t last I said hastily,
"Bacon and eggs, please," and Salemina, the most critical person in the
party, murmured, "The same."

It is odd to see how soon, if one has a strong sense of humanity, one
feels at home in a foreign country. I, at least, am never impressed by
the differences, but only by the similarities, between English-speaking
peoples. We take part in the life about us here, living each experience
as fully as we can, whether it be a 'hiring fair' in Donegal or a
pilgrimage to the Doon 'Well of Healing.' Not the least part of the
pleasure is to watch its effect upon the Derelict. Where, or in what
way, could three persons hope to gain as much return from a monthly
expenditure of twenty dollars, added to her living and travelling
expenses, as we have had in Miss Benella Dusenberry? We sometimes ask
ourselves what we found to do with our time before she came into the
family, and yet she is as busy as possible herself.

Having twice singed Francesca's beautiful locks, she no longer attempts
hair-dressing; while she never accomplishes the lacing of an evening
dress without putting her knee in the centre of your back once, at
least, during the operation. She can button shoes, and she can mend
and patch and darn to perfection; she has a frenzy for small laundry
operations, and, after washing the windows of her room, she adorns every
pane of glass with a fine cambric handkerchief, and, stretching a
line between the bedpost and the bureau knob, she hangs out her
white neckties and her bonnet strings to dry. She has learned to pack
reasonably well, too. But if she has another passion beside those of
washing and mending, it is for making bags. She buys scraps of gingham
and print, and makes cases of every possible size and for every
possible purpose; so that all our personal property, roughly
speaking--hair-brushes, shoes, writing materials, pincushions,
photographs, underclothing, gloves, medicines,--is bagged. The strings
in the bags pull both ways, and nothing is commoner than to see Benella
open and close seventeen or eighteen of them when she is searching for
Francesca's rubbers or my gold thimble. But what other lady's-maid
or travelling companion ever had half the Derelict's unique charm
and interest, half her conversational power, her unusual and original
defects and virtues? Put her in a third-class carriage when we
go 'first,' and she makes friends with all her fellow-travellers,
discussing Home Rule or Free S