the window has not been put down, it has always so much play in its
frame, to allow for swelling from the damp, that in anything like dry
weather the cold whistles round it, and you do not know which way to
turn your mediaeval back.

In the corridors of one of the provincial hotels there were radiators,
but not hot ones, and in a dining-room where they were hot the natives
found them oppressive, while the foreigners were warming their fingers
on the bottoms of their plates. Yet it is useless for these to pretend
that the suffering they experience has not apparently resulted in the
strength they see. Our contemporary ancestors are a splendid-looking
race, in the higher average, and if in the lower average they often look
pinched and stunted, why, we are not ourselves giants without exception.
The ancestral race does often look stunted and poor; persons of small
build and stature abound; and nature is

"So careful of the single type"

of beefy Briton as to show it very rarely. But in the matter of
complexion, if we count that a proof of health, we are quite out of it
in comparison with the English, and beside them must look like a nation
of invalids. There are few English so poor as not, in youth at least, to
afford cheeks of a redness which all our money could not buy with us. I
do not say the color does not look a little overdone in cases, or that
the violent explosion of pinks and roses, especially in the cheeks of
small children, does not make one pause in question whether paste or
putty might not be more tasteful. But it is best not to be too critical.
Putty and paste, apart from association, are not pretty tints, and pinks
and roses are; and the English children look not only fresher but
sturdier and healthier than ours. Whether they are really so I do not