ips and the
steamers, the fishing smacks and the smaller craft in Southampton
harbor.

"What will be the first thing you do in London?" somebody asked me.

"Go to Mayfair to find the home of Becky Sharp," I answered. Becky
Sharp was as much a part of English history to me as Henry VIII or Anne
Boleyn or William the Conqueror. When my husband and I were alone he
said: "I think they have picked out No. 21 Curzon Street as the house
where Becky Sharp is supposed to have lived. But what a funny thing for
you to want to see first!"

I remembered what old Lord Steyne had said to Becky: "You poor little
earthen pipkin. You want to swim down the stream with great copper
kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not
worth the having."

I was quite sure I did not want to drift down the stream with copper
kettles. I only wanted to be with Tom, to see England with him, to
enjoy Dr. Johnson's haunts, to go to the "Cheddar Cheese" and the
Strand, to Waterloo Bridge, and down the road the Romans built before
England was England.

I wanted to see the world without the world seeing me. In my heart was
no desire to be a copper kettle. But I had been cast into the stream,
and down it I must go, like a little fungus holding to the biggest
copper kettle I knew.

I told my husband this. It was the first time he had been really
irritated with me. "Why do you worry about these things?" he protested.
"You have a good head and a good education. You are the loveliest woman
in England. Be your own natural self and the English will love you."
But I remembered another occasion when he had told me to be my own
natural sweet self.

"How about what happened to Becky?" I asked.

Tom went into a rage. "Why do you insist on comparing yourself with
that little ------!" The word he used was an ugly one. I did not speak
to him again until after we had passed the government inspectors.

I shall never forget my first day in London, the old, quiet city where
everybody seemed so comfortable and easy-going. There was no show, no
pretense. The people in the shops and on the street bore the earmarks
of thrift. I understood where New England got its spirit.

The first morning at the Alexandra Hotel, Tom fell naturally into the
European habit of having coffee and fruit and a roll brought to his bed.
I wanted to go down to the dining room. My husband said it was not done
and I would be lonesome. The days of ranc