glance, still less of a look of amusement, although
she watched his dumb, immovable figure with apprehension until she
reached the door.

Julian Ralph, after telegraphing an account of President Arthur's
fishing-trip to the Thousand Islands, returned to his hotel at two
o'clock in the morning, to find all the doors locked. With two friends
who had accompanied him, he battered at a side door to wake the
servants, but what was his chagrin when the door was opened by the
President of the United States!

"Why, that's all right," said Mr. Arthur when Mr. Ralph asked his
pardon. "You wouldn't have got in till morning if I had not come. No
one is up in the house but me. I could have sent my colored boy, but
he had fallen asleep and I hated to wake him."

The late King Edward, when Prince of Wales, the first gentleman in
Europe, invited an eminent man to dine with him. When coffee was
served, the guest, to the consternation of the others, drank from his
saucer. An open titter of amusement went round the table. The Prince,
quickly noting the cause of the untimely amusement, gravely emptied his
cup into his saucer and drank after the manner of his guest. Silent
and abashed, the other members of the princely household took the
rebuke and did the same.

Queen Victoria sent for Carlyle, who was a Scotch peasant, offering him
the title of nobleman, which he declined, feeling that he had always
been a nobleman in his own right. He understood so little of the
manners at court that, when presented to the Queen, after speaking to
her a few minutes, being tired, he said, "Let us sit down, madam;"
whereat the courtiers were ready to faint. But she was great enough,
and gave a gesture that seated all her puppets in a moment. The
Queen's courteous suspension of the rules of etiquette, and what it may
have cost her, can be better understood from what an acquaintance of
Carlyle said of him when he saw him for the first time. "His presence,
in some unaccountable manner, rasped the nerves. I expected to meet a
rare being, and I left him feeling as if I had drunk sour wine, or had
had an attack of seasickness."

Some persons wield a scepter before which others seem to bow in glad
obedience. But whence do they obtain such magic power? What is the
secret of that almost hypnotic influence over people which we would
give anything to possess?

Courtesy is not always found in high places. Even royal courts furnish
many examples