handsome,
tall, with a fine lithe figure, and a gentle loftiness of manner which I
might have called aristocratic, had she not reminded me strongly in
every way of an "American" woman whom I had known from my boyhood.
Nothing could have been more simple, frank, and good-natured than the
way in which she made me and my luggage welcome. Her maid, who was
standing by her, and who was herself a very lady-like person, soon left
us to take her place in a second-class carriage, and we three were left
in possession.

The train started with that gentle, unobtrusive motion which is usual on
English railways, and we fell into the chat of fellow travellers. I was
charmed with her. Her voice and her manner of speech would have made the
recitation of the multiplication table agreeable. She had a son at
Oxford, which I had left a few days before, and it proved that we had
common acquaintances there. She showed, with all her superiority of
manner, social and personal--for she was what would have been called in
the last generation a superior woman--that deference to manhood which I
have mentioned before as a trait of Englishwomen. Ere long my companion
mentioned that we had been at Kenilworth that day. She replied, "Oh, I
must go there. I have never been. Why! It is just like Americans to go
to Kenilworth. All the Americans go to Kenilworth, and to Warwick
Castle, and to Stratford." My companion replied that we had been at all
those places. She laughed merrily, and said, "You ought to have been
Americans to do that." My friend then told her that I was an "American."
She turned upon me almost with a stare, and after a moment of silence
spoke to me again, but with a perceptible and very remarkable change of
manner. It was very slight--of a delicate fineness. Her courtesy was not
in the least diminished, nor her frankness; but the perfectly
unconscious and careless expression of her face was impaired, and her
attention to me was a little more pronounced than it had been before.
She inquired if I had been pleased with my visit to Kenilworth, and told
me that a novel had been written about it by Sir Walter Scott. "But
perhaps you have read it," she added. "Have you met with it?" I
answered, "I have heard of it"; and my inward satisfaction was great
when I saw that I had done so with a face so unmoved that she replied
with a gracious instructiveness of manner, "Oh, you should have read it
before you went to Kenilworth; it would so have increa