I.

TOMMIE JACKSON was in England for the first time in her life. Tommie was a young American girl, as her name indicates; she had been born in New York, the capital city of America. Her family, indeed, had some claim to respectability; her father, and also a distant cousin, had visited England in youth. But Mr. Jackson, although admired to excess by his own countrymen, was in reality a coarse and ignorant man. So was his wife, and all her relations. His daughter, too, though she had aspirations, was very uncultured and inexperienced. The polite English people looked upon her with horror not unmingled with amazement. They did not understand her vagaries; they did not know that American society is provincial.

II.

Miss Jackson had come to England to visit her aunt, Salvation Rogers. Aunt Salvation - called Salvy by her intimate friends - had had the misfortune to be born in Bangor. No one, however, was more ashamed of this fact than she herself. At the age of ten she had come to England, and had lived there ever since. She had never married; she had tried hard to become an English-woman, and had succeeded to a certain extent; but her birth was against her.

III.

At Aunt Salvy's Miss Tommie became acquainted with the Earl of London. The earl was no slouch; he had his ideas. He was an extreme Liberal and he loved Americans. He was very curious about the United States, particularly Boston, Cambridgeport, - where Harvard College is situated, - and Bangor. He one day asked our heroine if the Boston Poncas had not yet been removed to any reservation, and if Carl Schurz were not the governor of Massachusetts. He wanted to know if Roscoe Conkling had not been elected President, and if the Concord poet were not to be Secretary of State. Tommie did not laugh at these questions: she saw too deeply into the spiritualities of things. She felt that he was intense, and she rather liked him for it. To Lord London she was a riddle - a sphinx.

IV.

His Lordship lit a cigarette thoughtfully, and with an air of condescending grace that made him a hero in Tommie's inexperienced eyes. But she was not awed; American girls never are. She was simply roused to enthusiasm. She said, -

"London, old fellow, you're a brick, as we Yankees say."

The earl smiled indulgently. He was charmed with her artlessness and spontaneity. She had a delightful little nose, too. He admired the set of her drapery. He thought of her well-invested dividends. His heart was touched. He glanced sideways - English noblemen never stare - at the title of the book she carried. It was Joseph Cook's Heredity.

Then he said, "Miss Jackson?"

"Yes?"

"Do you" -

"Hardly" -

"But if one might" -