month's vacation--two weeks on board ship, two on land.
Now you, I suppose, don't have to count your days?
You cross every year. I can't see, for my part, what
business the assistant editor of a magazine has abroad."

"Oh, we make a specialty of articles from notorieties
over there; statesmen, scientific fellows, or people with
titles. I expect to capture a paper from Lorne and some
sketches by the Princess Beatrice this time."

"Lorne? It throws you into contact with that sort of
folk, eh?" said the doctor, looking at him enviously.
"How do they strike you, Jem?"

"Well," said Perry importantly, "well-bred people are the
same the world over. I only see them in a business way,
of course, but one can judge. Their voices are better
than ours, but as to looks--no! It's queer, but American
women--the wives and daughters of saddlers or farmers,
perhaps--have more often the patrician look than English
duchesses. Now there, for example," warming to the
subject, "that woman to whom you bowed just now, the
middle-aged one in blue cloth. Some Mrs. Smith or Pratt,
probably. A homely woman, but there is a distinction in
her face, a certain surety of good breeding, which is
lacking in the heavy-jawed English royalties."

"Yes; that is a friend of mine," said Watts.

She is a Mrs. Waldeaux from Wier, in Delaware. You could