them
Yankees, out of the question--and yet it is far superior in appearance
to ours, owing to the "set up" of the men, and the way in which they
carry themselves. I observed that although the upper classes contained
a fair proportion, although no notable excess, of large and well-formed
men and women, the burly men and the big-bodied, heavy-limbed women
were generally of the lower and the lower middle class. This made me
wonder where all the pretty housemaids and shop girls came from; for
the prettiest faces, the most delicately blooming complexions, and the
finest figures that I saw in England were among them. In a letter
written from the Rose Inn at Canterbury, a cosy comfortable old
hostlery, I find the following passage, which is to the purpose:

"I ate my bacon and eggs this morning in the coffee room, where at
another table were three queer Englishwomen, yet nice looking--apparently
a mother and two daughters. The elder daughter was, I will not say a
lathy girl, but very slim not only in the waist, but above and below
it. The mother and the younger were plump and rosy, absurdly alike, and
with that cocked-up nose which is one of the very few distinctive
peculiarities of figure that you see here, but even this very rarely;
and their black hair was curled in tight curls all over their heads. I
was struck by this, because curling hair is comparatively rare here,
and I had expected to find it common. It was cut just like a man's, and
plainly so because it would have been impossible to dress it if it were
allowed to grow long in woman fashion. They were very jolly and
pleasant, chaffing each other in low, soft voices, and breaking out in
rich, sweet laughter. They looked just like boys masquerading in
women's clothes; for the eldest was quite young looking and may have
been an elder sister. The youngest, who was some seventeen or eighteen
years old, looked very fair and blooming across the room, but when I
came close to her, which I had an opportunity of doing, I found that
her color, both white and red, was coarse, which is very often the case
here when there is color. In the mother, or eldest sister, this
coarseness was apparent even at a distance. But see, Lady ---- and her
daughters, although pretty and elegant, had no tinge of color in their
cheeks, and they were all as thin as rails, and the girls' hair, as
well as their mother's, was as straight as fiddle strings. I came here
expecting to see golden curls in pl