udent came up with a sort of half-dancing step.

"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of
sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to--aw--aw--have the honor of
seeing you here--am, indeed."

She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says
she--

"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but
always make a point of coming here."

The young--no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well,
this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little
eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied
girl, and they both smiled at each other.

This riled me.

Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The
divinity student turned his glass--eye and all--upon them, then he
turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his
wisp of a mustache:

"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies
have the manners of chambermaids?"

I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but
the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for
what that young creature would say.

"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"

"Really--yes--I think they have, you know."

"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says
she, as meek as Moses--yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all,
I hope."

The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for
herself out of this insult to the general American female.

The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to
her.

"Aw--aw--of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says
he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little
eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American
women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."

I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked,
ever riled up like my temper.

"If _you_ find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's
because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are
in."

Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a
calm but decided motion.

That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The
divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head
to foot, and says he: