favourite nephew, and says he is full of charm."

"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the
girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening.
He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if
one punctured him with a hat-pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!"

"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the
immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority
of our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?"
observed Salemina.

"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.

"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?"

"Oh, I alluded to it; but only when he said that our hot summers
must be insufferable."

"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the
ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?"

"Yes, I did!" she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that
American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it
were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Wasn't that
unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid article of
food, but that after their complexions were established, so to
speak, their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to
vary the diet."