me to watch her; that's the way I passed my jeunesse--my belle
jeunesse. We are frightfully poor," the young girl went on, with the
same strange frankness--a curious mixture of girlish grace and
conscious cynicism. "Nous n'avons pas le sou. That's one of the
reasons we don't go back to America; mamma says we can't afford to
live there."

"Well, any one can see that you're an American girl," Miss Ruck
remarked, in a consolatory manner. "I can tell an American girl a
mile off. You've got the American style."

"I'm afraid I haven't the American toilette," said Aurora, looking at
the other's superior splendour.

"Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that."

"Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, "my dress was cut in France--at
Avranches."

"Well, you've got a lovely figure, any way," pursued her companion.

"Ah," said the young girl, "at Avranches, too, my figure was
admired." And she looked at me askance, with a certain coquetry.
But I was an innocent youth, and I only looked back at her,
wondering. She was a great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss
Ruck would not have said that. "I try to be like an American girl,"
she continued; "I do my best, though mamma doesn't at all encourage
it. I am very patriotic. I try to copy them, though mamma has
brought me up a la francaise; that is, as much as one can in
pensions. For instance, I have never been out of the house without