destroyed the equilibrium of the fire, and the coals came tumbling down
upon the hearth.

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the old lady in great anxiety, "you will
have the house on fire in no time! Give me the tongs right away, my dear.
You do not understand American fires!"




CHAPTER III.



"Dear Ronald,--You can't imagine what a funny place Boston is. I wish you
were here, it would be so nice to talk about them together--I mean the
people, of course, for they are much funnier than the place they live in.
But I think they are very nice, too, particularly some of the men. I don't
understand the women in the least--they go in awfully for sets, if you
understand that kind of thing--and art, too, and literature. The other day
at a lunch party--that is what they call it here--they sat and talked
about pictures for ever so long. I wonder what you would have said if you
had been there! but then there were no men, and so you couldn't have been,
could you? And the sets, too. The girls who come out together, all in a
batch, like a hive of bees swarming, spend the rest of their lives
together; and they have what they call sewing circles, that go on all
their lives. There are sewing circles of old frumps sixty years old who
have never been parted since they all went to their first ball together.
They sew for the poor; they don't sew so very much, you know; but then
they have a tremendous lunch afterwards. I sewed for the poor the other