uis Quinze--nothing of the First Empire;
nothing but their eternal Queen Anne. It's good for one's bed-room,
Queen Anne--for one's washing-room; but it isn't proper for a salon. Do
I spend my life at the auctioneer's?" Mr. Rosier pursued in answer to
another question of Isabel's. "Oh no; I haven't the means. I wish I
had. You think I'm a mere trifler; I can tell by the expression of your
face--you've got a wonderfully expressive face. I hope you don't mind
my saying that; I mean it as a kind of warning. You think I ought to do
something, and so do I, so long as you leave it vague. But when you
come to the point you see you have to stop. I can't go home and be
a shopkeeper. You think I'm very well fitted? Ah, Miss Archer, you
overrate me. I can buy very well, but I can't sell; you should see when
I sometimes try to get rid of my things. It takes much more ability to
make other people buy than to buy yourself. When I think how clever they
must be, the people who make ME buy! Ah no; I couldn't be a shopkeeper.
I can't be a doctor; it's a repulsive business. I can't be a clergyman;
I haven't got convictions. And then I can't pronounce the names right in
the Bible. They're very difficult, in the Old Testament particularly. I
can't be a lawyer; I don't understand--how do you call it?--the American
procedure. Is there anything else? There's nothing for a gentleman
in America. I should like to be a diplomatist; but American
diplomacy--that's not for gentlemen either. I'm sure if you had seen the
last min--"

Henrietta Stackpole, who was often with her friend when Mr. Rosier,
coming to pay his compliments late in the afternoon, expressed himself
after the fashion I have sketched, usually interrupted the young man at
this point and read him a lecture on the duties of the American citizen.
She thought him most unnatural; he was worse than poor Ralph Touchett.
Henrietta, however, was at this time more than ever addicted to fine
criticism, for her conscience had been freshly alarmed as regards
Isabel. She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations
and begged to be excused from doing so.

"If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money," she
frankly asserted, "I'd have said to him 'Never!"

"I see," Isabel had answered. "You think it will prove a curse in
disguise. Perhaps it will."

"Leave it to some one you care less for--that's what I should have
said."

"To yourself for instance?" Isabel sugges