zation a little farther over our
American continent.

A great tenderness for my parents filled my heart and overflowed in my
eyes. I have, I confess, had moments of bitterness toward them. But
that was not one of them.

"I think I can tell you," I answered, as quietly as I could. "It 's
very simple. I was the first baby, and mother cut up my food for me.
After a while she cut up food for two babies. By the time the third
came, I had to do my own cutting. Naturally, I did it just as mother
had. Then I began to help cut up food for the other babies. It 's a
baby habit. And I must now learn to cut one bite at a time like a
civilized grown person."

Even Aunt Elizabeth was silenced. But Tom rose from the table,
swearing. My father would not have permitted a cowpuncher to use such
language before my mother. But I loved Tom for it.

However, I did not sleep that night. Next morning Tom's Aunt Elizabeth
apologized, and for Back Bay was really unbending.

Some days later we returned to New York, and I thought my troubles were
over for a time. But the first night Tom came home full of excitement.
He had been appointed to the diplomatic corps, and we were to sail for
England within a month!

The news struck chill terror to my heart. With so much still to learn
in my native America, what on earth should I do in English society?

II.

More than two months passed after the night my husband announced his
foreign appointment before we sailed for England.

I planned to study and to have long talks with him about the customs of
fashionable and diplomatic Europe, but alas! I reckoned without the
friends and pretended friends who claim the time of a man of Tom's
importance. Besides, he and I had so many other things to discuss.

So the sailing time approached, and then he announced that we were to be
presented at court! I was thrilled half with fear and half with joy.

I remembered from my reading of history that some of England's kings had
not spoken English and that French had been the court language. I
visited a bookstore and purchased what was recommended as an easy road
to French, and spent all morning learning to say, "l'orange est un
fruit." I read the instructions for placing the tongue and puckering
the lips and repeated les and las until I was dizzy. Then I looked
through our bookcases for a life of Benjamin Franklin. I knew he had
gone to court and "played with queens."

But the great s