r to be in America. I haven't caught
sight of a dowdy woman since I came. None of their frocks hitch up in
front and dip down behind, as you see people's doing if you are taken
to a shop in Oxford Street or even sometimes in Bond Street; and their
belts always point beautifully down at the waist, although it _isn't_
the Season in New York.

The train was a fast one, and simply hurled itself and us through
space, as if we had got onto the tail of a comet by mistake; but it
hardly waggled at all, so that we could have studied the scenery nicely
if we had been able to see it behind the advertisements.

Passing the outskirts of New York, it seemed as if every villa, even
the quite smart ones, did their own washing. The gardens--which Sally
told me to call back yards--were just as full of clean clothes as the
meadows were of advertisement hoardings, and I rather wondered why some
enterprising agents didn't go round and offer the people big prices for
painting Uneeda Biscuit on their petticoats and shirts.

We tore through such charming places with fascinating houses built of
wood, among parks of feathery green trees, that I was sure Newport
could be no prettier; but Mrs. Ess Kay spoiled the most picturesque one
for me by saying that it was practically settled by retired butchers
and tailors. According to Mrs. Ess Kay and her brother, all you have to
do to be sure of being rich in America, is to decide to be either a
tailor or a butcher, so it seems quite simple, and I'm surprised that
everybody doesn't do it. Only if you do, it appears there is no use in
your going to Newport until you've lived it down; which, of course,
must be a drawback.

Just as I had got rather giddy from looking out of the window, a boy
(exactly like the boys in melodrama who begin by selling papers and end
by saving the heroine from the villain) came into the car, piled up to
his head with novels and magazines. He scattered a lot over us, like
manna, without asking us to pay, but just as I had got passionately
interested in a short story he came back and began to gather everything
up. Seeing that I clung to my lot, Potter bought them all for me,
before I could stop him.

There were two books and four magazines, with superlatively
good-looking, well-groomed young men and divinely lovely girls for the
heroes and heroines. The story I was most interested in had a hero like
Mr. Brett; but it was disappointing in the end, because he married a
short p