something vaguely irritating in her soft, sweet positiveness.

"American cities," I said, "are the paradise of young girls."

"Do you mean," asked Mrs. Church, "that the young girls who come from
those places are angels?"

"Yes," I said, resolutely.

"This young lady--what is her odd name?--with whom my daughter has
formed a somewhat precipitate acquaintance: is Miss Ruck an angel?
But I won't force you to say anything uncivil. It would be too cruel
to make a single exception."

"Well," said I, "at any rate, in America young girls have an easier
lot. They have much more liberty."

My companion laid her hand for an instant on my arm. "My dear young
friend, I know America, I know the conditions of life there, so well.
There is perhaps no subject on which I have reflected more than on
our national idiosyncrasies."

"I am afraid you don't approve of them," said I, a little brutally.

Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. Church was not prepared to
assent to it in this rough shape. She dropped her eyes on her book,
with an air of acute meditation. Then, raising them, "We are very
crude," she softly observed--"we are very crude." Lest even this
delicately-uttered statement should seem to savour of the vice that
she deprecated, she went on to explain. "There are two classes of