I said, quite, I was so enchanted, Mamma, to be taken for a young girl,
after having been married nearly seven years and being twenty-four last
month! I would not undeceive him for the world, and as we shall never see
him again it won't matter. Think, too, how cross Harry--but I won't speak
of him!

Aunt Maria had an amiable smile on all the time. Can you imagine them
dining in a public room in an English hotel! The idea would horrify her,
but she says no one should make fusses travelling, and I believe she would
look just as pleased if we were shipwrecked on a desert island.

There was no salon to sit in after dinner, and the moon came out, so Mr.
Renour suggested we ought to see the church, which is one of the things
marked in the guide book. Uncle John said he would light his cigar and come
with us, while Aunt Maria went to bed, but when we got outside the dear old
fellow seemed tired and was quite glad to return when I suggested it; so
the American and I went on alone. I must say, Mamma, it is lovely being
married, when one comes to think of it, being able to stroll out like this
with a young man all alone;--and I have never had the chance before, with
Harry always so jealous, and forever at my heels. I shall make hay while
the sun shines! He was so nice. He told me all about himself--he is a very
rich mine owner--out West in America, and began as a poor boy without any
education, who went out first as a cow-boy on a ranch and then took to
mining and got a stroke of luck, and now owns the half of the great Osage
Mine. And he is only twenty-nine. "I kinder felt I ought to see Europe," he
said, "never having been further East than Chicago; so I came over at
Christmas time and have been around in this machine ever since." He calls
his automobile, an immense 90 h.p. Charon, his "machine!" He said all this
so simply, as if it were quite natural to tell a stranger his life story,
and he is perfectly direct--only you have to speak to him with the meaning