elf
like that! No one but an American would allow it. I've always heard that
children in the States do exactly as they please, and the grown people
never interfere with them in the least."

"General rules are dangerous things," said her neighbor, with an odd
little smile. "Now, as it happens, I know all about those people. They
call themselves Americans because they have lived in Buffalo for ten
years and are naturalized; but he was born in Scotland and she in Wales,
and the child doesn't belong exactly to any country, for he happened to
be born at sea. You see you can't always tell."

"Do you mean, then, that they are English, after all?" cried Imogen,
disconcerted and surprised.

"Oh, no. Every body is an American who has taken the oath of allegiance.
Those Polish Jews over there are Americans, and that Italian couple
also, and the big party of Germans who are sitting between the boats.
The Germans have a large shop in New York, and go out every year to buy
goods and tell their relations how superior the United States are to
Breslau. They are all Americans, though you would scarcely suppose it to
look at them. America is like a pudding,--plums from one part of the
world, and spice from another, and flour and sugar and flavoring from
somewhere else, but all known by the name of pudding."

"How very, very odd. Somehow I never thought of it before in that light.
Are there no real Americans, then? Are they all foreigners who have been
naturalized?"

"Oh, no. It is not so bad as that. There are a great many 'real
Americans.' I am one, for example."

"You!" There was such a world of unfeigned surprise in Imogen's tone
that it was impossible for her new friend not to laugh.

"I. Did you not know it? What did you take me for?"

"Why, English of course, like myself. You are exactly like an English
person."

"I suppose you mean it for a compliment; thank you, therefore. I like
England very much, so I don't mind being taken for an English woman."

"Of course you don't," said Imogen, staring. "It's the height of an
American's ambition, I've always heard, to be thought English."

"There you are mistaken. There are a few foolish people who feel so no
doubt, and all of us would be glad to copy what is best and nicest in
English ways and manners, but a really good American likes his own
country best of all, and would rather seem to belong to it than any
other."

"And I was thinking how different your daughter is from t