This instantaneous assimilation of English customs does not seem to
be affectation on Salemina's part; nor will I wrong her by fancying

that she went through a course of training before she left Boston.
From the moment she landed you could see that her foot was on her

native heath. She inhaled the fog with a sense of intoxication that
the east winds of New England had never given her, and a great throb

of patriotism swelled in her breast when she first met the Princess
of Wales in Hyde Park.

As for me, I get on charmingly with the English nobility and
sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike

terror to my soul. There is something awe-inspiring to me about an
English butler. If they would only put him in livery, or make him

wear a silver badge; anything, in short, to temper his pride and
prevent one from mistaking him for the master of the house or the

bishop within his gates. When I call upon Lady DeWolfe, I say to
myself impressively, as I go up the steps: 'You are as good as a

butler, as well born and well bred as a butler, even more
intelligent than a butler. Now, simply because he has an

unapproachable haughtiness of demeanour, which you can respectfully
admire, but can never hope to imitate, do not cower beneath the

polar light of his eye; assert yourself; be a woman; be an American
citizen!' All in vain. The moment the door opens I ask for Lady

DeWolfe in so timid a tone that I know Parker thinks me the parlour-
maid's sister who has rung the visitors' bell by mistake. If my

lady is within, I follow Parker to the drawing-room, my knees
shaking under me at the prospect of committing some solecism in his

sight. Lady DeWolfe's husband has been noble only four months, and
Parker of course knows it, and perhaps affects even greater hauteur

to divert the attention of the vulgar commoner from the newness of
the title.

Dawson, our butler at Smith's private hotel, wields the same
blighting influence on our spirits, accustomed to the soft

solicitations of the negro waiter or the comfortable indifference of
the free-born American. We never indulge in ordinary democratic or

frivolous conversation when Dawson is serving us at dinner. We
'talk up' to him so far as we are able, and before we utter any

remark we inquire mentally whether he is likely to think it good
form. Accordingly, I maintain throughout dinner a lofty height of

aristocraticelegance that impresses even the impassive Dawson,
towards whom it is solely directed. To the amazement and amusement

of Salemina (who always takes my cheerful inanities at their face
value), I give an hypothetical account of my afternoon engagements,

interlarding it so thickly with countesses and marchionesses and
lords and honourables that though Dawson has passed soup to

duchesses, and scarcely ever handed a plate to anything less than a
baroness, he dilutes the customary scorn of his glance, and makes it

two parts condescending approval as it rests on me, Penelope
Hamilton, of the great American working class (unlimited).

Apropos of the servants, it seems to me that the British footman has
relaxed a trifle since we were last here; or is it possible that he

reaches the height of his immobility at the height of the London
season, and as it declines does he decline and become flesh? At all

events, I have twice seen a footman change his weight from one leg
to the other, as he stood at a shop entrance with his lady's mantle

over his arm; twice have I seen one stroke his chin, and several
times have I observed others, during the month of July, conduct

themselves in many respects like animate objects with vital organs.
Lest this incendiary statement be challenged, levelled as it is at

an institution whose stability and order are but feebly represented
by the eternal march of the stars in their courses, I hasten to

explain that in none of these cases cited was it a powdered footman
who (to use a Delsartean expression) withdrew will from his body and

devitalised it before the public eye. I have observed that the
powdered personage has much greater control over his muscles than

the ordinary footman with human hair, and is infinitely his superior
in rigidity. Dawson tells me confidentially that if a footman

smiles there is little chance of his rising in the world. He says a
sense of humour is absolutely fatal in that calling, and that he has

discharged many a good footman because of an intelligent and
expressive face.

I tremble to think of what the powdered footman may become when he
unbends in the bosom of the family. When, in the privacy of his own

apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed
from his aristocraticcalves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence

exchanged for a simple neglige, I should think he might be guilty of
almost any indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent

to be the wife and children of a powdered footman, and receive him
in his moments of reaction.

Chapter III. Eggs a la coque.
Is it to my credit, or to my eternal dishonour that I once made a

powdered footman smile, and that, too, when he was handing a
buttered muffin to an earl's daughter?

It was while we were paying a visit at Marjorimallow Hall, Sir Owen
and Lady Marjorimallow's place in Surrey. This was to be our first

appearance in an English country house, and we made elaborate
preparations. Only our freshest toilettes were packed, and these

were arranged in our trunks with the sole view of impressing the
lady's-maid who should unpack them. We each purchased dressing-

cases and new fittings, Francesca's being of sterling silver,
Salemina's of triple plate, and mine of celluloid, as befitted our

several fortunes. Salemina read up on English politics; Francesca
practised a new way of dressing her hair; and I made up a portfolio

of sketches. We counted, therefore, on representing American
letters, beauty, and art to that portion of the great English public

staying at Marjorimallow Hall. (I must interject a parenthesis here
to the effect that matters did not move precisely as we expected;

for at table, where most of our time was passed, Francesca had for a
neighbour a scientist, who asked her plump whether the religion of

the American Indian was or was not a pure theism; Salemina's partner
objected to the word 'politics' in the mouth of a woman; while my

attendant squire adored a good bright-coloured chromo. But this is
anticipating.)

Three days before our departure, I remarked at the breakfast-table,
Dawson being absent: "My dear girls, you are aware that we have

ordered fried eggs, scrambled eggs, buttered eggs, and poached eggs
ever since we came to Dovermarle Street, simply because we do not

know how to eat boiled eggs prettily from the shell, English
fashion, and cannot break them into a cup or a glass, American

fashion, on account of the effect upon Dawson. Now there will
certainly be boiled eggs at Marjorimallow Hall, and we cannot refuse

them morning after morning; it will be cowardly (which is
unpleasant), and it will be remarked (which is worse). Eating them

minced in an egg-cup, in a baronial hall, with the remains of a
drawbridge in the grounds, is equally impossible; if we do that,

Lady Marjorimallow will be having our luggage examined, to see if we
carry wigwams and war-whoops about with us. No, it is clearly

necessary that we master the gentle art of eating eggs tidily and
daintily from the shell. I have seen English women--very dull ones,

too--do it without apparent effort; I have even seen an English
infant do it, and that without soiling her apron, or, as Salemina

would say, 'messing her pinafore.' I propose, therefore, that we
order soft-boiled eggs daily; that we send Dawson from the room

directly breakfast is served; and that then and there we have a
class for opening eggs, lowest grade, object method. Any person who

cuts the shell badly, or permits the egg to leak over the rim, or
allows yellow dabs on the plate, or upsets the cup, or stains her

fingers, shall be fined 'tuppence' and locked into her bedroom for
five minutes."

The first morning we were all in the bedroom together, and, there
being no blameless person to collect fines, the wildest civil

disorder prevailed.
On the second day Salemina and I improved slightly, but Francesca

had passed a sleepless night, and her hand trembled (the love-letter
mail had come in from America). We were obliged to tell her, as we

collected 'tuppence' twice on the same egg, that she must either
remain at home, or take an oilcloth pinafore to Marjorimallow Hall.