Chapter III: Part 3

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.