better, so one has only to speak in an ordinary voice down the trumpet.

Everything went all right until this morning; we left Versailles at
dawn--how they were ever ready I don't know, considering the tremendous lot
of wraps and pillows and footwarmers and heaven knows what they
have;--besides Uncle John saying all the time it is their second honeymoon.
However, we got off, and as we have been on the road two days, even Janet,
who is naturally as meek as a mouse, is beginning to "turn" at her seat in
the rumble; because, it having rained and there being no dust, she and
Uncle John's valet are covered with mud instead, each time we arrive at a
place, and have to be scraped off before they can even enter a hotel.

Agnès would simply have had a fit of blue rage if one had put her
there;--as it is she is having an affair with the chauffeur. There must be
an epidemic in the air now for women of forty to play with boys, as they
get it even in her class. What was I saying, Oh! yes--Well, the first
trouble began with a burst tyre, and we all had to get out while the new
one was being put on; and as we were standing near, another car came up
from the opposite direction, and would have passed us, only I suppose Aunt
Maria looked so unusual the occupants stopped--occupant, I meant--it was an
American--and asked if it--he, I mean, could be of any assistance. Uncle
John, who thinks it right to gain information whenever he can from
travellers, said, No, not materially, but he would be obliged to know if
the country we were coming to was smooth or not. Then we knew it was an
American! In those big coats one can't tell the nation at first, but
directly he said: "It's like a base-ball ground--and I should say you'd
find any machine could do it--" we guessed at once. He was so nice looking,
Mamma--rather ugly, but good looking all the same; you know what I mean.
His nose was crooked but his jaw was so square, and he had such jolly brown
eyes--and they twinkled at one, and he was very, very tall. "We hope to get
to Dijon tonight," Uncle John said. "Can you tell us, sir, if we shall have
any difficulty?" The American did not bother to raise his hat or any fuss,
but just got out of his car and told the facts to Uncle John; and then he
turned to the chauffeur, who was fumbling with the tyre--it was something
complicated, not only just the bursting--and in a minute or two he was down
in the mud giving such practical advice. And you never heard such slang!
But I believe men like that sort of thing, as the chauffeur was not a bit
offended at being interfered with.

When they had finished grovelling, he got in again, and Uncle John insisted
upon exchanging cards with the stranger. He got out his from some pocket,
but the American had not one. "By the living jingo," he said, "I've no bit
of pasteboard handy--but my name is Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour--and
you'll find me any day at the Nelson Building, Osages City, Nevada. This is
my first visit to Europe." Perhaps I am not repeating exactly the right
American, Mamma, but it was something like that. But I wish you could have
seen him, I know you would have liked him as I did. Wait till I tell you
what he did afterwards, then you will, anyway. "Anyway" is American--you
see I have picked it up already!

We waved a kind of grateful goodbye and went our different ways, and beyond
its raining most of the time we had a quick journey; but at last we felt in
the dusk we were off the right road. Like all chauffeurs ours had whizzed
past every notice of the direction--so carefully printed up as they are in
France, too. From the way they behave one would think chauffeurs believe
themselves to possess a sixth sense and can feel in some occult manner the
right turns, as they never bother to look at sign posts, or condescend to
ask the way like ordinary mortals. Ours did not so much as stop even when
the lane got into a mere track, until, with the weight of Uncle John, Aunt
Maria and me in the back seat, and the extra stones in the rumble, as he
made a sensational backing turn into a fieldish looking place, (it was dark
twilight) our hind wheels sunk in up to their axles,--and the poor
machinery groaned in its endeavours to extricate us! We had to get out in
the gloom and mud, and Aunt Maria looked almost pathetic in her elastic
side "prunella" boots, edged with fur, white silk stockings and red quilted
silk petticoat held up very high. But she was so good tempered over it all!
She said when one had been married happily for fifty years, and was having
one's honeymoon all over again--(she had forgotten the hysterics)--one
ought not to grumble at trifles.

Meanwhile the hind wheels of the car sank deeper and deeper. I believe we
should never have got out, and it would have been there still, if we had
not heard a scream from a siren, and our American friend tore up again! It
was pitch dark by now, and the valet, the chauffeur, and Uncle John were
shoving and straining, and nothing was happening. Why he was returning this
way, right out of the main road, he did not explain, but he jumped out and
in a minute took command of the situation. He said, "If we had taken a
waggon over the desert, we'd know how to fix up this in a shake." He sent
his chauffeur back to the nearest village for some boards and a shovel, and
then dug out to firm ground and got the boards under, all so neatly and
quickly, and no one thought of disobeying him! And we were soon all packed
into the car again none the worse. Then he said he also found he was
obliged to go back and would show us the way as far as we liked. Uncle John
was so grateful, and we started.

Tonnerre was all as far as we could get to-night, and about six o'clock we
arrived at this hotel I am writing from.

Mr. Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour was a few yards in front of us. "Say, Lord
Wordon," he said to Uncle John, "I guess this is no kind of a place your
ladies have been accustomed to, but it's probably pretty decent in spite of
appearances. I know these sort of little shanties, and they aren't half as
bad as they look."

He took as much pains to shout down Aunt Maria's trumpet as Harry used in
the beginning when he wanted to please me, and when we got upstairs she
said she had no idea Americans were such "superior persons." "One of
Nature's gentlemen, my dear, which are the only sort of true gentlemen you
will find."

Such a hotel, Mamma! And Uncle John and Aunt Maria had to have the only big
bedroom on the first floor, and Mr. Renour and I were given two little ones
communicating on the back part. They thought of course we were of the same
party, and married.

"Madame" could have the inner one, they explained, and "Monsieur" the
outer! Aunt Maria, who thought, I suppose, they said Agnès, not "Monsieur,"
smiled pleasantly and agreed--that would be "tout à fait bien." Of course
if Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour had been a Frenchman, or even heaps of
Englishmen we know, he would have been delighted; instead of which he got
perfectly crimson all over his bronzed face and explained in fearful French
to the landlady he could not sleep except on a top floor. Wasn't it nice of
him, Mamma?

Dinner was at seven o'clock in the table d'hôte, and about eight commercial
travellers were already seated when we got down. We had glass racks to put
our forks and knives on, and that wrung out kind of table linen, not
ironed, but all beautifully clean; and wonderfully good food.

Uncle John made one end of our party and Mr. Renour the other, with Aunt
Maria and me in the middle, and the commercial travellers, who all tucked
in their table napkins under their chins, beyond. The American was so
amusing:--it was his language, not exactly what he said. I shall get into
it soon and tell you some of the sentences, but at first it is too
difficult. Presently he said he did not understand about English titles; he
supposed I had one, but he was not "kinder used to them," so did I mind his
calling me Lady Elizabeth, as he heard Aunt Maria calling me Elizabeth, and
he felt sure "Miss" wouldn't be all right, but would "Lady" be near enough?
I said, quite, I was so enchanted, Mamma, to be taken for a young girl,
after having been married nearly seven years and being twenty-four last
month! I would not undeceive him for the world, and as we shall never see
him again it won't matter. Think, too, how cross Harry--but I won't speak
of him!

Aunt Maria had an amiable smile on all the time. Can you imagine them
dining in a public room in an English hotel! The idea would horrify her,
but she says no one should make fusses travelling, and I believe she would
look just as pleased if we were shipwrecked on a desert island.

There was no salon to sit in after dinner, and the moon came out, so Mr.
Renour suggested we ought to see the church, which is one of the things
marked in the guide book. Uncle John said he would light his cigar and come
with us, while Aunt Maria went to bed, but when we got outside the dear old
fellow seemed tired and was quite glad to return when I suggested it; so
the American and I went on alone. I must say, Mamma, it is lovely being
married, when one comes to think of it, being able to stroll out like this
with a young man all alone;--and I have never had the chance before, with
Harry always so jealous, and forever at my heels. I shall make hay while
the sun shines! He was so nice. He told me all about himself--he is a very
rich mine owner--out West in America, and began as a poor boy without any
education, who went out first as a cow-boy on a ranch and then took to
mining and got a stroke of luck, and now owns the half of the great Osage
Mine. And he is only twenty-nine. "I kinder felt I ought to see Europe," he
said, "never having been further East than Chicago; so I came over at
Christmas time and have been around in this machine ever since." He calls
his automobile, an immense 90 h.p. Charon, his "machine!" He said all this
so simply, as if it were quite natural to tell a stranger his life story,
and he is perfectly direct--only you have to speak to him with the meaning
you intend in the words. Metaphor is not the least use: he answers
literally.

The church was shut, and as we had no excuse to stay out longer we strolled
back. He was intensely respectful, and he ended up by saying he found me
just the nicest girl he had seen "this side." I was so pleased. I hope he
will come on the rest of the way with us; we start at dawn. So good night,
dearest Mamma.

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




CANNES


CANNES.
HOTEL DU PARC.

Dearest Mamma,--You will be surprised to hear my plans! Octavia came over
from Monte Carlo directly we arrived, and in less than ten minutes had got
most of the story of Harry's and my quarrel out of me. I never meant to
tell her anything, but she is such a dear. She said at once that she should
take care of me, as she could not have me running about alone. And I really
can't stand any more of the honeymoon pair--and sitting three in the back
seat. So prepare yourself for a great surprise, Mamma! I am going to
America with Tom and Octavia! They sail in the Lusitania next Saturday and
we are flying back to England tonight. I shan't have any clothes but I
don't care; I shall not worry over that. We are going to see New York and
then go right out to California, where Tom is going on to Mexico to kill
tarpons or shoot turtles or whatever they do there.

The rest of our journey after Tonnerre was simple. At each place Mr. Renour
was just in front of us, and showed us the way, and we grew quite to feel
he was one of our party. Uncle John is devoted to him--and Aunt Maria, too.
She says considering he speaks a foreign language--he does almost!--it is
wonderful how he makes her hear!

Avignon interested me. It looks so wally and fortified, but I am greatly
disappointed, the romantic story of Pétrarque and his Laure is all
nonsense. I find Laure had eleven children in about fifteen years, the
guide said, and Pétrarque continued making sonnets to her, never minding
that a bit. Now do you believe it, Mamma? A man to stay in love for twenty
years with a woman who kept on having eleven children all the image of the
husband as good as gold! I don't! Pétrarque was probably some tiresome prig
like all poets, and thought her a suitable peg to hang his verses on.

Mr. Renour and I are so friendly. He is not with us now because he had to
go to Monte Carlo, so he does not yet know I am going to America. He still
thinks I am not married--and do you know, Mamma, I believe he is falling in
love with me--and I feel rather mean--but I expect we shan't see him before
we start, so it will not so much matter. This morning quantities of flowers
came up to my room with his card, and just written underneath, "got to meet
a man at Monte Carlo, shan't be gone long." I am leaving him a note
thanking him and saying we are off to his country. I have signed it,
"Elizabeth Valmond" of course, so that may illuminate him--but I still feel
rather mean.

We are only to be away two months and I think the change will do me good,
and I know you will take every care of Hurstbridge and Ermyntrude. I hate
not having time to run over to see you and them, but Octavia says it can't
possibly be done, and I am not to be silly; that two months is nothing, and
I shall be back again at the original time you were to bring them to
England--so I suppose she is right. I shall send Harry a cable to meet him
at Zanzibar. He can't stop me then because we shall be on the sea, and if
he is furious I shall be doubly pleased.

Aunt Maria and Uncle John have been so kind, but I can see are relieved
Octavia is going to take me. They have grown more sentimental. At each
place we come to they recollect some tender passage of their former trip.
It seems Aunt Maria's hysterics ended at Folkstone. Octavia says she means
really to see America and not only go to the houses of the smart people one
knows when they are in England, because she is sure there are lots of other
kinds quite as interesting and more original. We are to stay in New York
and then go West. I shall not have a moment to write until I am on the
ship, and trust I shall not be seasick.

Fondest love to my two angels and yourself,

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




LUSITANIA


LUSITANIA.
_Fourth day out_.

Dearest Mamma,--It is perfectly delightful being at sea--in this
ship--because you don't really know you are on the hateful element. We have
a charming suite with two real windows and beds, and even Agnès has not
grumbled. There are lots of American on board, and really these travelling
ones are quite as bad as the awful English people one meets on the
Continent, only instead of having stick out teeth and elephants' feet,
their general shapes are odd. It appears as if in the beginning Peter, or
someone, called up to the Creator that so many thousands of arms and legs
and bodies and heads were wanted to make this new nation, and so the
requisite amount were pitched down and then joined up without anyone's
worrying to get them en suite. Thus A seems to have received B's head with
C's arms, his own body and D's legs--and so on; not the least thought shown
in their construction. They seem rough-hewn--with foreheads too prominent
or noses too big, or too square shoulders or too deep set eyes, nearly
always too something--and the women the same; whereas the children (there
are only a few of them fortunately) are really impossible. There is one
family of the fattest boys you ever saw--simply like the pictures of the
fat boy of Peckham, and a little girl of six called Matilda. Matilda is
certainly over thirty in her conversation--she told me she was sick of
ocean travelling--her eighth voyage; and she was sick of the Continent,
too--you get no good candy there and her Momma did nothing but shop. She
has the voice of a young peacock and the repartee of a Dublin car
driver--absolutely "all there." They are fairly rich "store keepers" from
Buffalo. The mother has nerves, the father dyspepsia and the nurse is
seasick, so Matilda is quite her own mistress, and rushes over the entire
ship conversing with everyone. She is most amusing for a short time, if it
were not pathetic. She plays off one fat boy (cousins they are of hers)
against the other, and one steward against another for biscuits and
figs--with the most consummate skill. It is no wonder if this quality can
be perfected so young by Americans that they can snatch all our best young
men from us when they grow up.

I don't know how it is the most unattractive creatures of every nation seem
to be the ones who travel. There is a family of English who have the next
table to us, for instance; they make us blush for our country. The two
young men are the most impossible bounders one could meet, and I am sure
their names must be Percy and Ernest! When there was a dance last night
they smoked pipes in the faces of their partners between the valses, and
altogether were unspeakably aggressive. No American in the world would
behave like that to women. I really think the English middle classes are
the most odious--except, perhaps, the Germans--of any people on earth. And
as these are the ones other nations see most of, no wonder they hate us.

Octavia is so entertained at everything. We have not spoken to anyone
except one family who sit near us on the deck, and they have asked us to
stay with them at their country place on the New Jersey shore. But--Oh! I
forgot to tell you, Mamma, Mr. Renour is on board. Is it not a strange
coincidence? He seemed very surprised to see us, and for a moment it was
quite awkward when I introduced him to Octavia--because she, not being deaf
like Aunt Maria, I knew would hear him calling me Lady Elizabeth and think
it odd, and he would be certain to discover from her that I am married. So
the best thing to do seemed to be to take a walk with him at once on the
top deck and explain matters--this was just before dinner in the twilight.

He told me it was unkind to have given him the slip as we did, and that he
had had "quite a worry" to "come up with" us--but if I imagined he was
going to let me get out of range again I was mistaken! You can't think,
Mamma, how difficult it was to screw up my courage to tell him I was
married--he has such nice brown eyes;--and although his language is more
remarkable than anything you ever heard, he is not the least little bit
common. At last I blurted it out straight and explained and asked him to
forgive me. He looked away at the sea for quite five minutes and his jaw
was square as a box. Then he turned round and held out his hand. "Say," he
said, "I expect you didn't mean to play a low down trick on me but it has
hit pretty straight anyway. We'll shake hands and I reckon I'll keep out of
your track for a day or so till I size up things and put them on the new
elevation." And then he went away, saying, "Good evening, Lady Valmond." I
could have cried, Mamma, I felt so small and paltry. He is a great big
splendid creature and I wish I had not been so silly as to pretend in the
beginning. Octavia thinks him delightful. He never appeared for two
days--then he came up as if nothing had happened; only he looks at my hat
or my chin or my feet now and never into my eyes as before, and he calls me
Lady Valmond every other minute--and that is irritating. We shall get in
to-morrow and this will be posted at Sandy Hook, so good-night, dearest
Mamma.

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK


PLAZA HOTEL,
_NEW YORK._

Dearest Mamma,--We are here now, so this is where to address your letters.
We went to another hotel first but we could not stand the impudence of the
servants, and having to shout down the telephone for everything instead of
ringing a bell--and here it is much nicer and one is humanly waited on.

America is too quaint. Crowds of reporters came on board to interview us!
We never dreamed that they would bother just private people, but it was
because of the titles, I suppose. Tom was furious but Octavia was
delighted. She said she wanted to see all the American customs and if
talking to reporters was one of them, she wanted that, too. So she was
sweetly gracious and never told them a word of truth.

They were perfectly polite, but they asked direct questions, how we liked
America (we had not landed!), how long we were going to stay, what was our
object in coming there, what we thought of the American divorce, etc., etc.
All but two were the same type: very prominent foreheads, deep set eyes,
white faces, origin South of France or Corsican mixed with Jew to look at,
with the astounding American acuteness added, and all had the expression of
a good terrier after a rat--the most intense concentration.

When we actually landed female ones attacked us, but Octavia who, as you
know, doesn't really care for women, was not nearly so nice to them, and
their articles in the papers about us are virulent!

"Lady Chevenix is a homely looking person with henna-assisted hair and the
true British haughty manner," they put! They were not so disagreeable about
me, but not flattering. Then they snap-shotted us, and Octavia really does
look rather odd, as her nose got out of focus, I suppose, and appears like
Mr. Punch's; underneath is written, "An English Peeress and Society
Beauty." We laughed so!

New York Harbour is a wonderful sight, but you have read all about it
often. The streets by it are awful, badly paved and hideous architecture,
immense tall houses here and there, gaunt and staring like giants who have
seen Medusa's head and been turned into stone. Farther up town the
buildings are all much the same, so their huge height does not show so
greatly as with a few lower ones in between.

Every creature in the street has got a purposeful determined air, and even
the horses, many of them without blinkers, have it, too, I wonder if we
shall catch it before we leave. Nobody appears English--I mean of origin,
even if their name is Smith or Brown; every other nation, with the strong
stamp of "American" dominating whatever country they originally hailed
from, but not English. They have all the appearance of rushing to some
special place, not just taking a walk to nowhere.

You would have to come here to understand the insolence of the servants in
most places. We naturally ordered tea (down the telephone) when we arrived,
and presently a waiter brought a teapot and two cups and nothing else; and
when we remonstrated he picked his teeth and grinned and said, "If you
don't ask for what you want you won't get it. You said tea, and you've got
tea, you never mentioned sugar and milk." Then he bounced off, and when the
lift boy whistled as he brought me up, and the Irish chambermaid began to
chat to Octavia, she said she could not bear it any longer, and Tom must go
out and find another hotel. So late last night we got here, which is
charming; perhaps the attendants are paid extra for manners. But even here
they call Octavia "Lady Chevenix" and me "Lady Valmond" every minute--never
just "My Lady" like at home, and I am sure they would rather die than say
"Your Ladyship!"

Mr. Renour had to leave us; we were so sorry, but he got a telegram as we
landed, saying the superintendent of his mine had been shot and there was
"trouble" out there, so he had to fly off at once. However, we have
promised to go and stay with him presently and he is going to show us all
the mining camps.

To-day we have rested, and quantities of the people one knows in London
sent us flowers, and they are the best I have ever seen--roses so enormous
they look like peonies, and on colossal stalks--in fact, everything is
twice the size of at home.

We are going to dine at Sherry's to-night with a party. It is the
fashionable restaurant, and I will finish when I come back.

1:30 A.M.

Everything is so amusing! and we have had a delightful evening. It is more
like Paris than England, because one wears a hat at dinner, which I always
think looks so much better in a restaurant. The party was about eighteen,
and I sat next the host. American men; as far as I have yet seen, are of
quite another sex to English or French--I mean you feel more as if you were
out with kind Aunts or Grandmothers or benevolent Uncles than just men.
They don't try to make the least love to you or say things with two
meanings, and they are perfectly brotherly and serious, unless they are
telling anecdotes with American humour--and that is not subtle. It is
something that makes you laugh the moment you hear it, you have not to
think a scrap. When they are not practically English, like the ones we see
in London every season, they wear such funny clothes--often velvet collars
on their coats! and the shoulders padded out so that every man is perfectly
square; but everything looks extraordinarily well sewn and ironed and
everybody is clean shaven; and Octavia says it takes at least two hundred
years of gently bred ancestors to look like a gentleman clean shaven in
evening dress, so perhaps that is why lots of them have the appearance of
actors. Tom, with his ugly face and his long lean limbs, seemed as some
other species of animal, or a Derby winner let loose among a pen of prize
hackneys and cobs. Many of them are splendid of their kind, but it is
perfectly absurd to pretend they look thoroughbred. One would not expect it
of animals, with their mixed ancestry, so why of human beings.

Octavia says they would be insulted to hear me saying that, but I am sure
they are far too sensible and logical; for if you were a mixture of cart
horse, hunter, thoroughbred, Shetland and cob, you might have the good
qualities of all and be a magnificent splendid creature, but you could not
expect to look like one of the direct descendants of the Godolphin Arabian,
could you, Mamma?

I don't mind that part in the least, but I would rather they had a more
outdoor expression. As I looked round the room numbers of their faces
seemed pasty, and their shapes thick through, and soft, as if they would
bruise easily if one touched them, and lived a good deal in the dark. Also
they don't have "flowers and honey" on their hair, so it does not shine and
keep tidy, and it is not brushed smartly; and after our lovely guardsmen
they look a little ungroomed about the head. This, of course, is only my
first impression, after seeing the fashionable restaurant one evening. I
may be quite wrong, generally speaking.

The women are so exquisitely dressed that it is difficult to form an
opinion. They have whatever is the latest fashion, perfectly made; all
their hair is done exactly alike in the way it is worn in Paris. Their
figures have the last "look" and their jewels are simply divine. With all
this beyond criticism, it is very difficult to say whether they are
beautiful or not, naturally; the general effect is so perfect. They, as far
as grooming and superlative "turnedoutness" is concerned (I had to make a
new word), are the counterpart of our guardsmen.

The food was exquisite and we had terrapin and canvas back ducks; and they
are both the best things you ever tasted, only when you cut the duck you
have to look the other way, and take the first bite with your eyes shut,
because it has only run through the kitchen. And one would prefer to have
the terrapin alone in one's room, because of the bones--a greater test in
nice eating than the bunch of grapes which were given to the young diplomat
in the story book.

But to begin with, I have not told you of the cocktail! I had to have one.
You are handed it before anything else, while you are waiting for the soup,
and it tastes like ipecacuanha wine mixed with brandy and something bitter
and a touch of orange; but you have not swallowed it five minutes when you
feel you have not a care in the world and nothing matters. You can't think,
Mamma, how insidious and delightful--but of course I could not possibly
have drunk anything after it, and I was so surprised to see everyone else
swallowing champagne all through dinner; so I suppose it is a thing one
gets accustomed to.

Now I am very sleepy, so good-night, dear Mamma.

Kisses to my angels.

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




SPLEISTVILLE


SPLEISTVILLE,
_Up the Hudson_.

Dearest Mamma,--A whole week since we landed! and we are terribly amused
("terribly" is American for "much"); and do you know that describes almost
everything in comparison to at home. Everything is "colossalised"--events,
fortunes, accidents, climate, conversation, ambitions--everything is in the
extreme--all en-gros, not en-detail. They can't even have a tram run off a
line, which in England or France might kill one or two people, without its
making a holocaust of half a street full. Even in their hospitality they
are twice the size of other nations, simply too kind and generous for
words. They have loaded us with invitations; we have been out morning, noon
and night.

The thing which surprises me is they should still employ animals of normal
size; one would expect to see elephants and mammoths drawing the hansoms
and carts!

Now we are staying in a country palace with the family we met on the boat,
whom the Americans we know in England would not speak to; in fact, I am
sure they are rather hurt at our coming here; but Octavia says she prefers
to see something we do not see in England. The Van Verdens, and Courtfields
and Latours are almost like us, only they are richer and have better French
furniture. So she says she wants to see the others, the American Americans
we don't meet at home. If people are nice in themselves how can it matter
who they are or if "fashionable" or not. The whole thing is nonsense and if
you belong to a country where the longest tradition is sixteen hundred and
something, and your ancestor got there then through being a middle class
puritan, or a ne'er-do-weel shipped off to colonise a savage land, it is
too absurd to boast about ancestry or worry in the least over such things.
The facts to be proud of are the splendid, vivid, vital, successful
creatures they are now, no matter what their origin; but just like
Hurstbridge and Ermyntrude in the nursery, the one thing they can't have
they think immensely of. Nearly everyone tells you here, their
great-great-grandfather came over in the Mayflower. (How absurd of the
Cunard line to be proud of the Mauretania! The Mayflower, of course, must
have been twice the size.) I wonder if in Virginia they would inform us
theirs were the original cavaliers. I don't expect so, because cavaliers
always were gentlemen, and puritans of any century only of the middle
classes. Fancy if we had to announce to strangers that Tom's ancestor
carried the standard at Agincourt and Octavia's and mine came over with the
Conqueror!

Even in a week Tom has got so wearied about the Mayflower that yesterday at
lunch when some new people came, and one woman began again, he said his
father had collected rags and bones, and his great-great-grandfather was
hung for sheep stealing! The woman nearly had a fit, and I heard her
reproaching our hostess afterwards, as she said she had been invited to
meet an English Earl! And the poor hostess looked so unhappy and came and
asked me in such a worried voice if it were really true; so I told her I
thought not exactly, but that the late Earl had a wonderful collection of
Persian carpets and ivories which Tom might be alluding to. Even this did
not comfort her, I could see she was still troubled over the sheep
stealing, and the only thing I could think of to explain that was about the
eighth Earl, don't you remember, Mamma? who was beheaded for the Old
Pretender.

But the exquisite part of it all is the lady Tom told the story to was
interviewed directly she got home, I suppose, for this morning in most of
the papers there are headlines six inches tall:

ENGLISH PEER NO CATCH

FATHER RAG AND BONE MERCHANT

GRANDFATHER HANGED

Tom is so enchanted he is going to have them framed for the smoking room at
Chevenix. But our hostess is too unhappy and burns to get him to deny it
publicly. "My dear lady," Tom said, "would you have me deny I've got a
green nose?" She looked so puzzled, "Oh, Lord Chevenix," she said, "why, of
course you have not. A little sunburnt, perhaps--but _green!"_ Think
of it, Mamma! Octavia and I nearly collapsed, and she is such a nice woman,
too, and not really a fool; bright and cheery and sensible; but I am afraid
out here they don't yet quite understand Tom, or Octavia either, for the
matter of that.

There is a lovely place in New York called the Riverside Drive, charming
houses looking straight out on the Hudson. But if you live in that part
none of the Four Hundred or Two Hundred and Fifty, or whatever it is, would
visit you, hardly. These people we are staying with now have a mansion
there but are soon going to move. The daughter, Natalie, told me to-day,
that after this her Poppa would also take a house at Newport, because now
they would have no difficulty in getting into the swim!

We came here for the Sunday and it was raining when we arrived--after an
odious train journey. Tom's valet and both the maids are perfectly at sea
as yet, and while burning with rage over the lack of, and indifference of,
the porters, are too scornfully haughty to adapt themselves to
circumstances; so they still bring unnecessary hand luggage and argue with
the conductor. We made a mistake in the train and there was no Pullman, so
that means there is only one class. It really is so quaint. Mamma, having
to travel as if it were third. It amused me immensely, two people on a seat
on either side and an aisle through the middle down which the ticket
collector walks, and for most of the journey a child raced backwards and
forwards, jumping with sticky hands clinging to the sides of each seat
while it sucked candy. The mother screeched, "Say, Willie, if you don't
quit that game, I'll tell your pa when we get home!" However, Willie
shouted, "You bet," and paid not the least attention!

Nearly everywhere where you have to come in contact with people in an
obviously inferior or menial position, manners don't exist. They seem to
think they can demonstrate their equality, if not superiority, by being as
rude as possible. Of course if they were really the ladies and gentlemen
they are trying to prove they are, they would be courteous and gentle. The
attitude is, "I'm as good as you, indeed better!" Either you are a
gentleman or woman, aren't you, Mamma? and you do not have to demonstrate
it, everyone can see it; or you are not, and no amount of your own
assertion that you are will make anyone believe you. So, of what use to be
rude, or clamour, or boast? Doesn't it make you laugh, Mamma? Though it
surprises me here because as a people they are certainly more intelligent
than any other people on earth, and one would have thought they would have
seen how futile and funny that side of them is.

The talk of equality is just as much nonsense in America as in every other
place under the sun. How can people be called equal when the Browns won't
know the Smiths! And the Van Brounckers won't know either, and Fifth Avenue
does not bow to the West Side, and everyone is striving to "go one better"
than his neighbour.

Station is as strictly defined as in England, where the village grocer's
daughter at Valmond no longer could speak to a school friend, a little
general servant who came to fetch treacle at the shop, when Pappa Grocer
bought a piano! So you see, Mamma, it is in human nature, whether you are
English or American, if you haven't a sense of humour. I suppose you have
to be up where we are for it all to seem nonsense and not to matter; and,
who knows? If there were another grade beyond us we might be just the same,
too; but it is trash to talk of equality. Even a Socialist leader thinks
himself above the crowd--and is, too, though I should imagine that the
American middle and lower classes would assert they have no equal but
God--if they don't actually look down on Him.

How I am rambling on, and I wanted to tell you heaps of things! I shall
never get them all into this letter.

When we arrived at this palace it was, as I say, raining, but that did not
prevent the marble steps from being decorated with three footmen at equal
distances to usher us into the care of a cabinet minister-looking butler,
and then through a porphyry hall hung with priceless tapestry and some
shockingly glaring imitation Elizabethan oak chairs--to the library, where
our hostess awaited us in a magnificent décollete tea gown, and at least
forty thousand pounds' worth of pearls. Natalie had the sweetest of frocks
possible and was quite simple and nice, and there is not the least
difference in her to the daughters of any of our "smart" friends.

The library was a library because they told us so, but there were not any
books there, only groups of impossible furniture covered with magnificent
brocade, and the finest flowers one ever saw, most perfectly put in huge
vases by a really clever gardener; no subtle arrangement of colours, but
every blossom the largest there could be in nature. The tea seemed to get
mostly poured out by the servants, and the table was covered with a cloth
so encrusted with Venetian lace one's cup was unsteady on it. That is one
of the most remarkable points here--I mean America--as far as I have seen.
The table cloths at every meal are masses of lace, and every sort of
wonderful implement in the way of different gold forks and knives for every
dish lie by your plate; and such exquisite glass; and some even have old
polished tables like Aunt Maria, but instead of the simple slips they have
mats and centrepieces and squares of magnificent lace. Only the very
highest cream of the inner elect have plain table cloths and a little
silver like we do at home. And it is always a "party"--everyone is
conscious they are there, and they either assume bad manners or good ones,
but nobody is sans gêne. Octavia says it takes as long to be that as to
look like a gentleman clean shaven in evening dress. The rooms are awfully
hot, steam heated up to about 75, and it makes your head swim after a
while. There is only the son and a married daughter and husband in the
house besides ourselves and two young men. We should call them bank clerks
at home, and that is, I suppose, what they are here; only it is all
different. Every man works just like our middle classes; it is not the
least unaristocratic to be a lawyer or a doctor or a wholesale
store-keeper, or any profession you can name, so long as it makes you rich.
A man who does nothing is not considered to "amount to anything," and he
generally doesn't, either! And I suppose it must be the climate, because
directly they get immensely rich, so that the sons need not work, when it
gets to the third generation, they often are invalids or weaklings, or have
some funny vice or mania, and lots of them die of drink; which shows it is
intended in some climates for men to work. Octavia says it takes centuries
of wielding battle-axes and commanding vassals to give the consciousness of
superiority which enables people to be idle without being vicious; but Tom
says it is because they don't hunt and shoot, and go to the bench, and
attend to their estates and county business; so instead they have to go
crazy over fast motoring or flying machines, or any fad which is uppermost,
not having any traditions of how their forefathers passed their time.

Last night there was a dinner party and some such clever men came. They
were great financiers or business men or heads of Trusts. That means you
have a splendid opportunity to speculate, only if anything goes wrong you
have to chance all your other associates on the trust turning against you
and saying it was all your fault, and then you generally have to commit
suicide; but while you are head you can become frightfully rich and
respected. I sat between two of the most successful of different things,
and they talked all the time. They don't want to hear what you have to say,
only to tell you about themselves and their ideas, so it is most
interesting. They are not the least cultivated in literature or art or
anything decorative, but full of ideas upon the future evolution of schemes
and things; really intensely clever, some of them. Only the odd part of it
is they don't seem to speculate upon what the marvellous conglomeration of
false proportions, unbalance and luxury are going to bring their nation to,
if they are not careful.

Mr. Spleist (that is our host's name) is so kind! He spoils his wife and
Natalie more even than Harry spoils Ermyntrude; and the son-in-law is just
the same to his wife. American husbands fetch and carry and come to heel
like trained spaniels, and it is perfectly lovely; everything is so simple.
If you happen to get bored with your husband, or he has a cold in his head,
or anything that gets on your nerves, or you suddenly fancy some other man,
you have not got all the bother and subterfuge of taking him for a lover
and chancing a scandal like in England. You simply get your husband to let
_you_ divorce _him,_ and make him give you heaps of money, and
you keep the children if you happen to want them; or--there is generally
only one--you agree to give that up for an extra million if he fancies it;
and then you go off and marry your young man when he is free; because all
American men are married, and he will have had to get his wife to divorce
him. But when it is all "through," then it is comfortable and tidy, only
the families get mixed after a while, and people have to be awfully careful
not to ask them out to dinner together. One little girl at a dancing class
is reported to have said to another: "What do you think of your new Papa? I
think he is a mean cuss. He gave me no candy when he was mine."

Octavia says, from a morality standard, she does not see there is the least
difference to our lovers in England and France, but I do, because here they
have the comforting sense of the law finding it all right. The only
tiresome part of it is, it must quite take away the zest of forbidden fruit
that European nations get out of such affairs.

Our bedrooms are marvels. Mine is immense, with two suites of impossible
rococo Louis XV. furniture in it; the richest curtains with heaps of
arranged draperies and fringe, grand writing table things, a few
embroidered cushions; but no new books, or comfy sofas, or look of cosy
anywhere. The bathrooms to each room are superb; miles beyond one's ideas
of them in general at home. Tom says he can't sleep because the embroidered
monograms on the pillows and things scratch his cheek, and the lace frills
tickle his nose, while he catches his toes in the Venetian insertion in the
sheets. The linen itself is the finest you ever saw, Mamma, and would be
too exquisite plain. Now one knows where all those marvellously over-worked
things in the Paris shops go to, and all the wonderful gold incrusted
Carlsbad glass. You meet it here in every house.

The gardens are absurd, as compared with ours in England, but they have far
better glass houses and forcing processes and perfection of each plant;
because you see even the gardener would feel his had to be just one better
than the people's next door. They are far prouder of these imported things
than their divine natural trees, or the perfectly glorious view over the
Hudson, and insisted upon us examining all that, while Mr. Spleist told us
how much it all cost and would not let us linger to get the lovely picture
of the river and the opposite shore; until Octavia said we had a few
greenhouses at home and some fairly fine gardens, but nowhere had we so
noble a river or so vast a view, and he seemed to be quite hurt at all
that, because he had not bought them, I suppose! And yet, Mamma, I cannot
tell you what kind, nice people the Spleists really are; only the strange
quality of boast and application of personal material gain is most
extraordinary.

The outside of the house is brownish red sandstone, and is a wonderful
mixture of all styles.

There is no room in it where there is any look of what we call "home," and
not one shabby thing. Mrs. Spleist has a "boudoir"--and it is a boudoir! It
is as if you went into the best shop and said, "I want a boudoir;" just as
you would, "I want a hat," and paid for it and brought it home with you.
Natalie has a sitting-room, and it is just the same. They are not quite far
enough up yet on the social ladder to have every corner of the
establishment done by Duveen, and the result is truly appalling.

The food is wonderful, extraordinarily good; but although the footmen are
English they don't wait anything like as well as if they had remained at
home; and Octavia's old maid, Wilbor, told her the hurly burly downstairs
is beyond description; snatching their meals anywhere, with no time or
etiquette or housekeeper's room; all, everyone for himself, and the devil
take the hindmost. And the absolutely disrespectful way they speak of their
master and mistress--machines to make money out of, they seem to
think--perfectly astonished Wilbor, who highly disapproves of it all.
Agnès, having a French woman's eye to the main chance, says, "N'importe,
ici on gagne beaucoup d'argent!" So probably she will leave me before we
return.

What volumes I have written, dearest Mamma!

Best love from your,

Affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK


PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK,
_Friday._

Dearest Mamma,--Octavia and I feel we are growing quite "rattled." (Do
forgive me for using such a word, but it is American and describes us.) The
telephone rings from the moment we wake until we go out, and reporters wait
to pounce upon us if we leave our rooms. We are entertained at countless
feasts, and to-morrow we are going down town to lunch at a city restaurant,
after seeing the Stock Exchange, so I will tell you of that presently. We
can't do or say a thing that a totally different and garbled version of it
does not appear in the papers, often with pictures; and yesterday, while
Octavia was out with me, she was made to have given an interview upon
whether or no Mr. Roosevelt should propose a law to enforce American wives
to each have at least six children! It is printed that she asked how many
husbands they were allowed, and the reporter lady who writes the interview
expresses herself as quite shocked; but Octavia said, when she read it this
morning, that she thought whoever was speaking for her asked a very
sensible question. What do you think, Mamma? Octavia is enchanted with all
these things, and is keeping a large scrap book. But the one we like best
was in the Sunday's paper, when there was a full sheet with dark hints as
to our private lives by "One Who Knows."

All the history of the little dancer Ottalie Cheveny was tacked on to
Octavia's past! The name sounding something the same is quite enough reason
for its being Octavia's story here! Tom is having this one put with his
collection for the smoking-room, because he says when Octavia "fluffs"
(that, I think, means "ruffles") him, he will be able to look up at it and
think of "what might have been!"

I am said to be here while a divorce is being arranged by my family because
Harry has gone off to India with a fair haired widow!!! Think, Mamma, of
his rage when I send him a copy. Isn't it lovely?

We are enjoying ourselves more than I can say, and they are perfect dears,
most of the people who entertain us;--so gay and merry and kind;--and we
are growing quite accustomed to the voices and the odd grammar and
phrasing. At first you get a singing in your head from the noise of a room
full of people speaking. They simply scream, and it makes a peculiar echo,
as if the walls were metal. Everyone talks at once, and no one ever listens
to anything the person near them says.

A ladies' lunch is like this: Octavia and I arrive at a gorgeous mansion,
and are ushered into a marvellous Louis XV. morning room, with wonderful
tapestry furniture and beautiful pictures arranged rather like a museum.
There is never a look of the mistress of the house having settled anything
herself, or chosen a pillow because the colours in a certain sofa required
it; or, in fact, there is never the expression of any individuality of
ownership; anyone could have just such another house if he or she were rich
enough to give carte blanche to the best antique art shop; but the things
all being really good and beautiful do not jar like the mixture at the
Spleists did. Often whole rooms have been brought out, just as they were,
from foreign palaces, panelling, pictures and all, and it gives such a
quaint sense of unreality to feel the old atmosphere in this young,
vigorous country. The hostess's bedroom and boudoir and bath room are often
shown to us, and they are all masterpieces of decoration and luxury; and I
can't think how they can keep on feeling as good as gold in them! Perfectly
lovely luxurious surroundings always make me long for Harry to play with,
or some other nice young man--did not they you, Mamma, when you were young
and felt things?

About twenty other women are probably there besides us, all dressed in the
most expensive magnificent afternoon frocks; and they all have lovely
Cartier jewelled watches, and those beautiful black ribbon and diamond
chains round their necks, like Harry gave me last birthday. No one wears
old fashioned or ugly jewels, all are in exquisite taste, while the pearls
at one lunch would have paid for a kingdom.

When everyone has been presented to us, being the strangers, luncheon is
announced, and we go into a magnificent dining-room, sometimes with the
blinds so much drawn that we have to have electric lights. The footmen are
in full dress, with silk stockings, and one or two places they had them
powdered, and that did make Octavia smile. I don't think one ought to have
powder unless it has been the custom of the family for generations, do you,
Mamma? Well, then, beside each person's plate, beyond the countless food
implements lying on the lace-encrusted cloth, are lovely bunches of
orchids, or whatever is the most rare and difficult to get; and cocktails
have sometimes been handed in the salon before, and sometimes are handed in
the dining-room, but at the ladies' lunches in very small glasses.

With such heaps of divorces, in a very large party you can't help having
some what Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield (a perfect old darling of nearly
eighty whom we lunched with on Wednesday) calls "court relations,"
together; by that meaning, supposing Mrs. A. has divorced Mr. A., and
re-married Mr. B., who has been divorced by Mrs. B., who has re-married Mr.
C., who happened to be a widower with grown up married daughters--then the
daughters and the present Mrs. B., late Mrs. A., would be "court
relations," and might meet at lunch. Mr. A. himself and his present wife
would also be the late Mrs. B.'s and present Mrs. C.'s court relations. Do
you understand, Mamma? It is the sort of ones connected with the case whom
it would be unpleasant to speak about it to, but not the actual principals.
And when I asked Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield why she called them "court
relations" she said because the divorce court was their common ground of
connection, and it was a very good reason, and quite as true as calling
people blood relations in London or Paris! And that pleased Octavia very
much, because she said it was the first subtle thing she had heard in New
York. But I must get on with the lunch.

You begin your clam broth (such an "exquit" soup, as Ermyntrude would call
it), and the lady next you says she has been "just crazy" to meet you, and
heaps of nice things that make you pleased with yourself and ready to enjoy
your food. You are just going to say something civil in return, and get a
few words out, when your neighbour interrupts you with more nice things,
and stacks of questions, and remarks about herself, all rather
disconnected, and before you can speak again, the lady beyond, or even
across the table, has interpolated with a sentence beginning always like
this, "Now let me tell you something;" and long before she can get to the
end of that, the person at her side has interrupted her. And so it goes on.
It sounds as if I were telling you of another Mad Hatter's tea party,
Mamma, but it is not at all; and it is wonderful how much sense you can get
out of it, and what amusing and clever bright things they say, though at
the end you feel a little confused; and what with the smell of the
innumerable flowers and the steam heated rooms, and the cigarettes, I can't
think how they have wits enough left to play bridge all the afternoon, as
they do, with never a young man to wake them up. Of course it is amusing
for Octavia and me to see all this, as we are merely visitors, but fancy,
Mamma! doing it as a part of one's life! Dressing up and making oneself
splendid and attractive to meet only _women!_

They are not the least interested in politics or the pursuits of their
husbands or brothers, and hardly any of them have the duties we have to do,
like opening bazaars and giving away prizes and being heads of all sorts of
organisations, nor do they have quantities of tenants' welfare to look
after, or be responsible for anything. Of course they must pass the time
somehow, and they all have secretaries who take every sort of ordinary
trouble of notes and letters and things off their shoulders, so they ought
to be awfully happy, oughtn't they? But they often have nerves or some
imaginary disease or fad, and are frightfully restless, and Octavia says it
is because in the natural development of the female of any country, numbers
of these are really at the stage when they should be doing manual labour,
according to their ancestry, and so having nothing to occupy them and
living in every dreamed-of luxury, they get nerves instead. But I think it
is because they never have nice young men to play with, everyone being busy
working down town in the day time. We are told that even when the husbands
do come home before dinner they are too tired to talk much, and as I said
before nearly all the men, married or single, make you feel as good as
gold, so it is no wonder such numbers of beautiful Americans come to
Europe. I am quite sure if we had to lead their life we would turn into the
most awful creatures. It is greatly to their credit they remain so nice.

When you can get one or two alone to have a connected conversation they are
perfectly charming, and often very cultivated, and nearly always knowing
about music; but sometimes, supposing one is discussing a phaze of the
Renaissance, say, they will suddenly speak of something as belonging to it
of quite another period, and you feel perfectly nonplussed, it seems so
remarkable with the clever things they have just said they can make such
mistakes. Perhaps it's that they do not study any one subject very deeply.

One thing is noticeable and nice. The conversations everywhere are all
absolutely "jeune fille"; never anything the least "risqué," though it is
often amusing.

Among the "smart set" (do forgive this awful term, Mamma, but I mean by
that the ones who are "in the swim" and whose society is the goal of the
other's desire: I don't know what else to call them) they don't often tell
you about the Mayflower and their ancestors; though on Wednesday a
frightfully rich person who has only lately been admitted into this inner
circle because her daughters have both married foreign Princes, said to me,
she loved the English, and was indeed English herself and some distant
connection of our King, being descended from Queen Elizabeth!!! It was
rather unfortunate her having pitched upon our Virgin Queen, wasn't it,
Mamma!? But perhaps as she had rather an Italian look it was the affair of
the Venetian attaché, and when I suggested that to her, she gazed at me
blankly and said, "Why, no, there never has been any side-tracking in our
family; we've always been virtuous and always shall be."

Now that you know, generally, what a luncheon is, I must tell you of the
particular one at Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield's. She is the dearest old
lady you ever met, Mamma--witty and quaint and downright, with an immense
chic--grey hair brushed up into the most elaborate coiffure, jet black eyes
with the wickedest twinkle in them, and a strong cleft in a double chin.
She is rather stout but has Paris clothes and perfect jewels. She is not a
bit like English old ladies, sticking to their hideous early Victorian
settings for their diamonds; hers are the very latest, and although she is
seventy-eight, she crosses the ocean twice a year to have her frocks
fitted, and see what is going on.

She was of a real old Southern family, before the war, very rich and
aristocratic. She, of course, never mentions the Mayflower or the
cavaliers, but you can read all about her ancestors in any history of
America. She has such a strong sense of humour and the fitness of things,
that she has adapted herself to the present, instead of remaining aloof and
going to the wall as she told me so many of her friends and relations did.

We met at Mrs. Latour's (you know Valerie Latour, Lady Holloway's sister;
when she is in England she often stays with us at Valmond). She took to
Octavia and me at once, and we to her, and on Wednesday we lunched with
her, and when Queen Elizabeth's descendant, Mrs. Clerehart, said what I
told you, she caught my eye, and you never saw such a look of fun in a
human eye, and we became great friends at once. She says one must take New
York as it is, and one will find it a most amusing place. She never
hesitates to say what she thinks anywhere, and lots of people hate her, and
most of them are afraid of her, but all find it an honour when she will
receive them.

"My dear," she said, "in my young days there were gentle people and common
people, but now there is no distinction in society, only one of dollars and
cents, and whether you get into the right swim or not. I receive all sorts,
and some of the last risen are quite the nicest, and amuse me more than my
own old friends!"

She says the young men in New York are mostly awful, according to her
ideas, and nearly all drink too many cocktails, and that is what makes them
so unreserved when they get to their clubs, so the women can't have them
for lovers because they talk about it. She does not think it is because
American women are so cold or so good that they are so virtuous, but
because the men don't tempt them at all. Also she says it's being such a
young nation they are still dreadfully provincial. But there are other and
good qualities from being young, Mamma; it makes them have the kindest
hearts, and be more generous and hospitable, so I think I like it as well
as our old ones.

Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield said she had asked a sprinkling of all sorts
to meet us, and it was then she explained about the court relations,
because she found she had Mrs. Clem Busfield with the sister-in-law of Clem
Busfield's new wife, and that inadvertently her secretary, who arranged the
table, had put them side by side.

She sat in the middle, at the end of the table, with Octavia and me at her
right and left, and it was beyond Octavia these two sat. She explained it
all to me in so distinct a voice I was afraid they would hear, but she
added that Julia Busfield was really a lady and would pull through all
right!

"My dear," she said, "it is in these situations sometimes the parvenues
show the yellow streak, these and being touchy. They don't always come up
to the scratch, otherwise there is no difference in them, and that is the
glory of our country."

Then she told me that is the way she judges their advance, according to
their touchiness. They can't stand any chaff, she said, and if a stranger
dares to make any criticism of Americans to them, they are up in arms at
once and tear them to pieces! "Now, you in old countries, are amused or
supremely indifferent if foreigners laugh at you," she said, "as we are in
the South, but our parvenues in the East haven't got to that plane yet, and
resent the slightest show of criticism or raillerie. You see they are not
quite sure of themselves." Isn't that quaint of them, Mamma?

Then she asked me to look round the table and to tell her if I had ever
seen a better looking set of women, and of course I had not; they were
really charming and so exquisitely dressed, and the apparently most
aristocratic of all she told me was the daughter of a Western miner and an
English housemaid! And she even had a soft, sweet voice. I talked to her
afterwards. Is it not too wonderful to think of what such parentage would
make English people look! It must be climate and that splendid go ahead
vitality--whatever it is, I do admire it. And as Mrs. Van
Brounker-Courtfield seemed so human and not touchy I asked her why a number
of the New York men did not appear to have caught the same appearance of
wonderful refinement and breeding, and she said because the sort of life a
man leads makes him look what he does far more than blood, and that the few
that lived the life of English gentlemen looked like them, just as the rest
who live the life of our city clerks look like them, minus our City clerks'
Saturday interest in sport, and plus the cocktail. And this must be true,
Mamma, because Mr. Renour, who was what all these people would call a rough
Westerner, and would probably not speak to (until he became a trillionaire
of course) was a nature's gentleman and looked out-door and hard; and if he
had been dressed by Mr. Davis, and his hair cut by Mr. Charles, would have
been as good looking as anyone in the world.

These "reasons why" do interest me so much, and I am always collecting
them. But I must get back to what happened at lunch. I heard it from
Octavia afterwards, who made a fearful bêtise.

We had met the new Mrs. Busfield the day before but had not been told a
word of the story, so Octavia being vaguely aware that there were two
brothers Busfield, thought this one, who for the sake of non-confusion I
must speak of as "Julia," was the other brother's wife, and to be amiable
told her how charming she thought "Arma" (the new wife) was, and how
awfully devoted the husband seemed, and were they not very proud to have
such a perfect beauty in the family!

"Julia" got crimson and coughed, and then the lady from the other side
joined in telling Octavia that "Arma" was _her_ sister-in-law, but no
relation to this Mrs. Busfield! Octavia, of course, turned the conversation
and spoke to the hostess, but she said the two beside her, in spite of not
being on speaking terms chatted feverishly to each other for the rest of
lunch to avoid pauses, in case, Octavia supposes, she should ask any more
difficult questions. So you see, Mamma, even a person with as fine
perceptions as Octavia can make awkward bêtises here. It is like steering
among the Thousand Islands and hidden rocks and currents.

Mrs. Van B.-C.'s (the name is really too long to go on writing) house is
perfectly awful. She told us so before we could even formulate the thought
ourselves! It was done up about fourteen years ago, she said, when it was
one of the first houses as high up on Fifth Avenue, and was the time of the
most appalling taste in decoration. Every sort of gilding and dreadful
Louis XV., and gorged cupids sitting on cannon ball clouds, with here and
there a good picture and bit of china, and crimson brocade edged with plush
for curtains!

She told us she did not mean to change it. It is comfortable, she said, and
lots of her new people really admire it in their hearts! And it will last
her time, and when her granddaughter comes into it it will no doubt be
"down town" and turned into a shop, things move so fast.

After lunch we all came up to this fearful salon, and then we saw what a
perfect hostess she is, moving from group to group and saying exactly the
right thing in her crisp, old voice--there is nothing sleepy and Southern
about her. At last she sat down by me and she told me such an exquisite
story, showing the feeling after the war and the real aristocrats the
Southerners were. Two old aunts of hers were left absolutely destitute,
having been great heiresses, and to support themselves took in sewing,
making dresses for their friends. Their overseer became immediately rich,
and a year or so afterwards gave a grand ball for his daughter. The day
before the ball an old and not bright friend called, and found Miss Barbara
sewing a white satin frock and the tears dropping from her eyes. She
pressed her hand in sympathy, and said she felt as badly as she did to see
her making when she ought to be wearing, the frock; but Miss Barbara sat up
straight and said, "It is not that; I like the work, but what do you think!
Timothy Murran (the overseer) has had the impudence to send us an
invitation!" Isn't this a dear story, Mamma, and should not we have loved
and honoured those old ladies?

But Mrs. Van B.-C. says the modern people in New York would not in the
least understand this subtle pride, and would only think them old fools,
and she added--"which they probably were!"

She says we are not to judge of American men by most of those we have seen
in New York as yet; that there are a section of elderly, refined and
cultivated gentlemen, no longer interested in trade now, who were
contemporaries of her daughter (the beautiful Duchesse de Ville Tranche,
who died so tragically). She wants us to meet them.

But Octavia and I both told her we liked those we had seen very much
indeed; they were so kind, only not naughty like Englishmen. And she had
such a look in her eye as she said, "That is just it, my dear, and it makes
all the difference."

You see, Mamma, I am not telling you of any of the people we know in
England, because as I said before they are just like us, and not
interesting in consequence. Octavia and I feel we want to see quite others,
and next week perhaps we start for the West.

Heavens! The mail is going. I must stop!

Fondest love to my angels,

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH




LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND


LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND,
_Saturday._

Dearest Mamma,--We are here for Sunday, but first I must tell you of the
day "down town." We went with one of the interesting business men we have
met lately, and we seemed to motor for miles along Fifth Avenue until one
would think one was dreaming; all the houses seemed to be from fifteen to
twenty-five stories high, and so the air rushes down the gorges the streets
are, like a tornado, even if it is not a particularly windy day. It is a
mercy American women have such lovely feet and nice shapes, because when
they cross to a place called the Flat Iron Building the gusts do what they
please with their garments. I am quite sure if the Roués' Club in
Piccadilly could get itself removed to a house just here, those wicked old
men would spend their days glued to the windows. Well, we passed Washington
Square, which has a look of Russell or Bedford Squares, part of it, and
beyond that I can't remember the names of the streets; it all was so
crowded and intent and wonderful,--people racing and chasing after wealth,
I suppose.

Finally we got to Wall Street and the Stock Exchange. And Wall Street is
quite a little narrow, ordinary street, almost as mean as our Threadneedle
or Lombard Streets! The Stock Exchange is the most beautiful building! I
don't suppose you have ever been in one, Mamma, and I certainly shall never
want to see another. Imagine a colossal room as high as a church, with a
Greek roof and a gallery at one end, and down below countless human
beings--men at highest tension dealing with stocks and shares, in a noise
of hell which in groups here and there rose to a scream of exaltation or a
roar of disappointment. How anyone could keep nerves or hearing sense,
after a week of it, one cannot imagine. No wonder American men have nervous
prostration, and are so often a little deaf. The floor was strewn with bits
of paper, that they had used to make calculations on, and they had a lovely
kind of game of snowballing with it now and then--I suppose to vary the
monotony of shouting and screaming. The young ones would pelt each other.
It must have been a nice change.--Then there were a lot of partitions with
glass panels at the end of the room, and into these they kept rushing like
rabbits into their holes, to send telegrams about the prices, I suppose.
And all the while in a balcony half way up one of the great blank empty
walls, a dear old white bearded gentleman sat and gazed in a benevolent way
at the shrieking crowd below.

They told us he was there to keep order! But no one appeared to care a pin
for his presence, and as he did not seem to mind, either, what row they
made, we rather wondered what the occasions could be when he would exert
his authority! Presently he went away to lunch, and as no one else took his
place, they were able to make as much noise as they liked, though it did
not seem any greater than before.

Can you imagine, Mamma, spending days in a place like that? No wonder when
they get up town they don't want to talk. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield
says everyone is too restless to stay quietly at home in the evenings, and
when they have pulled themselves together with a cocktail they have to
dress and go out to dine at some restaurant or with friends, and then the
theatre. At first one thinks they are simply angels to their wives, working
all day long down town like that--they seem a race of predestined
husbands. If one wanted a husband who spent his entire day away from one
and was too tired when he came in to talk of anything but a few sentences
on Wall Street affairs, one would certainly choose a rich American, because
he would load one with money and jewels, and absolutely obey one when he
was at home, and let one spend most of the time in Europe. But Mrs. Van
Brounker-Courtfield says all that is only a sop to Cerberus, to keep the
wives from grumbling at not being made love to like women of other nations
are; that all men are hunters, and while ours in England chase foxes and
are thrilled with politics the New Yorkers hunt dollars, and it is the same
thing. Wall Street is their adored mistress, and the wives are just their
family. As you were married such ages ago I don't know if you quite
understand what I mean about men, Mamma, and the effect they have on one.
There are creatures who,--the moment they come into the room you know they
are there. You _know_ it isn't a woman. It is not an intellectual or
soul feeling, but it is rather lovely, all the same, and although I am
furious with Harry and intend to be horrid to him, I must say he has this
power stronger than anyone I have ever met; when he is close to me I have a
kind of creep of pleasure, and when he kisses those little curls at the
back of my neck I feel thrills all down my back. Do you know what I mean,
Mamma? I have divided men up into two lots. Those one could go to Australia
alone with, and those one couldn't, and it does not matter in the least
their age or looks or station or anything, it is just whether or no they
have got this quality. Well, as far as I have seen, Valerie Latour's
husband and one or two others are the only men who have it here in New
York, although lots are very good looking and intelligent, and all are
kind; but there is a didactic way of talking, a complete absence of
subtlety or romance.--And even those it would be perfectly safe to go
with; because they would not dream of making love to one, but they have the
igniting quality in themselves. Some of the elder men over forty are really
attractive and intensely clever, but as everyone is married, one would
always have the bore of the wives' frowns if one played with them. How I do
wander from what I was telling you!

Tom came with us to the Stock Exchange. We have to leave him at home when
we go to the women's lunches, but he spends the time with Valerie Latour,
and in the late afternoons he goes to the Clubs with the husbands, and he
says they are awfully good fellows and many brilliantly amusing, and full
of common sense; but at some of the clubs they have not got any unwritten
laws as to manners, so now and then when they get rather drunk, they are
astonishingly rude to one another. It is not considered a great disgrace
for a young man to get tipsy here; the slang for it is to get "full." There
are two grades, "fresh" and "full." When you are "fresh" you are just
breezy and what we would call "above yourself;" but when you are "full,"
you can't speak plain, and are sometimes unsteady on your feet, so it is
very unpleasant. You can be "fresh," too, without having drunk anything, if
you have an uppish nature. Octavia and I were perfectly astonished the
first time we heard it spoken of. A rather nice looking boy who was at
dinner had apparently been "full" the night before, and the women on both
sides of him chaffed him and scolded him as if it were a joke. I am glad it
is still considered a disgrace in England, because when it does occur it is
kept out of sight.

After the Stock Exchange we went to see the workings of one of the great
journals. That was too wonderful, Mamma, everything happening in a vast
room on one floor; compositing, typewriting, printing, and sorting. It is
astonishing the tremendous power of concentrating the will to be able to
think in that flurry and noise;--hundreds of clean-shaven young men in
shirt-sleeves smoking cigars or cigarettes and doing their various duties.
The types interested us so; physiognomy counts for nothing,
apparently,--faces that might have been the first Napoleon or Tennyson or
even Shakespeare,--doing the simple manual part of lifting the blocks of
metal and attending to the machinery, older men, these;--and the Editor,
who naturally must have been very clever, had a round moon face, tiny baby
nose, two marbles stuffed in for eyes and the look of a boyish simpleton.

Tom was so enchanted because at the sporting editor's desk there were a
party of prize fighters, the "world's light weight"--whatever that means, a
half "coloured gentleman," that is what niggers are called--with such white
teeth and wiry and slight; and two large bull dogs of men who were
heavyweights. I felt obliged to ask them if they minded at all having their
noses smashed in and black eyes, and if they felt nervous ever, and the
little coloured gentleman grinned and said he only felt nervous over the
money of the thing! He was not anxious about the art or fame! He just
wanted to win. Is not that an extraordinary point of view, Mamma--_To
win_? It is the national motto, it seems; _how_, does not matter so
much; and that is what makes them so splendidly successful, and that is
what the other nations who play games with them don't understand. They,
poor old-fashioned things, are taking an interest in the sport part, and
so scattering their forces, while the Americans are concentrating on the
winning. And it is this quality which of course will make them the rulers
of the world in time.

All the people were so courteous to us, and naturally Tom was more
interested in this than any of the things we have yet seen. One reporter
who showed us round had a whimsical sense of humour (not "American humour,"
that, as I told you before, is different) and we really enjoyed ourselves,
and before we were out of the building they presented us with copies of the
paper with accounts of our visit in the usual colossalised style. Was not
that quick work, Mamma?

The things they put in the papers here are really terrible, and must be
awfully exciting for the little boys and girls who read them going to
school; every paltry scandal in enormous headlines, and the most intimate
details of people's lives exposed and exaggerated, while the divorces and
suicides fill every page. But if there is anything good happening, like
sailors behaving well at sea and saving lives, or any fine but
unsensational thing, it only gets a small notice. The poor reporters can't
help it; they are dismissed unless they worry people for interviews and
write "catchy" articles about them, so, of course, they can't stick to the
truth; and as the people who read like to hear something spicy, they are
obliged to give it all a lurid turn. The female ones are sometimes
spiteful; I expect because women often can't help being so about
everything. These wonderfully sensational papers have only developed in the
last ten years, we are told, so they have not had time to see the effect it
is going to have upon the coming generation.

The better people don't pay the least attention to anything that is
printed, but of course ordinary people in any country would.

We lunched in the most fashionable restaurant down town, but I never can
describe to you, Mamma, the noise and flurry and rush of it. As if
countless men screaming at the top of their voices and every plate being
rattled by scurrying waiters, were not enough, there was the loudest band
as well! Unless you simply yelled you could not make your neighbour hear. I
suppose it is listening to the other din at the Stock Exchange all the
morning;--they would feel lonely if they had quiet to eat in.

Our party was augmented by a celebrated judge, and some other lawyers. We
had been told he was most learned and a wonderful wit, and someone we
should see as a representative American; half the people said he was a
"crook," and the other half that he was the "only straight" judge; and when
I asked what a "crook" was, our host told me the word explained itself, but
that you would be called a crook by all the trusts if you gave judgment
against them, just as, if you let them off, you would be the only honest
judge. So whatever you were called did not amount to anything! The Judge
was much younger than our judges, and had a moustache, and looked just like
ordinary people, and not a bit dignified.

As he has to deliver long speeches when he is judging, one would have
thought he might have liked a little rest and light conversation when he
came out to lunch, especially as every man likes to talk to Octavia and me;
but not a bit of it, he continued to lay down the law in a didactic way so
that no one else could speak. He did not even pretend to be interested in
us. What he said was all quite clever and splendidly put, but having to
show politeness and listen with one's fork suspended in the air, lets the
food get cold, and as it was excellent, all sorts of lovely American
dishes, at last I just attended to that, and did not hear some of his
speeches.

The band suddenly stopped and Octavia's voice saying, "Indeed" (all she
could get in) rang out like the man on the Lusitania shouting orders down
the megaphone; and when we got outside we all felt deaf and had sore
throats.

The intense relief to come here out of all noise or hustle, to Valerie
Latour's for Sunday! But I am so tired now I will finish this to-morrow.

Your affectionate daughter,
    ELIZABETH.




LATOUR COURT, LONG ISLAND,

_Sunday._

DEAREST MAMMA,--I am resting, so I can put another letter in with the
one I wrote last night. We came here, as I said, after the down town
luncheon, and it is so quaint going over on the ferry; we just sat in
the motor we have hired while we are in New York, and it rolled on to a
broad place on a huge flat steamer, with all the rest of the traffic,
and the boat quietly steamed across the water, and when it touched the
other side we drove off again. And presently as one gets past the
station it looks like going into the wilds, but along the edges of the
roads are small villas made of boards with shingle roofs; here the
clerks (they pronounce it just as it is spelt) and small business
people live, their little bits of land a few feet round each house not
railed or hedged off, but simply mown grass marking them from public
property.

Most of them are spruce and painted, and they can be moved if
necessary. We met one coming down the road, the lace curtains in the
windows and a cat looking out and brushing its whiskers. The house was
set on rollers and being pulled along. Isn't it a splendid idea, Mamma?
Fancy if I could have the east wing of Valmond, that was added in
eighteen hundred, cut off and just trotted round to the north
courtyard, where it would not show so much, how nice that would be; but
everything is so dreadfully stable and solid with us, and here
everything is transitory and can come and go in a night. All the
country we came through looks the wilds, uncultivated, almost as if
bears could live in the woods. Farms have been there, but now the land
is too valuable and is only sold for building purposes. But the effect
of wild is intense and makes the contrast of the over-cultivated avenue
borders greater. Once inside the gates, the winding avenue begins,
covered like all the avenues we have seen with fine granite gravel. But
even in the wildest wild it is lit with electric light, and here and
there a neat villa. This is typical of America, the contrivances of the
brain of man forced upon primitive nature.

The house is simply charming; outside a beautiful colonial style, so
suitable to the splendid trees and general look of the land, and inside
all panelled, and everything in the most perfect taste, and not too
grand. But it surprises me that Valerie, who has been so much in
England, should still have the same want of the personal note in her
house. Everything is beyond criticism, so perfect and suitable, but not
in a single room, even her own sitting room, is there that strong sense
of her as I think we all have in our rooms at home. I am sure, Mamma,
you would know even the great state drawing-rooms at Chevenix were
Octavia's, and there is not a corner of Valmond or Hurstbridge or even
the town house, that I do not decide upon the arranging of. But here I
don't think they would be bothered; and they only stay in their houses
for so short a period, rushing from New York to Newport and the country
to Europe, so none of the places feel like home. That is the only
possible thing which spoils this one,--otherwise it is perfection. But
then you see they could start fair by building it themselves; they had
not to inherit a huge castle from their forefathers, with difficult
drains to combat and an insufficient water supply, to say nothing of
the trail of the serpent of fearful early Victorian taste over even the
best things of the eighteenth century. The _horrors_ that now live in
the housemaids' bed rooms which I collected from the royal suite at
Valmond!

It was a perfect joy to get here into peace, and we were allowed to
rest quietly until dinner, and Valerie came and talked to me while I
lay on the sofa. She said her husband was "crazy" about me, and she
thought it would do him a great deal of good for me to play with him a
little, and that she was crazy about Tom; so I said if she could find
someone for Octavia it seemed a nice little chassé croisée and we ought
all to be very happy together. Then she said she had someone coming
down by a later train who ought to be just Octavia's affair, and who in
the world do you think it is, Mamma? The Vicomte! Gaston de la
Trémors!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kisses to my angels.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK




PLAZA HOTEL. NEW YORK, _Tuesday._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good-bye, dearest Mamma. Best love from,

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA



RINGWOOD, PHILADELPHIA, _Wednesday._

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

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

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

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

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

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




Thursday._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fond love to my babies.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.





PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK




BACK IN NEW YORK, PLAZA HOTEL.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kiss the angels for me, both of them!

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.



NIAGARA




NIAGARA.

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

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

Agnès said it was too ridiculous and "_très mauvais gout_" on his part
to make such a fuss over "_un petit accident de voyage." "Je puis
assurer Madame la Marquise_," she said, "_que s'il était resté c'eut
été la même chose. Son type ne me dit rien_!" At the same time she does
not think these trains "_comme il faut_!"

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

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

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

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

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

Love from your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.

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




CHICAGO.




CHICAGO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now I must go to bed, dearest Mamma.

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

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




GOING WEST




_In the train going West._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




_Morning._

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

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




_Still in the train._

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

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

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

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

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

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

They did get there, finally, and the sheriff married them, and here his
voice broke a little and was so low I could hardly hear him. There were
no two people ever so happy, he said. He built a little shack of boards
not twelve feet long, "way up on the mountain," and she kept it like a
new pin, and was dainty and sweet and loving, and when he came in from
the mines she would run to meet him "as gentle as a fawn," and he never
wanted to go to the saloons or drink like the other men, "though I was
always pretty handy with my gun," he said, "and had been through the
whole ugly show."

And presently he began to make a little money and would contrive to
give her small things for the house; it gave her more pleasure than
anything in the world to make it pretty, so that the little shed was
the admiration of all the other miners' wives. And once he was able to
buy some flower seeds, and she grew a pansy in a pot because there is
no green thing in that barren land, and she tended it and watched it as
it came through the earth, and no one was so joyous as she. "It hurts
me to look at pansies even now," he said; and I was glad, Mamma, it was
getting dark, because I felt the tears coming in my eyes. They were
perfectly happy like this for about three years, and then Lola was born
and they were happier still; but before that she used to take him up on
the mountains, above their shack, to look down at the camps, and watch
the stars, and she always used to see things in the future--how they
would be very rich, and he would be a great man. "And this is where
blood tells," he said. "She was nothing but the love-child of some
young English lord, drifted out to our land with her servant-girl
mother. And she'd spent all her life in gambling hells among rogues,
but her soul was the daintiest lady angel that ever walked this earth,
though she could hardly read or write, and all the stars were her
friends, and even a rattlesnake wouldn't have wounded her." Mustn't she
have been a darling, Mamma? She had hair like gold, and little ears,
pink as sea shells, and big blue eyes and a flower for a mouth. No
wonder he loved her so. He said her baby was even more pleasure to her
than the pansy had been, and they both were "just kind of foolish over
it." Well, when Lola was about three months old a gang of desperadoes
came to the camp, and among them the man the Senator had wounded for
his wife. Before the Senator came in from the mine Hearts-ease heard
the other miners' wives talking of this, and how this man had boasted
he would kill him. She knew her husband was unarmed, having left his
gun behind him that day because his second one was broken, and he would
not leave her with none in the shack; quite unsuspiciously he returned
with his comrades, and went into a bar to have a drink on his way back,
as he often did to hear the news of the day. And when Hearts-ease could
not find him on the road, she ran down there, carrying the gun and the
baby, to warn him and give him his weapon, and got into the saloon just
as the desperado and his following entered by another door.

The enemy called out to the Senator that he meant to "do for him this
time," and as Hearts-ease rushed up to her husband with no fear for
herself, holding out the gun, the brute fired and shot her through the
heart, and she fell forward with Lola, dead in the Senator's arms. "And
then the heavens turned to blood," he said, "and I took the gun out of
her dead clasp and killed him like a dog." But by this time, Mamma, I
really was crying so I could hardly hear what he said. No wonder his
eyes have a sad look sometimes, or his hair is gray.

We neither of us spoke for a while. I could only press his strong kind
hand. Then he recovered his voice, and went on as if dreaming: "It all
came true what she prophesied. I am rich beyond her uttermost
fancyings, and I've sampled pretty well most all the world, but I've
always tried to do the things she would have liked me to do. I guess
you've wondered at my dandy clothes, and shiny finger nails. Well, it's
just to please her--if she's looking on." Wasn't he a man worth loving,
Mamma! And of course she did not mind dying for him, and how happy and
glad she must be now, if she is "looking on." Somehow the whole story
has made me so long for Harry, that I have been perfectly miserable all
the evening, and if you think you could cable to him and tell him to
come back I think perhaps you might, and I will say I am sorry.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.






SAN FRANCISCO.




San Francisco.

Dearest Mamma,--I have just got a letter from Jane Roose about having
heard of Mrs. Smith's being on the ship with Harry. Has it come to your
ears, too? What on earth could a woman like that want to be going to
Zanzibar for, unless she was hunting some man who was going to hunt
lions? I call it most extraordinary, don't you? And probably that is
what these papers meant by saying he had gone to India with a fair
haired widow, and I was so silly I never suspected a thing. Well, if he
thinks it will annoy me he is very much mistaken. I don't care in _the
least_, and am amusing myself _awfully_ with Gaston, and you can tell
him so; and as for cabling to him, as I think I asked you to in my last
letter, don't dream of it! Let him enjoy himself if he can. But how any
man could, with that woman, old enough to be his mother! I suppose she
has taken some lovely clothes. She always has that sort of attraction,
and no doubt she is pouring sympathy into his ears in the moonlight
about my unkindness. It makes me feel perfectly sick that anyone can be
such a fool as Harry to be taken in by her;--having got away from her
once, to go back again.

No doubt it was she prompted him to be so horrible to me (he behaved
like a perfect brute you know, Mamma, and I never did a thing). It is
only because I can't bear him to be made a fool of that I mind in the
least, otherwise I am perfectly indifferent. He can play with whom he
chooses, it is nothing to me. Gaston is devoted to me, and although I
should not think of divorcing Harry, No matter what he does, because of
letting that odious woman become Marchioness of Valmond, still it is
nice to know someone else would absolutely die for you, isn't it, even
though I don't want to marry him--Gaston, I mean--We arrived here last
night. We have come all round this way because now we are about it
Octavia felt we ought to see Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and go
down the coast to Los Angeles. Then we shall have done this side of
America thoroughly. We only rushed through everywhere, of course, but
got a general coup d'oeil. Crossing the great Salt Lake was wonderful.
It seemed like being at sea on a bridge, and I could not help wondering
what it would be like if the lake were rough. You can't think of
anything so intelligent as the way that Brigham Young laid out Salt Lake
City, seeing far ahead; he planned splendid avenues, and planted trees,
and even though lots of them still have only mud roads, and little board
shanties down them, they are there all ready for the time when the
splendid houses are built, and tram cars and electric light everywhere;
and such green and beautiful rich looking country! No wonder, after the
desert it seemed the promised land.

I should hate to be a Mormon, wouldn't you, Mamma? Worse than being a
Chinee and having to sit at the theatre penned up with only females.
Think of sharing a man with six other women, and being a kind of
servant. It is natural they look cowed and colourless,--the ones we saw;
at least they were pointed out to us. But really it seems much honester
to call them wives openly than to be like--but no, I won't speak of it
any more. Only _I_ will never share a man with another woman! Not the
least little scrap of him; and if Harry thinks I will he is mistaken. To
have six husbands is a much better plan; that, at least, would teach
one to be awfully agreeable, and to understand the creatures' different
ways; but a man to have six wives is an impossible idea,--specially as
now it is not necessary, the way they behave. I wish I had got Jane's
letter sooner, Mamma, because I could have amused myself more with
Gaston than I have. I feel I have lost some opportunities, snubbing him
all the time.

San Francisco is perfectly wonderful. Imagine colossal switchbacks going
for miles, and other switchbacks crossing them like a chess board,
and you have some idea of the way of the streets; hills as steep as
staircases, and the roads straight up and down, not zigzag, just being
obliged to take the land as it comes; some persons in the beginning, I
suppose, having ruled the plan on flat paper without considering what
the formation was like, and then insisting on its being ruthlessly
carried out.

When we arrived at the station, Octavia and I were put into a two horse
fly because it was very windy and cold. It always is, we are told, and
the motors for hire were all open. So we started to go to Fairmount, the
big hotel right up on the hill. At first it was a sort of gradual slope
past such sad desolation of levelled houses, with hardly the foundations
left. The results of the earthquake and the fire are so incredible that
you would think I was recounting travellers' tales if I described them,
so I won't. Presently the coachman turned his two strong fat horses to
the right, up one of the perpendicular roads, to get to our destination,
but they would have none of it! They backed and jibbed and got as cross
as possible, and he was obliged to continue along the slope, explaining
to us that there was another turning further on which they might be
persuaded to face. But when we got there it was just the same, no
whipping or coaxing could get them to sample it. They backed so
violently that we nearly went over into the cellars of a ruin at the
corner, and the man asked us to get out, as he said it was no use, none
of his horses would face these streets. And to go on to a gradual hill
was miles further along, and he advised us to walk, as the hotel was
only about six hundred yards away!! So in the growing night Octavia and
I, clutching our jewel cases, were left to our own devices. We really
felt deserted, as now that nearly everything in this neighbourhood is in
ruins there are no people about much, and it felt like being alone in a
graveyard, or Pompeii after dark. We almost expected bandits and
wolves or jackals. We started, holding on our hats and feeling very
ill-tempered, but we had not got a hundred yards on our climb, when a
motor tore down upon us, and Gaston and the Senator jumped out; they had
been getting quite anxious at our non-arrival and come to look for us.
Tom, of course, being an English husband, was sure nothing had happened;
and when we got there we found him having a cocktail and smoking a cigar
calmly in the hotel.

As we have come this way we have picked up Lola sooner. I must call her
that, Mamma, although I dislike using peoples' Christian names, but
Mrs. Vinerhorn is so long, and everyone calls her Lola, and the Senator
wished it; he wants us to be friends. He and I have been even more
intimate since he told me his story. I am deeply attached to him; he is
a sort of father and yet not--much nicer, really; and the best friend
I have in the world, except you, Mamma, and one I would rather tell
anything to. He is a perfect dear; we all love him. The two cousins, who
were promised Tom, live here and came to dinner; such amusing girls,
they would make any party merry, and we had the most gay and festive
evening; and one of the Senator's secretaries has joined the party also,
a very nice worthy young fellow whom the girls bully. Columbia and
Mercédès are the girls' names, and they are both small and dark and
pretty. They are both heiresses, and wonderfully dressed. Their two
mothers were the Senator's sisters, and "raised" somewhere down South,
where he originally came from. But the girls have been educated in New
York with Lola.

The crowd in this hotel are totally different looking to Chicago. Some
have moustaches, and some even look like sportsmen, and as if they led
an idle life and enjoyed it; and a few of the women are lovely, pure
pink and white, and golden haired, and that air of breezy go-aheadness
which is always so attractive. And all of them seem well dressed, though
naturally one or two freaks are about, as in every country.

The food was as excellent as in all the places, and rather more
varied--dishes with wonderful salads and ices; and after dinner we sat
in the hall and made plans, and Gaston said such entreprenant things in
my ear that I was obliged to be really angry with him. So to pay me
out he sulked, and then devoted himself to Mercédès. Men are really
impossible people to deal with, aren't they, Mamma? So ridiculously vain
and unreasonable. I shall be glad to see Mr. Renour again; he was quite
different; respectful and yet devoted, not wanting to eat one up like
Gaston, and I am _sure_ incapable of treating me like Harry has. I
suppose by now they have got right up into Africa. I wonder if she is
going to shoot lions, too, or be a shikari or cook his food. I am sure
she would look hideous roughing it without her maid. Her hair has to be
crimped with tongs, and she has to have washes for her complexion, and
things. You know, Mamma, though I don't care a bit, the whole affair has
upset me so that the dear Senator noticed I was not quite myself after
the post came in, and asked me if there was anything else I wanted that
he could do for me. And when I told him only to teach me to be a brazen
heartless creature, as hard as nails, he held my hand like I held his,
and pressed it, and said we should soon be in the sunshine where the
winds did not blow.

"You are too broad gauge to want things like that," he said; "those
bitter thoughts are for the puny growths."

And I suddenly felt inclined to cry, Mamma; I can't think why. So I came
up to bed;--and I am homesick and I want Hurstbridge and Ermyntrude, and
what's the good of anything?

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




ON THE PRIVATE CAR




_On the private car_.

DEAREST MAMMA,--My spirits have quite recovered; you can't imagine the
fun we are having! We only stayed the day in San Francisco to look round
at those Golden Gates and other things. The astonishing pluck of the
people, reconstructing the whole town with twenty storey houses on
the old sites! One would think they would be afraid of their being
earthquaked again, but not a bit, and the city part is nearly all
re-made. Everything being brand new is naturally not so interesting as
the results of the tragedy, but you have read all about it so often
there is no use my telling you. We were shown one of the "graft"
buildings, and one wonders how they were able to put it up without
people seeing the tricks at the time. There are numbers of ways to get
rich, aren't there?

Finally the whole party started for Los Angeles, passing down the coast.
A company of ten, five drawing-rooms were naturally impossible; indeed
we could only get two, so this time Octavia and I insisted upon sleeping
under the green curtains and let the girls have our drawing-room,
because we wanted to see what it was like. They said they often
travelled like that, and did not mind a bit; but we insisted, and we
felt quite excited when bed-time came! Lola and the husband had the
other drawing-room, and the Senator and Tom the section next to us on
one side, and the Vicomte and secretary the one on the other, so we were
well guarded.

We laughed so tremendously undressing;--Lola let us take off the outside
things with her and Agnès and Wilbor helping made so many remarks and
fuss, we sent them off to their berths, and crept in dressing-gowns to
our section, which was fortunately by the door. Of course Gaston was
waiting to know if he could be of any use, because he said I would
remember he could be a "très habile" lady's maid years ago on the
Sauterelle! But we would not let him tuck us up, and so he got into his
own and peeped out through the curtains while Tom and the Senator saw we
were all right.

I had the top of ours, so had Gaston of theirs, and ever so many times
he tapped on the division. I do hope the other people thought it was a
mouse; but when he began to give terrible sighs, and at last exclaimed,
"Sapristi!" they must have wondered what was the matter. He was so
dreadfully tiresome and restless, the poor secretary could not get a
wink of sleep, he told me to-day; and at last fearing he was ill he
climbed up and offered him some brandy. He must be a very good man, the
secretary said, because he found him kneeling with his forehead pressed
against the division which separated him from me, evidently saying his
prayers. Aren't the French odd? And when I asked him next day how he had
slept he looked at me with eyes of the deepest reproach and said I
had taken care he could not sleep; just as though it was I who was
troublesome and snored! Wasn't it crazy of him, Mamma? And since he has
devoted himself entirely to Mercédès, and I am perfectly thankful, as
very soon at the first mining town we are expecting Mr. Renour!

We have two tables of four for meals, and whichever two have been
naughty we put at a little one by themselves; and it is generally Tom
and Columbia. They are getting on splendidly, and Octavia is so pleased,
as she was afraid Tom might grow bored and give up the trip and go
straight on to Mexico: Englishman can't stay long without killing
things, can they, Mamma, and they never think about their wives'
pleasure, as the Americans do. The dear Senator divides himself between
Octavia and me, and when she has the secretary she gets him to give her
information about the country, and we are all as happy as possible. Mr.
Renour is bringing a friend with him, so that will make twelve. The
coast is pretty, but I can't describe scenery, especially as all of this
has been done dozens of times before, and also, though it is beautiful,
it is rather of a sameness; and half the time, having been so long in
the train we did not look out, there are such a number of amusing things
to do in a party like this.

Lola's husband is a poor creature; how she adores him as she does is a
mystery; he simply "don't amount to anything;" only he is beautifully
dressed, like an Englishman, and has as nice socks as Harry. The
Senator, without asking me any questions, has soothed me so that I am
not feeling as cross as I was, though I am determined not to go near
Harry again for months and months. When we get back, if he is still in
Africa with that creature, I shall take the children for a voyage
round the world. He shall see he can't behave like a brute to me with
impunity. But yesterday morning when that silly little Vinerhorn wore
a shirt of Charvet's of exactly the same silk as I chose Harry last in
Paris, a nasty feeling came in my throat, and I seemed to see his blue
eyes flashing angry flames at me like when we said good-bye.

Just think, Mamma, all these years since I have been married I have
never so much as looked at anyone else. He has kept me knowing hardly
anything more of the world than I did then. But I am not going to _stay_
stupid I can assure you! If he can go off to Africa with Mrs. Smith, why
can't I play with Mr. Renour?

(I am tired of Gaston, really.)

The second night in the train was quite peaceful. We went to bed before
they came in from smoking, and Octavia had the top berth and heard
nothing, so I suppose the Vicomte said his prayers with his forehead
glued against the other side. And when we arrived at Los Angeles there
was the private car. It is so comfortable. The salon at the end has an
observation veranda on it, and at night three berths let down in it for
three of the men, and in the dining-room three others can sleep. The
Senator has a tiny place to himself. The Vinerhorns, who never will be
separated, have one cabin, and Tom and Octavia the other. Octavia says
she likes experiences, and she had no idea Tom could be so handy, for
Wilbor and Agnès and all the valets have been sent on to the Osages
City in an ordinary train and he had to dress her. I am in the larger
compartment with the two girls, and we have only one enormous bed for
the three of us! And it does seem quaint, Mamma, sleeping with women. I
felt quite shy at first; then we laughed so we could not get to sleep.
They are perfect angels and do everything for me, and make me so vain
admiring my hair being so long and curly. Columbia brushed it for half
an hour last night, and we were just in the middle of it when we pulled
up at a small station, on the beginning of the mining world, and to our
surprise Mr. Renour and his friend got in. We heard the noise and the
greetings and all peeped out to see, and the Senator, sans gêne, brought
them down the passage to say how do you do.

Mr. Renour does look a pet! He was (and still is to-day) in miner's
dress, and it is corduroy trousers tucked into high-laced boots and a
grey flannel shirt with a shallow turn down collar which has been turned
up again, looking like a Lord Palmerton, or someone of that date; a
loose tie and a corduroy Norfolk jacket, all a sort of earth colour
except the tie, which is blue. The friend is the same, and they both
have queer American-looking sort of sombrero greenish felt hats, and the
friend hasn't even a tie.

We were glad to see them, at least I was. We were all in dressing-gowns,
with our hair down, and the girls pretended to hide behind me and be
coy, and we played the fool just like children. It was fun, Mamma, and
think of the faces of Harry's two aunts, the Duchess and Lady Archibald,
if they could have seen me being so undignified. But here no one has any
nasty thoughts, they are all happy and natural and innocent as kittens,
and I am enjoying myself.

Gaston is frightfully jealous of the newcomers, but he is too much of a
polished gentleman to be disagreeable over it; it is only the English
who have remained savages in that respect, showing their tempers as
plainly as a child would do. If you remember, Harry had a thunderous
face before we were married, whenever I teased him, and since, my
heavens! If people even look a good deal in a restaurant he is annoyed.
But I don't mind so much, because my time has always been taken up with
him making love to me himself. It is the cold ones who are jealous just
from vanity that are insupportable, as it is not that they love the
woman so much themselves as because they think it is "dam cheek"
(forgive me, Mamma) for any other man to dare to look at _their_
belongings? Now American men don't seem jealous at all; they are so kind
they are thinking of the woman's pleasure, not their own. Really, I am
sure in the long run they must be far nicer to live with--not a tenth
part as vain as Englishmen.

The most jolly looking, jet-black old nigger in white duck livery
brought us our coffee in the morning. His face is a full moon of
laughter. No one could feel gloomy if he were near, and his voice, like
a little child's, is as sweet as a bird, and such delightful phrasing.
He has been with the Senator for fifteen years and couldn't live "way
from de car." His name is Marcus Aurelius, and I am sure he is just as
great a philosopher as the Emperor was.

The girls have known him since they were babies, of course, and it
is such fun to hear him talking to them, a mixture of authority,
worshipping affection, and familiarity, which I believe only old niggers
can have.

"A pretty sight to see dem tree young ladies as happy as birds in dar
nests;" we heard him telling Gaston just outside, when he met on his way
to the bath (there are two lovely bath-rooms).

So Gaston said he was sure the coffee-pot was heavy and he could not
hold so many plates, and he would with pleasure help him with our
breakfast. But Tom, who joined them, said Marcus Aurelius must not set
fire to tinder, and that he was the only one of the party who could be
considered suitable to be morning waiter, being my cousin and a married
man. We were so entertained beyond the open door, and were quite
surprised at Gaston's silence, until we saw his face reflected in the
looking glass, where he had been gazing at us all the time through the
crack! What a mercy on a picnic of this kind that we all look so lovely
in bed! We felt it our duty to scream, and then Marcus Aurelius shut the
door. Are you fearfully shocked at my being so schoolgirlish, Mamma?
Don't be, I shall get old directly I get back home, and it is all the
infectious gaiety of these dear merry girls.

Everybody was ready for breakfast, and we had rather a squash to get
seated, and had to be very near. Mr. Renour was next me, and he is
simply delightful in a party; and the friend, Octavia says, is exactly
her affair, as she is past thirty, and he is a charming boy of
twenty-two.

There is a nigger cook and he makes such lovely corn cakes and rolls and
agreeable breakfast dishes, and we were all so hungry.

Mr. Renour had been down to this other place on business, and there
waited to board us sooner.

The country seemed to grow more desolate and grim as we went on. After
breakfast we sat outside in the observation car together, and he told me
all about it, and the way they prospect to find the ore. And everything
one hears makes one respect their pluck and endurance more. He asked
me to call him Nelson; he said Mr. Renour was so "kinder stiff" and he
wasn't used to it, so I did, but the good taste which characterizes
everything about him made him never suggest he should be familiar with
me. He was just as gentle and dear as anyone could be, and seemed to be
trying to efface the remembrance in my mind that he had ever rather made
love to me.

Life had always been so kind to him, he said, even though from a child
he had always had to work so hard. He said the Senator was the biggest
man he had ever seen (meaning by that the biggest soul), and it was
owing to his help and encouragement and splendid advice, that he had
been able to stand out against the other sharks who wanted to get the
shares of his mine when at one moment he was a "bit shaky"; and now all
was well, and he would soon be many times a millionaire. Then I asked
him what he would do with it, and he said, "I'll just make those nearest
to me happy and then those further off; and then I'll set my brains to
devise some scheme to benefit my country; and p'r'aps you'd help me,"
he said. "You great ladies in England think so much of the poor and
suffering. I don't want just to put my name on big charities; p'r'aps
you'd suggest something which could be of value?"

His whole face is so fine and open, Mamma, and his lithe, sinewy figure
reminds me of the Ludovici Mars; not quite so slender as Harry and Tom,
but just as strong, and those balanced lines of rugged strength are
quite as beautiful. I wonder what one of the meaty Easterners would look
beside him, if they could both have nothing on and be made in bronze!

"I think I'd like to marry an English girl," he said at last. "Our women
are very beautiful and very smart, but yours have a tenderness which
appeals to me. I could do with a mighty lot of love when once I took one
for my own." Then he said he had always kept his ideal of a woman, and
when he found her she should have him, "body and heart and soul." And
think, Mamma, what a fortunate woman she would be, wouldn't she?

He is quite different here to in France or on the boat; he has a quiet
dignity and ease, and that perfect calm of a man of the world on his own
ground. I think there must be something Irish about him, too, for he has
a strain of sentiment and melancholy which can come directly after his
most brilliant burst of spirits. We stayed there talking for about an
hour undisturbed, and then the Senator opened the door and joined us.

"You are as quiet as mice, my children," he said, "what have you been
doing?"

And Nelson looked up at him, his eyes full of mist.

"Just dreamin'," he said. "All on a bright spring morning."

And now I must stop, Mamma, for this must be posted at the next station
to catch the mail.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.





OSAGES CITY




  THE GRAND HOTEL,
  OSAGES CITY,
  _Wednesday._

Dearest Mamma,--We arrived here last night and I am still enjoying
myself more than I can say, and just after I wrote yesterday such an
interesting thing happened. At lunch the Senator told us about a strange
character who abides in these parts--an almost outlaw who has done such
wild things and gets his money from heaven knows where. He is supposed
to have murdered several men, and every incredible story fit for pirates
of the Spanish Main has been tacked on to him--only of the land, not
the sea. He is called "Ruby Mine Bill;" isn't that a nice name! And no
one cares to "run up against him," because he is such a wonderful shot
and does not hesitate to practise a little when things annoy him.

Octavia and I said we simply longed to see him, and Nelson, who had been
talking to Lola (I have not said much of Lola, because she is really
so in love with her husband she is not a great deal of use to
other people), joined in the conversation, and said he had heard
"Ruby-Mine-Bill" was expected in the town he (Nelson) had joined us at,
and it was possible we might meet him at the next station where the
trains would pass each other. We were thrilled, and crowded into the
observation veranda as we got near, on the chance of catching a glimpse
of him. We drew up on a rough track; it is a sort of junction with
several lines, and the train from Osages was drawn up on the one
farthest off, and both the Senator and Nelson exclaimed, because on its
observation car there he was.

They shouted out, "Say, Bill, is that you?" And from among the four
or five men who were leaning over the balcony one who looked like a
respectable country piano tuner, or a plumber out for Sunday, called
out, "You bet!" and began to come down the steps.

"Move along, Bill, and be introduced to some English ladies," the
Senator said; so with an easy slogging stride he came over, and the
Senator presented him to us. He had a moustache and was most mild
looking and about thirty-four. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, with
a bowler hat, only no waistcoat, and a great leather belt round his
waist. He expressed himself as proud to meet us, and when he heard I was
married, too, his eyebrows went up in the most comic way. "Guess they
pair in the kid pens over there," he said! He was standing below us on
the track, with his hands in both his trouser pockets, while he looked
up at us with gentle grey eyes.

"Will you show our ladies how you can shoot, Bill?" the Senator asked,
and Octavia and I implored him to be kind and do so. "Runs rather fine,"
he said, spitting slowly to some distance; "reckon she's about levantin,
but I never refuse ladies' requests." Nelson had rushed to the dining
saloon and was back as he spoke with two empty bottles. "Bill's" train
was just going to move, already making groaning noises. He put his hand
under his coat in a leisurely way and pulled out his "gun" (you can be
arrested immediately for wearing one concealed)! Then his train gave a
snort and got slowly in motion, so he was obliged to run. He turned his
head over his shoulders and looked back as Nelson flung one bottle in
the air--bang! It went into atoms on the ground, and then, as he had
almost reached the steps, running at full speed now, the Senator flung
the other. It was high up, the most difficult shot even facing it, but
tearing as fast as one could in the opposite direction to jump on to a
moving train, it was a rather remarkable feat to be able to hit it, with
just a glance backwards, wasn't it, Mamma?! And no wonder people don't
care to "run up against him!" As the scraps of the bottle fell, he
bounded on the steps and was dragged in by his companions, while with
cheers from both trains and waving of hats we steamed our different
ways. Tom was transported with admiration. How those things please
English men, don't they? And I am sure he thought far more of
"Ruby-Mine-Bill" than all the clever people we had met in New York. And
certainly skill of this sort does affect one. The Senator can shoot like
that. Nelson told us. "He's had some near squeaks in his life and come
off top; and everyone in this country knows him."

The land along which we were passing, and indeed what has been ever
since we entered the mining country, is the most bleak and desolate on
the earth, I should think; not a living thing or blade of grass except
once when we passed a stream where low bushes bordered it; only barren
hills with a little scrub on them and a rough stony surface. What
courage to have started exploring on such places!

We passed one or two smaller camps on the way to Osages, with board
shanties and a shaft here and there sticking up from the earth. "All
going on," the Senator said. I can't tell you, Mamma, the fun we had
in the car; the party is so harmonious, and Nelson and the friend such
amusing people to keep it going. The friend is too attractive, that long
lean shape like Tom, and the same assurance of manner. Octavia says she
has not enjoyed herself so much for years.

Towards evening we arrived at Osages, and a most wonderful wind-swept
town it is. Imagine a bare plain of rubbly, stony ground, with a few not
very high hills round it, with shafts piercing them, and then dotted all
about on the outskirts with tents; then board houses of one story high,
looking rather like sheds for gardeners' tools, and then in the middle
a few stone and frame habitations, and standing out among the rest the
Nelson building, a hideous structure of grey stone making the corner
of a block. We got from the train and climbed into motors; to see them
seemed strange in such a wild; we ought to have been met by a Buffalo
Bill stage coach;--but there they were. It was a gorgeous sunset, but a
wind like a mistral cutting one in two, and such clouds of dust, that
even driving to the hotel our hair all looked drab coloured. The hall
was full of miners, some of them in what is as near an approach to
evening dress as is permitted; that is, ordinary blue serge or flannel
suits, with sometimes linen collars and ties; the others in the dress I
have already told you about that Nelson wears. Nearly all were young,
not twenty per cent. over forty, and none beyond fifty, and they were
awfully nice-looking and strong, and couldn't possibly have bruised if
you hit them hard!

We raced through and up to our rooms, and can you believe it, Mamma,
each bedroom had a splendid bath room, and all as modern as possible;
there was not a sign of roughing it. The Senator said we were not really
to dress as in the East--only "sort of Sunday." He was greeted by
everyone with adoring respect that yet had a casual ease in it, and when
we were all bathed and combed and tidy we found he had a dinner party
awaiting us--two women and about six men. The women were so nice and
simple, but we naturally had not much chance to speak to them--the men
were next us, superintendents of mines, and owners, and selected ones
who have "made good." They were such characters, and seemed to bring a
breezy delightful atmosphere with them. The Eastern America seemed as
far away as England; much farther really, because all these people have
exactly the casual, perfectly sans gêne manners of at home: not the "I'm
as good as you, only one better," but the sort that does not have to
demonstrate because the thought has never entered its head. You know
Octavia's and Tom's and Harry's manner, Mamma;--well, just the same; I
can't describe it any other way. It is the real thing when you are not
trying to impress anyone, just being you, and what you are. I can only
say even if their words are astonishing slang and their grammar absent,
they are the most perfect gentlemen, with the repose and unconsciousness
of the original Clara Vere de Vere. They had all the extraordinary
thoughtful kindness and chivalry which marks every American towards
women, but they weren't a bit auntish or grandmammaish. The sex is the
same as in England, and as far as that quality I told you about, Mamma,
you remember, they all seemed to have it; and going to Australia alone
with them would have been a temptation, though I am sure they have
none of them that wicked way of improving every possible occasion like
Frenchmen and Englishmen; I mean, you know, some Englishmen, as I am
sure, for instance, Harry is doing at the present moment over that
horrible Mrs. Smith.

We had such fun at dinner. The one on my right was a lovely creature,
about six foot six tall, with deep-set eyes and a scar up from one
eyebrow into his thick hair, got, the Senator told us afterwards, in one
of the usual shooting frays.

"We've been so mighty quiet, Nelson," this man said leaning across the
table to Mr. Renour, "since you went East. A garden for babes. Not a
single gun handled in six months. Don't rightly know what's took us."
The girls at once said they would love to see some shooting and a
twinkle came in one or two eyes, so I am sure they will try to get some
up for us before we leave.

The restaurant was wonderful--this rough place miles in a desert and
yet decent food! And think of the horrible, tasteless, pretentious mess
cooking we have to put with in hotels in England anywhere except London.
Whatever mood one might be in coming to America, even if it were fault
finding and hostile, one would be convinced of their extraordinary go
ahead ability, and be filled with respect for their energy. As for us
who have grown to just love them we can't say half what we feel.

Tom is perfectly happy. He understands every word of their slang, he
says, and they understand him; and Octavia says it is because they are
all sportsmen together, and have the same point of view. It won't be us
who have to make Tom stay away from the tarpons, he wants to himself
now. Gaston, too, has risen to the occasion, and is being extra
agreeable. I had a teeny scene with him in the lift as we came down. We
were the last two. He reproached me for my caprice--years of devotion he
said, did not count with me as much as "Ce Mineur with the figure of a
bronze Mercury" (that is how he aptly described Nelson). He could bear
it no more, and intended to cut me from his heart, and throw it at the
feet of Mercédès. I said I thought it was an excellent place for it, and
would please everyone, and he had my kindest blessing. He was so hurt.
"Could I but have seen you minded!" he said, "my felicity would be
greater," so I promised I would bring tears somehow to my eyes, if that
would satisfy him. Then, as he has really a sense of humour, Mamma, even
if he is in an awkward position, between two loves, we both burst into
peals of laughter; and he caught and kissed my hand, and said we would
ever be friends and he adored me. So I said, "Bless you, my children,"
and saw he sat by Mercédès at dinner, and all is smooth and happy, and
Gaston is placed; and now I can really amuse myself with Nelson, who is
more attractive than ever, to say nothing of a new one who had a roguish
eye, and teeth as white as Harry's, who peeped at me from across the
table. But I must get on with the evening. Octavia and I wanted to see
everything, gambling saloons, dance halls, fights, whatever was going,
and as Lola has done it all before, she said she would stay with the
girls, and have a little mild flutter in the saloon of the hotel at
roulette while our stalwart cavaliers escorted us "around." Gaston, too,
remained behind with them; the Senator manoeuvred this, because he said,
it was not wise to be with people who were quarrelsome, and Gaston is
that now and then with his Latin blood.

We went first to a gambling saloon. Think of a huge room with no carpet
and a horseshoe kind of bar up the middle, with every sort of drink on
it; and up at the end and round the sides gambling tables of all kinds
of weird games that I did not understand, and can't explain--except
roulette. There were hundreds of men in there, of all sorts, miners in
their miners' dress; team drivers, superintendents--every species. If
one said "gambling hell" in Europe it would sound as if it meant a most
desperate place, with people drunk, and impossible to go into, but here
not at all! Naturally, Octavia and I looked remarkable, although we were
dressed in the plainest clothes, and yet not a soul stared or was the
least rude. The only thing that was horrid was their spitting on the
floor, but we tried not to see that. Otherwise not a soul was drunk
or rude or anything but courteous. And such interesting types! Massed
together one could judge of them, and the remarkable thing was there was
no smell, like there would have been in any other country where workmen
in their ordinary clothes were grouped together;--only tobacco smoke.

They were some of them playing very high, and it looked so quaint to see
a rough miner putting $500 on a single throw. We had a sheriff among
our party. There was to have been a raid of the state police on this
particular saloon, for some new rule which had been made, but the
sheriff quietly said the law might wait a night; as they were showing
round some English ladies! Now, don't you call that exquisite courtesy,
Mamma? And what a sensible sort of administration of law, knowing its
suitable time like that, the essence of tact and good taste, I call it;
but I can't say in every way what darlings all these Westerners are. Our
escort presented numbers of them to us, and without exception they had
beautiful manners, the quiet ease of perfect breeding. It is
upsetting all Octavia's theories, and she is coming round to Mrs. Van
Brounker-Courtfield's view that it is the life a man leads more than
blood even, which tells; and there they are fighting the earth for the
ore with great courage and endurance and hard manual labour, and so it
produces finer expressions of faces, and lither forms than using your
brains to be sharper in business than your neighbour.

All the time Nelson and the man with the roguish eye stood on either
side of me, and the Senator moved from Octavia backwards and forwards,
and when we got outside they both held my arms, not with the least
familiarity, but the gentle protective respect they might have to
an aged queen, or you, Mamma; and it was just as well, because the
sidewalks were up on sort of sleepers, and were all uneven, and in some
places a board worn through, so one could have a bad fall by oneself.
And it was very agreeable, but I noticed that Nelson held mine rather
tight, and that his arm trembled. I suppose he was still feeling the
vibration of the train. I hope you picture it all--us walking through
these quaint streets, surrounded by a crowd of great big men. And
neither Octavia nor I have ever walked in a street before at night, so
it did seem fun.

After this we went to the large dance hall. It was too interesting, and
I simply longed to dance. I must describe it to you, Mamma, because of
course you have never heard of anything of this sort before. It was a
very large board room, like a barn with a rail across the front end of
it, and a gate; and in the front part a drinking bar, the musicians at
the other end on a platform, and beyond the rail and gate a beautiful
dance floor, while at the side were boxes where one could retire to
watch the dancing--all rough boards and gaudy cretonne curtains. The
lady partners were not in evening dress, just blouses and skirts, and it
seemed the custom for the man to pay the proprietor for each dance, take
his lady through the gate, and when it was over escort her to the bar to
have a drink. It could only have been very innocent refreshment, as no
one seemed the least drunk or offensive. The bar part was crowded with
every type of the mining camp, two-thirds of them splendid faces and
figures, just glorious men; the other third, dwindling gradually to a
rather brutal typed Mexican; and even though their dress was the rough
miner's, with great boots, all were freshly shaven and smart, and all
had a "gun" in their belt, although it is against the law to wear
one concealed. But grim death lurks near all the time. Numbers were
presented to us, and in no court in Europe could one find more courtly
ease of manner or sans gêne. Octavia and I are "crazy" about them.

There is no class here; it is the real thing, and the only part we have
seen yet of America where equality is a fact. That is, it is the man
who counts, not any money or position, only his personal merit; and the
Senator says if they are "yellow dogs" they sooner or later get wiped
out. It is a sort of survival of the fittest, and don't you think it is
a lovely plan, Mamma? And how I wish we had it in England. What heaps
could be cleared away and never be missed!

There was a Master of Ceremonies who called out the dances, and not more
than ten or twelve couples were allowed to dance each time, two-steps
and valses, and without exception it is the finest dancing I have ever
seen,--the very poetry of Motion. Nothing violent or rude, or like a
servants' ball at home, although they held their partners a little more
clasped than we do, and the woman's hands both on the man's shoulders,
and sometimes round his neck. (Tom says he means to introduce this style
at Chevenix the next ball they have. Think of the face of the County!)
But in spite of their funny holding, or perhaps on account of it, there
is a peculiar movement of the feet, perfect grace and rhythm and glide,
which I have never seen at a real ball. One could understand it was
a pure delight to them, and they felt every note of the music. They
treated Octavia and me with the courtesy fit for queens, and some
of them told us delightful things of shootings and blood-curdling
adventures, and all with a delicious twinkle in the eye, as much as to
say, "We are keeping up the character of the place to please you." We
did enjoy ourselves. The Senator says this quality of perfect respect
for women is universal in the mining camps. Any nice woman is absolutely
safe among them. I think there ought to be mining camps to teach men
manners all over Europe. You will feel I am exaggerating, Mamma, and
talking a great deal about this, but it is so marked and astonishing;
all have that perfect ease and poise of well born gentlemen (the Harry
manner, in fact) completely without self consciousness. I suppose they
get drunk sometimes, and probably there are riotous scenes here, but
I can only tell you of what we saw, and that was people happy, and
behaving as decorously as at a court ball.

Just before we left three or four really villainous looking men came in,
and instantly there seemed to be a stir of some sort; and Nelson and the
Senator stood very close to me, and while apparently doing nothing got
us near the door, and we all strolled out, and then they spoke rather
low to one another while they never let go of my arms. Awkward
customers, the Senator told us, and when these bad spirits were "around"
things often ended in a row. It was tiresome it did not happen, wasn't
it? Both Octavia and I felt we should have loved to see a really
exciting moment! To-morrow we go down the great Osages mine, which
belongs to Nelson and the Senator, and then to a dinner party in one of
the shacks, and the next day we start for the real wild, because this is
civilisation, and we are going to a quite young camp called Moonbeams,
miles across the desert. We shall have to leave the car, at the end of
the railway, and go in rough kinds of motors. It sounds too exciting,
and the Senator says there they can show us the real thing and we are
not to mind roughing it. We are so looking forward to it, and if you are
writing to Harry--but, no, do not mention me. By now he must have found
out Mrs. Smith has things which aren't attractive in a tent.

Tell Hurstbridge I will bring him a "gun," and Ermyntrude a papoose
doll.

Love from,

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.

_Still Osages City_.

DEAREST MAMMA,--I must write each day, because I have so much to say, if
I didn't I should get all behind.--I don't believe you would like going
into a mine a bit!

We seemed to drive through unspeakable dust to a banked-up, immense heap
of greyish green earth, with some board houses on it, and a tall shaft
sticking out; and in one of these houses we changed, or rather dressed
up in overcoats and caps, and were each given a dip candle. Then we went
to the lift. But it wasn't a nice place, with a velvet sofa, but just
about three boards joined together to stand on, with a piece of iron
going up the centre to a cross-bar overhead; no sides or top. And this
hung in what looked mid-air.

Mercédès and I got in first, with Nelson and the Vicomte beyond us, with
their arms tight round us, and our hands clinging to the cross-bar of
iron above. Then we began to descend into the bowels of the earth. It
felt too extraordinary: a slightly swaying motion, and not close to the
sides as even in the most primitive lift, seeing or rather feeling space
beyond. Nelson held me so tight I could hear his heart thumping like a
sledge hammer. It felt very agreeable, and I am sure I should have been
terribly frightened otherwise. Mercédès did not seem to mind, either,
and from what I know of Gaston, he wasn't making the least of the
occasion.

Finally, about eight hundred feet down, we stopped, and got out on to
firm ground and waited for the others, who came in batches of four. The
air was pumped in, I suppose, from somewhere, because just here it was
cool, and not difficult to breathe. We had such fun, but Nelson was
rather pale and silent, I don't know why. When everyone was there we
started on our explorations, and seemed to walk miles in the weirdest
narrow passages, in single file, on a single board sometimes, each
carrying our light. We climbed ladders and had to cross narrow ledges on
the edge of the abysses, and it was altogether most interesting to learn
the different sounds the rock with ore in it made when hammered on, to
the earth rock. They broke off some with a pickaxe to give to each of
us. "High grade," he called, and even the scraps about as big as my two
hands which I have now, they say will produce about sixteen dollars'
worth of gold; so is not this wonderful riches, Mamma? What a great and
splendid country, and how puny and small seem the shallow little aims
of towns and cities, when here is this rich earth, waiting only to be
explored. There, in the strange light of the dip candles, and everyone
chaffing, Nelson and the Senator seemed to stand out like two giants,
and there was something aloof in their faces, and apart from the rest.
If one searched the world, Mamma, one could not find two nobler men.

At last we climbed into two great caverns out of which they had taken
the finest gold, nineteen thousand dollars to a ton of rock. The miners
(I am sure not the lovely courtly creatures we saw last night, but some
low other ones) stole so much that now they have to be searched as they
leave the mine. We hated to hear that. They could conceal about twenty
dollars' worth a day on themselves each, and so it got to be called
"high grading." Isn't that a nice word, and what heaps of "highgraders"
there are in different walks of life! Pilfering brains and ideas and
thoughts from other people!

They were blasting in the shaft below and the fumes came up and made us
all a little faint, so we decided to come to the earth's surface without
going down about two hundred feet lower, which we could have done.
In one long gallery we came upon a single miner working away in a
cul-de-sac, with, it seemed, absolutely no air. Think of the courage
and endurance it must take to continue this, day after day! I do admire
them. Then they have the knowledge that if they like to chance things
and go off with an "outfit"--two donkeys, which are called "burros"--
carrying their tools, they can prospect in the desert and peg out their
own claims, and all have the possibility of becoming millionaires. It is
a wonderful and rugged life.

Gaston must have said something definite to Mercédès in the dark for
they both looked conscious when we came into daylight; but we have not
heard anything yet. Octavia's friend is quite devoted to her, and Tom
is getting a little jealous; so good for him, he won't be so absolutely
casual in future, I hope. And if, Mamma, I had not an underneath feeling
of I don't know what about Harry and that Smith creature, I could be
awfully happy, as I find Nelson an attentive dear; but there it is, just
as I am beginning to feel frolicsome, a recollection rushes over me of
them together in Africa, and a sick sensation comes up, and I feel I
could play the devil if I had the chance--and I believe I would if it
were someone else; but Nelson seems too fine to trifle with. Heigh ho! I
now know that Harry is really rather like these miners, only he has not
got such good manners, but just the same absolutely fearless unconscious
assurance and nerve and pluck. I suppose that is why I love him so
much--I mean I did love him, Mamma, because, of course, I don't now; I
am quite indifferent, as you know.

On our way back to lunch we took a drive round the city. There is not
a blade of living thing rowing but the sage brush. It is a desolation
beyond description, and clouds of dust. But everything seems alive
and there is no gloom or depression. The hotel was full of bustle and
movement, and groups of men were talking together as if some news had
come in, and the Senator presently told us that there had been rather a
row at the dance hall after we left, and the four villainous looking men
we had seen had "done a bit of shootin,'" but no one was hurt much,
and they had left to-day for no one knows where. He says this class of
desperadoes are like a pestilence; whenever they descend trouble of
sorts brews, and the chief of them is a man called Curly Grainger--the
"lowest yellow dog out of hell."

In the afternoon we paid some calls on the ladies who had dined with
us, and you can't think what dear little homes they have, looking like
chicken houses outside, and inside cosey and comfortable; and they were
all so kind and hospitable and made us feel welcomed and honoured. And
these are real manners, Mamma--that politeness which comes from the
heart.

We were allowed to dress as in New York for our dinner party, given by
Octavia's friend at his shack, and to see the girls and Lola, and
indeed us all, looking like Paris fashion plates in dainty clothes and
feathered hats seemed so quaint; but when we got inside it was not out
of place.

Such a person of refinement he must be! The outside was made of boards
like the rest, but inside it had bookcases and comfortable chairs and
cosey sofas, and the nice look of a man's room who is no fool and reads
books and thinks thoughts. There were several more lovely creatures whom
we had not met before, altogether about eighteen the party was, and as
the dining-room only held ten, naturally the rest sat on boxes, and
the table was elongated with a packing case. But the fun we had! As
delightful as the evening with the Squirrels; each of these pets
out-doing the other in remarkable Western phrases and stories, and all
with that whimsical fine sense of humour that can see the fun even in
themselves. I wish I could remember the sentences, but they are too
difficult, only they had not to be translated or explained; they were
simply the most unusual English applied in that crisp exact fashion that
is an art in itself, meaning _exactly_ what is necessary to present an
idea. The whole entertainment was cooked for, and waited on by, a most
delightful coloured lady called Cassandra, who chewed gum and joined in
the conversation.

Fancy the consternation and horror of Mrs. Spleist or Mrs. Craik V.
Purdy, if either had been the hostess of such a party! They would have
apologised the whole time. It was all enchanting.

"Now, Mr. Johnson," Cassandra said (our host's name is Burke Johnson),
"why yo go for to put all de peas in dat great heap on yo plate? Didn't
I tell yo to be careful? Dey won't go 'round." And she looked like a
reproving mother to a greedy boy, showing her splendid teeth in a grin.
We were so amused. But when the subjects interested her she would pause
with a dish in the air and give her opinion in the friendliest way, not
the least impertinently, but as some fond, privileged Nanny might at a
children's party.

"Fact is, you spoil Mr. Johnson, Cassandra," Nelson said; "you feed him
too well and keep him too snug." Then she tossed her head, "Mr. Johnson
is my care, Mr. Nelson," she said; "you can talk 'bout that to some
other coloured lady," and her laugh rang out like a silver bell.

I cannot give you any idea, Mamma, of how perfectly delightful all these
people are.

After dinner we played a game of poker in the sitting-room, not for
high stakes, only just chaff and fun, and Tom made outrageous love to
Columbia, who answered him with the cleverest parries. American girls
are miles ahead of us in brilliant repartee. Then someone played the
piano and we all sang songs, and from the kitchen where Cassandra was
washing up the dishes, came the most melodious second in that sweet
perfect harmony which the negroes seem so well to understand.

Placed carelessly among some books on a table by the side of the piano
were two revolvers (I must call them "guns" here, because that is their
name) and I did such a silly thing without thinking, so unaccustomed are
we at home to realise anything could be loaded that was casually lying
about. I picked one up and examined the tracing on the barrel, never
noticing that it was pointing straight up at my head, until I felt
Nelson's iron grip upon my wrist, while he took it from my hand. His
face was white as death. "My God!" he said, "my God, quit touching
that!" Then he walked quickly to the door and opened it and looked out
on the night. There was no hall, the sitting-room is straight on the
street. He took a great deep breath and came back again, and then he
laughed, "Guess I'm a pretty fool," he said; "I've had them pointed
direct at me with the finger on the trigger, too, and never turned a
hair, but, by the Lord, to see your flower face close to that grim thing
makes me kind of sick." It moved me deeply, Mamma; I wonder why?

The whole company walked home with us, but I clung on to the Senator's
arm and let my other be held by the one with the roguish smile of the
night before; and Nelson seemed to be extraordinarily gay as he strode
beside Octavia, though when we said goodnight, just outside my room, his
eyes were full of mist.

I don't feel the least sleepy, and I am sitting here in the
rocking-chair thinking of all our trip, and the different impressions it
has made, and how deeply I admire and respect this wonderful people.
As soon as they have grown out of being touchy, and rounded off their
edges, they will have no equals on earth. This great vast country we
have come through seems like the great vast brains of the men from here
who are the real nation builders. The successful schemers and business
men are remarkable, too, but these are the ones who make for splendour
and glory and noble ideas. They are like strong pure air blowing away
migraines; and yet the business men also are to be respected; it
requires such indomitable pluck in either case, only this kind of
outdoor pluck makes male creatures turn more into the things which women
love.

There was one point I did not remember to tell you about in its place,
and that was the rather pathetic spectacle the boys are, in numbers of
families in the East,--tied to their mothers' apron strings, treated
like girls and taken constantly to Europe with or without a tutor;
little, blasé grandfathers driving motor cars and dressing in grown up
clothes. I longed to send them all to Eton and let them get flogged and
have to fag and be turned into children first, and then men. I asked the
fourteen year old Spleist boy to get me down a branch of blossom far up
on an apple tree, and for the world he wouldn't have rubbed his patent
leather boots, even if he had known how to hold on to reach so high. All
the children are old, more or less, and wearied with expensive toys and
every wish gratified. Only that they are more surrounded with servants
and governesses or go to school, numbers and numbers are like "Matilda"
on the ship. Out here there don't seem to be any children, or hardly
any, but those there are, I expect, are like everything else in the
West, free and growing. But there is one quality which seems exclusively
American, West or East, unbounded hospitality and kindly feeling, and
ever and always I shall think of them all as dear friends.

Perhaps I shall not be able to post a letter again for some days, Mamma,
but good-night now, and fond love from,

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




CAMP OF MOONBEAMS




NEVADA HOTEL,

CAMP OF MOONBEAMS.

DEAREST MAMMA,--When you hear of all I have to tell you you will wonder
I can write so quietly. But I will make myself, and keep everything in
its place, so that you get a clear picture.

We started early yesterday morning in the private car, for a junction,
or terminus (I am not sure which) called Hot Creek,--everyone in the
best of spirits after a send off from all our friends. Marcus Aurelius's
face to welcome us on board was enough to rejuvenate anyone, simply
a full moon of black and white smiles, and I am sure he is the first
person Merécdès has confided her love affair to, for he seems to watch
over her and Gaston like a deus ex machina.

Nelson and I sat out on the observation veranda again, and he told me
many things of all this land, and how often the poor adventurers coming
out West will climb on to the irons under the trains, and then cling for
countless miles, chancing hideous death to be carried along; and how,
sometimes, they will get lost and die of starvation. And just then, in
the grimmest country of absolutely arid desert valley, between highish
barren hills, we saw a beautiful lake of blue water with green trees
reflected in it, and when I looked at Nelson his eyes were sad. Nothing
could have seemed more cool or refreshing; it made one long to jump
out of the train and go and bathe, for now, though still early in the
spring, it is getting very hot. "It is nothing but a mirage," Nelson
said. "There is no water there and no trees. It comes and goes in this
part of the desert according to the state of the atmosphere, and it has
been the cause of many a poor fellow's end." How treacherous, Mamma! How
cruel of Nature to treat her children so! And then he put his head back
and pulled his hat over his eyes.

"A mirage," he said, like one dreaming. "Guess it's often like
life." And then he told me of the curious effect it had had upon his
imagination the first time he had seen it, when alone with his burros,
prospecting; how it seemed to say to him to make a reality of green
and prosperity out of the parched world, and how his thoughts always
returned there when he had successes, and he dreamed of a day when he
should rest a little by just such a lake. "To rest my soul," he said,
"if I have any; to rest it with someone I should love."

And, as once before, the Senator broke in upon us with his cheery,
charming voice, "Guess you two are talking like high-flown poet coons,"
he said, "and there is breakfast to be thought of, and happy things like
that." And then as Nelson went in front he stepped back and put his kind
hand under my chin, and raised it and looked straight into my eyes.

"Little daughter," he said, "little friend, p'raps your heart's aching
for someone over the sea, but don't make his heart ache, too, now.
Promise me." And of course I won't, Mamma, and of course I promised.
Isn't it a queer world? And all mirage, as Nelson said. Well, now let us
get on and laugh and be gay. An eleven o'clock breakfast was our usual
fun; you can't imagine such a well arranged party, never a jar or
disagreement, like, I am sure, we should be having if there were
Englishwomen. In a flock Americans are infinitely more agreeable to deal
with. I expect it is in the blood, having had to spend such quantities
of time, all women together, while the men are away.

The moment we finished our food we drew up at our destination, and in
this wilderness there was a telegraph station and a few shanties, but it
could all be lit by electric light! The most strong, paintless, hardy
looking automobiles were awaiting us, into which we climbed, a
very close pack. The maids and valets had all been left behind at
Osages--think of asking Agnès to really rough it, even if there had been
room! So we had all to attend to the luggage, and were only allowed a
teeny hand bag each, with a nighty and comb and brush in it. Our hair
and faces were already grey with dust, and all sense of appearance had
been forgotten.

I sat between Lola and Nelson, with the little Vinerhorn and the
secretary in front of us, while the Senator was next our chauffeur, whom
they addressed as "Bob"--a friend, not an employé. The rest of the party
squashed into the other motors and so we started, ours leading over a
track, not a road; the sage brush had been removed, that was all, and
there were deep ruts to guide us. We flew along with a brilliant blue
sky overhead, high hills which presently grew mountainous on either
side, and what seemed an endless sea of greenish drab scrub before. Once
or twice we passed tired, weary-looking men plodding on foot, and I did
wish we could have picked them up and helped them along; but there was
not an inch of room. The ruts were so extremely deep that I certainly
should have been pitched out but that Nelson held me tight. Mr.
Vinerhorn frowned so when he held Lola, too, that he was obliged to
leave her alone, and I am sure she must have had a most uncomfortable
journey. I suppose this little Randolph has picked up that selfish
jealous trait in England with his clothes, only thinking of _his_
emotions, not his wife's comfort, quite unlike kind Americans. After
about an hour we began to go up the steepest hills on the winding track,
and got among pine trees and great boulders, up and up until the air
grew quite chill; and then as we turned a sharp corner the most unique
scene met our view. I told you before I can't describe scenery, Mamma,
but I must try this, because it was so wonderful, and reminded me of the
pictures in Paradise Lost illustrated by Doré, when the Devil looks down
on that weird world.

A grey-sand, flat place far below us, about fifty miles across,
surrounded by mountains turning blue in their shadows in the afternoon
light--it might have been a supremely vast Circus Maximus or giants'
race course, and there was the giant towering above the rest, with a
snow cap on his head, peeping from between the lower mountains. It
seemed it could not be possible we could descend to there, but we did,
the track getting more primitive as we went on, and once on the edge of
a precipice we met a waggon and team of eight mules driven by a Mexican
with a cracking whip, and getting past might have tried your nerves, but
no one notices such things in a country of this sort!

Every atom of food for Moonbeams has to be drawn over this ninety miles
of desert by waggons or mule carts, and every drop of water comes in six
miles from the camp. What splendid pluck and daring to wrest gold from
the earth under such circumstances! What general would fight an enemy so
far from his food supply?

We seemed to be no time being raced and shaken over the flat sand basin,
meeting and passing more teams on the way, and twice a petrol and drink
station of one board shed, and a man with a jolly Irish face and a gun
openly in his belt, to attend to it. We had no breakdowns, and just at
sunset got into the one and only street of Moonbeams. But there were no
stone houses or anything but sheds of one storey, generally, and more
often rows of tents. The Moonbeams is not three months old! So quickly
do these places grow when a rush for newly discovered rich gold is made.
We had passed quantities of "claims" on the way; piles of stones like
little cairns marking their four corners; and I wonder if in five
hundred years the socialists of that day will scream and try to
demonstrate that the descendants of those brave adventurers have no
right to their bit of land, but should give it up to them, who only talk
and fume and do no work upon it.

Everyone was in from the mines, which are all close, shafts sticking
up from every hill and heaps of broken rock and earth rising like mole
hills. The straggling street was full of men, and I should not think
in the world there can be a collection of more splendid looking
humanity--all young and strong and wholesome. The Senator says life is
so impossibly difficult here that only those in the best of health can
stand it, and to face such chances requires the buoyancy and hope of
youth. Whatever the cause they were all lovely creatures, just like our
guardsmen, numbers tall and slender and thin through, and many of them
might have been the Eton eleven or Oxford eight, and all with the
insouciance and careless grace I have already told you of.

You know what I mean by "thin through," Mamma: that lovely look of
narrow hips and slender waist and fine shoulders, not padded and not
too square, and looked at sideways not a bit thick; the chest, not the
tummy, the most sticking out part, and the general expression of race
horses. You would have to melt off layers of hips and other bits of most
of the Eastern American, and then alter the set of their bones to get
them to resemble any of these. And yet I suppose they are all Americans,
too, drifted here from other States; but they look so absolutely
different; I expect they are not the conglomeration of all nations who
have emigrated, like in New York, but the original pure stock. Or can it
be the life after all? In any case it is too attractive, and I wish you
could see them, Mamma?

They welcomed the Senator and his party as friends, and as we went at
walking pace they conducted us to the hotel. And it was a hotel!!! Think
of one long, long board barn of two storeys high, not finished quite,
being built, with kind of little rabbit hole rooms off each side of a
long passage on both floors, in some the boards not meeting, so that you
can see into the next person's apartment, or into the open air as the
case may be, and in all, if a knot is out of the wood, a peep hole! The
flimsiest door not fitting, with the number of each room printed on a
bit of paper and fastened on with a tack; furniture consisting of a
rickety iron bed, a box that has been a packing case for a table,
another for a washstand, a rough single chair, sometimes a rocking
chair, and all crowned by a looking-glass that makes half your nose in
one part of your face, and one eye up in your forehead--too deliciously
comic. It was all very clean, except the bed clothes, but we won't speak
of them; their recollection shivers me.

Octavia and Tom had one room at the very end, and the rest of our
party had to scatter where we could, as numbers were taken, and it was
difficult to get even enough to go round. Mine was a very grand one,
because it had newspapers pasted on the boards partition, but it was
very deceptive, because one could not at once discern the knots and
cracks, and anyone might surprise one by poking a finger through in
unexpected places. Gaston had the next on my right, and Mercédès and
Columbia the one beyond him, and I did wonder, under the circumstances,
which of us he would peep at. I felt it would be me, because Mercédès
and Columbia being jeune filles, and he being a Frenchman, they would be
sacred. Nelson and the Senator together had a rather larger one on my
left, and that side my newspapers were torn, but I felt no apprehension.
The chivalry of American men is temptation proof.

Downstairs there was a bar and gambling saloon in one, with a sort of
hall place, a few feet square, but no dining room or any place for food.
It was merely a shelter from outside air. One had to trot along the
street to another shed called a restaurant, for meals.

How we laughed and the fun we had over it all! Nothing has delighted us
so much. Only Randolph Vinerhorn doesn't like it, but he is afraid to
say it before the Senator, though I heard him grumbling from across the
passage to Lola because he has not got his valet to shave him! Tom, of
course, is just as happy as we are. How I _love_ an adventure, Mamma!
Did you ever? And if you could see Tom in his flannel shirt and his
shabbiest old grey suit, and a felt slouch hat, you could not tell him
from one of these lovely miners. Octavia says she is getting in love
with him again on account of it. Her one unfortunately had to stay in
Osages, but the one with the beautiful teeth has come in his place.

We couldn't wash or brush up much because we had only each either a
cracked pudding dish or an old cake tin to wash in, but we did our best
and started off for our dinner. Three of the most prominent young mine
owners had invited us to a feast, and when we got to the tent in which
it was held we found that was the chief restaurant, and lots of miners
were already there at different tables.

Ours was a long one in the middle and much grander than the rest,
because it had a bit of marbled white oil cloth on it for a cloth. The
dears all the people were, and the kind generous spirit to ask us to a
feast when food was so scarce and expensive! And fancy, Mamma, in the
middle was a bouquet of yellow daisies, and they were worth their weight
in gold--yellow daisies brought over ninety miles of desert, and how
many hundred miles of train!

None of the people at the other tables took the slightest notice of our
party; beyond a friendly greeting to those they knew, they did not even
glance our way; think of the beautiful manners, and the difference, too,
if these had been rough men of any other country in an eating house. I
tell you these Westerners are a thing apart for courtesy and respect to
women--a lesson to all the world; and the food was not at all awful, and
we had the best of champagne! while the tent was lit by electric light,
and had a board floor and benches for seats. We were so gay at dinner,
and while we were finishing, news came, I do not know how, that the
desperado, Curly Grainger, and his comrades, were in the camp. The man
next me told me, and I never thought to tell Nelson, who was at my other
side, which was foolish, as events proved.

After it, when they had made some speeches to bid us all welcome, we
went out to see the sights--principally a private gambling saloon where
they were playing extremely high, about seven men intent on poker, some
with green shades over their eyes of talc, which gave the strangest
livid glow on their faces, and made them look like dead men. After each
round a felt-slippered bar-tender would slip in and give them all drinks
in small glasses--rum and milk and different things--and I am sure one
of the desperadoes was playing, his villainous face was in such contrast
to the others.

Their revolvers were all up on a shelf, because, as the proprietor told
us, "They so often got to shootin' one another when they played as high
as that," he found it "more conducive to a peaceable evenin' if their
guns were handed out before they began!" How such things must add to the
excitement of a game, Mamma!

The lowest stake was one thousand dollars and some had twenty-five
thousand dollars in front of them. There was a queer intent ominous
hush, and we watched in silence for a while, and then went to a most
quaint sort of theatrical entertainment--songs and dances going on, the
most primitive stage at one end, while a bar and drinks were at the
other. We only stayed about five minutes, because it did not seem
quite the place for girls, although everyone treated us with the most
scrupulous respect, instantly hushing their jokes as we approached,
and making way for us like courtiers for foreign royalties in a
drawing-room. And when we got out in the street there appeared to be
some excitement in the air. Hundreds of men were loitering about or
talking in groups, and the Senator, much to our disappointment, made us
go back to the hotel. It was only about half past nine o'clock, and we
thought to go to bed an extremely dull proceeding. But we did not like
to question or argue, and obediently went upstairs. And when the Senator
and Nelson saw us safely in our rooms, with the secretary and Mr.
Vinerhorn left to be a sort of guard to us, they all went out again to
show Tom more sights.

Everything was perfectly quiet; the hotel is against the mountain and
rather away from the main and only regular street.

Then, left to ourselves we felt just like naughty children, obliged to
get into some mischief, and when Mercédès suggested we should change all
the numbers on the doors, it seemed a nice outlet for us! Octavia had
gone to her room, or, she says, she would not have let us, and Lola and
her Randolph had retired, too, while the secretary had gone down to the
bar, so there was no one to prevent us. It was, of course, very naughty
of us, Mamma, and I dare say we deserved all that followed, but it was a
funny idea, wasn't it? The only ones we did not change were our own two;
everyone else's in the hotel, and there were about thirty-six rooms
altogether, we mixed all up and then we scampered in to bed!

There were only little oil lamps here, the electric lights not having
been fixed yet, and when I piled all the bed clothes on the floor and
rolled myself up in the quilt, I was off to sleep in a minute.

It did not seem very long afterwards when drunken footsteps came up the
passage and woke me up, and then a fumbling at the Senator's door and
frightful swearing because the key would not fit. The creature, whoever
it was, was perfectly furious, and one could hear him muttering "29, yes
it's 29," and then fearful oaths, and at last, with a shove, he wrenched
down the crazy door and got into the room and I suppose was too sleepy
or drunk to notice it was not his own, and retired to the Senator's bed!
Because I could hear him snoring next me through the cracked partition.

A little while after, in the still of night air, there was a distant
murmur of voices, and then some shots rang out. It was a grim, sinister
sound, and in about ten minutes running feet were heard, and two or
three men came up the passage. They banged at Lola's door; hers had been
24 and was now 201. They cursed and swore and demanded to come in, and
at last a voice said, "I'm Curly Grainger," and then some terrible
oaths. "Open this minute, Jim; we've done for two of 'em, but they've
got Bill, and you must come and bail him out."

No answer, of course, as Lola was crouching terrified in bed, Randolph
just as frightened, I suppose, while even through the Vicomte's room I
could hear Columbia and Mercédès giggle, and I, too, for a minute felt
inclined to laugh, it seemed too dramatic to be real. But the voices got
menacing and then the excitement began! With the most dreadful language
they just kicked down the door, intending to pull "Jim" out of bed, I
suppose, and when they saw it was one of the strangers' rooms, I suppose
the idea came to them they might do a little robbery as well.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet and more men came up the stairs. I got
out of bed, wondering what would be best to do, when I heard Lola shriek
and a shot in the passage. So I felt I must go to her help and opened
the door, and such a scene, Mamma! There were seven of the most awful
looking men you ever saw, the ones who, I told you, had come into the
dance hall at Osages. Among them Lola and Randolph in night clothes,
were already lined up against the wall, with their hands above their
heads. While one brute stood at the end of the passage pointing his gun
at them, one of the others was rifling their room, others had kicked
down the girls' door and one was at the end by Octavia's. None of the
other people, miners of sorts, except one man's wife, had come in yet,
as it was not more than half past ten o'clock! She was soon pulled out,
too, and one brute seized me and roughly threw my hands up while he held
a gun to my head. I did feel very frightened, Mamma, but it was all
so terribly exciting, it was quite worth while. I wish I had had a
revolver. I would have used it in a minute. As it was I just watched
from under the brute's arm. Every door was broken down then, and as
noiselessly as they could they ransacked each room. If we had attempted
to scream they would have shot us dead. The girls were speechless with
terror, only Octavia looked a contemptuous tragedy queen in her white
nighty, and the miner's wife had a face of petrified rage; she wasn't
a bit frightened, either. Then up the stairs ran the secretary and the
proprietor's wife, a kind amusing old woman. She had evidently seen this
sort of hold up before (it is called a "hold up," Mamma), for she called
out: "Don't be afraid, ladies, dears, they won't hurt you if you don't
yell"; and then she bolted down the stairs again like a rabbit to get
help, while my brute turned his attention from me for a minute to fire
after her. She had got past the turn of the stairs, but he caught the
secretary in the ankle, and he fell with a groan on the floor.

It was an unpleasant situation, wasn't it, Mamma, six women in
nightgowns with their hands above their heads, Randolph an object of
misery with his pink silk pyjamas torn, and the secretary lying in a
pool of blood, unconscious, by the stairs, while two wretches covered
the whole party with their revolvers!

It seemed an eternity before the men had finished ransacking the rooms,
swearing terribly at finding so little there; and then they came out and
made for the door at the end, which had an outside staircase leading
on to the mountain. At last a noise of voices like distant thunder was
heard getting nearer and nearer, and before they could kick that door
down and escape, Nelson and Tom dashed up the stairs, their revolvers in
their hands; and the last coherent thing I remember was seeing Nelson
take instant aim and shoot the man who was holding the gun to my head as
he had his finger on the trigger to shoot me; and if Nelson had given
him a second more to aim he would have blown my brains out; but being so
quick, Nelson's bullet must have reached him as he fired at me, for his
shot went off through the roof. As the brute fell, there seemed to be a
general scrimmage, but the rest got off through the end door, which they
at last broke down, just as the Senator and the Vicomte and the other
miners came up the stairs. Wasn't it thrilling, Mamma? I would not have
missed it for worlds, now it is over.

I suppose the bullet which killed my assailant grazed a scrap of my
shoulder, or perhaps it was his gun going off did it, anyway I felt it
wet. The next instant I was in Nelson's arms, being carried into my
room. His face was again like death, and he bent over me.

"My God, have I hurt you?" he said in an agonised voice. "My darling, my
lady, my love----" But I don't feel as if I ought to tell you the rest
of his words, Mamma. They burst from him in the anguish of his heart,
and he is the dearest, noblest gentleman, and I feel honoured and
exalted by his love.

I reassured him as well as I could. I told him I was not really hurt at
all, only a little grazed, and I helped him to soak up the blood with my
handkerchief, and then for a few minutes I felt faint and can't remember
any more.

I don't suppose I could have been stupid for more than five minutes,
but when I came to, Octavia was there with a quilt pinned over her
nightgown, and she and the Senator were bathing my shoulder, and even
that little cut hurt rather and I fear will leave a deep scar.

The poor secretary had his ankle broken, but otherwise was unhurt, and
nobody minded at all about the man Nelson had killed. They only wished
he had exterminated more of them. And Tom and the Vicomte are having the
time of their lives, for as soon as dawn broke they joined the Sheriff
with a posse, aided by the state police in pursuit of the escaped
desperadoes, and as the _Moonbeams Chronicle_ prints it today, "A
general round up of bad men is in progress."

Fancy us having the luck to come in for all this, Mamma, and to see
the real thing! The Senator had only been joking, he said, when he had
promised us that, as all this sort of excitement is a thing of the past
in camps, which are generally perfectly orderly now; and he thought by
making us go to bed he was causing us to avoid seeing even a little
quarrelling in the streets.

None of the dear real miners would have touched us, and by some strange
chance not one of the men of our party had heard that the famous
desperadoes were arrived in the town. They will all be lynched if they
are caught, of course, so I can't help rather hoping they will get away.
Perhaps it would be a lesson to them, and I hate to think of any more
people being killed. But, of course, if Nelson had not had the nerve to
fire, just like William Tell, the man would have blown my brains out,
and as you know, Mamma, I have always despised mawkish sentiment, and I
would rather he was dead than me, so I shan't let myself think a thing
more about it, only to be deeply and profoundly grateful to Nelson for
saving my life.

We are going back to Osages this afternoon, and now I must stop, dearest
Mamma.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.




ON THE PRIVATE CAR AGAIN




_On the private car again._

DEAREST MAMMA,--I am writing again today because I thought that perhaps
my yesterday's letter might have worried you, and there is nothing in
the least to mind about. My shoulder will soon heal, and I shall always
feel proud of the scar. It is plastered up and does not hurt much, so
don't be the smallest degree anxious. The hotel proprietor and some
handy miners who could do carpentering came up while we were away at
breakfast, and mended the doors, and everyone laughed and pretended
nothing had happened; only Nelson had rather a set face, and after
breakfast we climbed up on the steep mountain behind the hotel and
watched the world. He never spoke, only helped me over the rough places,
until we got high up above the last tent, and there we sat on a crag and
looked down at the camp. And I think he is the finest character of a
man I have ever known. It is only to you, Mamma, I would tell all this,
because you will understand.

It was so hot he had no coat on, only his flannel shirt, and his
trousers tucked into his long boots, and the grim gun stuck in his belt.
He looked extremely attractive with that felt hat slouched over his
eyes. He seemed to be gazing into distance as if alone, and then, after
a while, he turned and looked at me, and his eyes were full of pain like
a tortured animal, and I felt a wrench at my heart. Then he clasped his
hands tight together as though he were afraid he should take mine, and
he said the dearest things a man could say to a woman--how the stress of
the situation last night had forced from him an avowal of his love
for me. "I never meant to tell you, my sweet lady," he said. "I am no
weakling, I hope, to go snivelling over what is not for me; and when I
comprehended you were married, on the Lusitania, I just faced up the
situation and vowed I'd be a strong man."

Then he paused a moment as if his throat were dry: "No one can control
his emotion of love for a woman," he went on; "the sentiment he feels,
I mean, but the strong man controls the demonstration." He looked
away again, and his face was set like bronze. "I love you better than
anything on God's earth," he said, "and I want to tell you all the
truth, so that you won't feel you can't trust me, or when, if ever I
should chance to meet your husband, I can't look him straight in the
face. I love you, but I never mean to bother you or do anything in the
world but be your best friend." "Indeed, indeed, yes," I said, and I
told him how dreadfully sorry I was if I had hurt him, and how noble and
brave he seemed to me.

"You are my star," he said, "and I am going to crush this pain out of my
heart, and make it just a glad thing that I've known you, and something
to remember always; so don't you feel sorry, my lady, dear. It was not
your fault. It was nobody's fault--just fate. And we out in this desert
country learn to size up a situation and face it out. But I don't want
you to go away from this happy party of ours with an ache in your tender
heart, thinking I am a weakling and going to cry by myself in a corner;
I am not. Nothing's going to be changed, and you can count till death on
Nelson Renour."

I don't know what I said, Mamma, I was so profoundly touched. What a
noble gentleman; how miles and miles above the puny Europeans, setting
snares for every married woman's heart, if she is anything which
attracts them. Suddenly all the men I know seemed to turn into little
paltry dolls, and Harry with his dear blue eyes flashing at me seemed to
be the only reality, except this splendid Western hero; and a great
lump came in my throat, and I could not speak. Then he took my hand and
kissed it. "We're through with all our sad talk, my Lady Elizabeth," he
said, the kindest smile in his faithful eyes, "and now I am going to
show you I can keep my word, and not be a bleating lambkin."

We came down the mountain after that, and he told me just interesting
things about the camp, and the life, and the wonderful quantities of
gold there. And when we got into the restaurant tent where we were to
meet the others for lunch, Tom and the Vicomte and the rest had returned
after a fruitless search for desperadoes, and underneath I am glad they
have got away after all.

The journey back to Hot Creek was too divinely beautiful, in spite of
two broken tyres which delayed us. The view this way is indescribably
grand and vast--the sunset a pale magenta turning into crimson, and the
sky a blue turning to green, the desert grey, and the mountains beyond
deepest violet turning to sapphire and peacock blue. Does not it sound
as if I were romancing, Mamma! But it was really so, and luminous and
clear, so that we could see perhaps a hundred miles, all a vast sea of
sage brush. The Senator sat by me this time, and Octavia, while Nelson
went in front with the chauffeur, and the Senator held my arm and kept
my sore shoulder from getting shaken; and he seemed such a comfort and
so strong, and he asked us if we had enjoyed our trip in spite of the
catastrophe last night, and we both said we had, and all the more on
account of it, because it was lovely seeing the real thing. And he said
it was a chance in a thousand, as all the camps were so orderly now,
not as in Bret Harte, or as it was in his young days. And he said both
Octavia and I would make splendid miners' wives not to be squeamish or
silly over the "carrion" that was shot, and not to have trembling nerves
today. We felt so pleased, and only that underneath I can't help being
sad about Nelson, we should all have been very gay. It was about nine
o'clock when we reached the car and Marcus Aurelius's welcoming smiles,
and an appetising supper. And now I am writing to you to post where we
stop in the morning. We only stay one day in Osages and then go on our
way to the tarpons at last, and the joys of Mexico. It has been all more
than delightful, and I do hope the Americans like us as much as we like
them; from East to here we have received nothing but exquisite courtesy
and kindness, and I can never tell you what a grand and open and
splendid nation they are, Mamma, or how little understood in Europe. All
their faults are the faults of youth, as I said before; and everyone
will admit youth is a gift of the gods.

Now, good-night, dearest Mamma.

Fond love to all,

From your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.


_Morning_.

P.S.--The Senator's mail caught us up at the only station we passed, and
in the packets of letters for everyone was another from Jane Roose for
me saying more odious insinuations about Mrs. Smith and Harry. I feel
perfectly sick, Mamma, and I shan't be good any more. I will never speak
to him again, and shall just divorce him, become a naturalized American
and marry some lovely millionaire.

_Osages again_.

DEAREST MAMMA,--I am so fearfully excited I can hardly write. Listen! We
got back here late in the afternoon, as we stopped at a place by the way
where the Senator had business, and while I was up in my room dressing
for dinner, in the worst temper I ever remember, still feeling so
furious over Jane Roose's words, a noise of quick footsteps was heard in
the passage, and without even a knock someone tried the door, which was
naturally locked. Agnès in fear and trembling went to it, as from the
tale of the night at Moonbeams, she thought, I suppose, it was another
desperado. I was too cross to look round until I heard her scream:
"Milor!" and then I saw a vision of Harry in the door way!!! In a grey
flannel suit and a slouchy felt hat, looking just like a lovely miner.

Nothing in my life has ever given me such an emotion, Mamma. And do you
know I forgot all about injured pride, or Mrs. Smith or anything, and
rushed into his arms. We were both perfectly incoherent with passionate
joy, and just think! There was not a word of truth in it all! That
creature never was on the ship, and Harry only landed in Africa and got
a cable from you saying I had started for America and he caught
another steamer that was sailing that night, and gave up his lions and
everything, and just flew after me, and when in New York he heard we had
gone out West and Gaston was one of the party, he nearly went mad with
rage, and as I told you before he would, he came out here with the
intention of at least beating me and shooting the Vicomte. But when we
had had hundreds of kisses, and I could stay quietly in his arms, we
explained everything, and we have both said we are sorry, and I love him
a thousand times more than ever, and he says he will never let me out
of his sight again for the rest of our lives. And we are crazily happy,
Mamma, and I can't write any more, only we are not going on to Mexico,
but straight home to Valmond; and please bring Hurstbridge and
Ermyntrude to meet us at Liverpool when the Lusitania gets in.

Your affectionate daughter,

ELIZABETH.

P.S.--I quite understand Aunt Maria liking a second honeymoon--even
after fifty years!





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