amusement, offered to show her the pictures. Henrietta strolled through
the long gallery in his society, while he pointed out its principal
ornaments and mentioned the painters and subjects. Miss Stackpole looked
at the pictures in perfect silence, committing herself to no opinion,
and Ralph was gratified by the fact that she delivered herself of none
of the little ready-made ejaculations of delight of which the visitors
to Gardencourt were so frequently lavish. This young lady indeed, to do
her justice, was but little addicted to the use of conventional terms;
there was something earnest and inventive in her tone, which at times,
in its strained deliberation, suggested a person of high culture
speaking a foreign language. Ralph Touchett subsequently learned that
she had at one time officiated as art critic to a journal of the other
world; but she appeared, in spite of this fact, to carry in her pocket
none of the small change of admiration. Suddenly, just after he had
called her attention to a charming Constable, she turned and looked at
him as if he himself had been a picture.

"Do you always spend your time like this?" she demanded.

"I seldom spend it so agreeably."

"Well, you know what I mean--without any regular occupation."

"Ah," said Ralph, "I'm the idlest man living."

Miss Stackpole directed her gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph
bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which
represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning
against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing
the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a
regular occupation," he said.

Miss Stackpole turned to him again, and, though her eyes had rested
upon the picture, he saw she had missed the subject. She was thinking
of something much more serious. "I don't see how you can reconcile it to
your conscience."

"My dear lady, I have no conscience!"

"Well, I advise you to cultivate one. You'll need it the next time you
go to America."

"I shall probably never go again."

"Are you ashamed to show yourself?"

Ralph meditated with a mild smile. "I suppose that if one has no
conscience one has no shame."

"Well, you've got plenty of assurance," Henrietta declared. "Do you
consider it right to give up your country?"

"Ah, one doesn't give up one's country any more than one gives UP
one's grandmother. They're both antecedent to choice--elements of one