e
showed on this occasion that it was easy enough to know her. There is
notoriously nothing less desirable than an imposed aggravation of effort
at sea, but she accepted without betrayed dismay the burden of the young
lady's dependence and allowed her, as Mrs. Mavis said, to hook herself
on. She evidently had the habit of patience, and her reception of her
visitors' story reminded me afresh--I was reminded of it whenever I
returned to my native land--that my dear compatriots are the people in
the world who most freely take mutual accommodation for granted. They
have always had to help themselves, and have rather magnanimously failed
to learn just where helping others is distinguishable from that. In no
country are there fewer forms and more reciprocities.

It was doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue
shouldn't feel they were importunate: what was striking was that Mrs.
Nettlepoint didn't appear to suspect it. However, she would in any case
have thought it inhuman to show this--though I could see that under the
surface she was amused at everything the more expressive of the pilgrims
from the South End took for granted. I scarce know whether the attitude
of the younger visitor added or not to the merit of her good nature. Mr.
Porterfield's intended took no part in the demonstration, scarcely spoke,
sat looking at the Back Bay and the lights on the long bridge. She
declined the lemonade and the other mixtures which, at Mrs. Nettlepoint's
request, I offered her, while her mother partook freely of everything and
I reflected--for I as freely drained a glass or two in which the ice
tinkled--that Mr. Jasper had better hurry back if he wished to enjoy
these luxuries.

Was the effect of the young woman's reserve meanwhile ungracious, or was
it only natural that in her particular situation she shouldn't have a
flow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepoint
looked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative Miss
Mavis was interesting. The candlelight enabled me to see that though not
in the very first flower of her youth she was still fresh and handsome.
Her eyes and hair were dark, her face was pale, and she held up her head
as if, with its thick braids and everything else involved in it, it were
an appurtenance she wasn't ashamed of. If her mother was excellent and
common she was not common--not at least flagrantly so--and perhaps also
not excellent. At all eve