"There are not so many balls, but there are a good many other things.
You will see for yourself; we live rather in the midst of it."

"It's very kind of you to say that. But I thought you Americans
were always dancing."

"I suppose we dance a good deal; but I have never seen much of it.
We don't do it much, at any rate, in summer. And I am sure,"
said Bessie Alden, "that we don't have so many balls as you
have in England."

"Really!" exclaimed Lord Lambeth. "Ah, in England it all depends, you know."

"You will not think much of our gaieties," said the young girl,
looking at him with a little mixture of interrogation and decision
which was peculiar to her. The interrogation seemed earnest and
the decision seemed arch; but the mixture, at any rate, was charming.
"Those things, with us, are much less splendid than in England."

"I fancy you don't mean that," said Lord Lambeth, laughing.

"I assure you I mean everything I say," the young girl declared.
"Certainly, from what I have read about English society,
it is very different."

"Ah well, you know," said her companion, "those things are
often described by fellows who know nothing about them.
You mustn't mind what you read."

"Oh, I SHALL mind what I read!" Bessie Alden rejoined.