er the necessity of earning their bread. At New York she would
dance, as she had said, with bank clerks. She was not prepared to
admit that a young London lord was better than a New York bank clerk.
Judging the men on their own individual merits she might find the
bank clerk to be the better of the two. But a certain sweetness of
the aroma of rank was beginning to permeate her republican senses.
The softness of a life in which no occupation was compulsory had
its charms for her. Though she had complained of the insufficient
intelligence of young men she was alive to the delight of having
nothings said to her pleasantly. All this had affected her so
strongly that she had almost felt that a life among these English
luxuries would be a pleasant life. Like most Americans who do not as
yet know the country, she had come with an inward feeling that as an
American and a republican she might probably be despised.

There is not uncommonly a savageness of self-assertion about
Americans which arises from a too great anxiety to be admitted
to fellowship with Britons. She had felt this, and conscious of
reputation already made by herself in the social life of New York,
she had half trusted that she would be well received in London, and
had half convinced herself that she would be rejected. She had not
been rejected. She must have become quite aware of that. She had
dropped very quickly the idea that she would be scorned. Ignorant
as she had been of English life, she perceived that she had at
once become popular. And this had been so in spite of her mother's
homeliness and her father's awkwardness. By herself and by her own
gifts she had done it. She had found out concerning herself that she
had that which would commend her to other society than that of the
Fifth Avenue. Those lords of whom she had heard were as plenty with
her as blackberries. Young Lord Silverbridge, of whom she was told
that of all the young lords of the day he stood first in rank and
wealth, was peculiarly her friend. Her brain was firmer than that of
most girls, but even her brain was a little turned. She never told
herself that it would be well for her to become the wife of such a
one. In her more thoughtful moments she told herself that it would
not be well. But still the allurement was strong upon her. Park Lane
was sweeter than the Fifth Avenue. Lord Silverbridge was nicer than
the bank clerk.

But Dolly Longstaff was not. She would certainly prefer the ba