ent that he was making a very favorable
impression upon them.

"It is delightful to show you things," said Hermione. "You are so
appreciative."

"It needs little skill to appreciate, where everything is so beautiful,"
he answered. "Indeed," he continued, addressing himself to all present,
"your home is the most charming I ever saw: I had no idea that the
English understood luxury so well. You know that with us Continental
people you have the reputation of being extravagant, even magnificent,
in your ideas, but of being also ascetics in some measure,--loving to
make yourselves strangely uncomfortable, fond of getting very hot, and
of taking very cold baths, and of living on raw meat and cold potatoes
and all manner of strange things. I do not see here any evidences of
great asceticism."

"How wonderfully he speaks English!" exclaimed Mrs. Carvel, aside, to
her husband.

"I should say," continued Paul, without noticing the flattering
interruption, "that you are the most luxurious people in the world, that
you have more taste than any people I have ever known, and that if I had
had the least idea how charming my relations were, I should have come
from our Russian wilds ten years ago to visit you and tell you how
superior I think you are to ourselves."

Paul laughed pleasantly as he made this speech, and there was a little
murmur of applause.

"We were very different, ten years ago," said John Carvel. "In the first
place, there was no Hermione then, to do the honors and show you the
sights. She was quite a little thing, ten years ago."

"That would have made no difference in the place, though," said
Hermione, simply.

"On the contrary," said Paul. "I am inclined to think, on reflection,
that I would have postponed my visit, after all, for the sake of having
my cousin for a guide."

"Ah, how gracefully these wild northern men can turn a phrase!"
whispered Chrysophrasia in my ear,--"so strong and yet so tender!" She
could not take her eyes from her nephew, and he appeared to understand
that he had already made a conquest of the aesthetic old maid, for he
took her admiration for granted, and addressed himself to Mrs. Carvel;
not losing sight of Chrysophrasia, however, but looking pleasantly at
her as he talked, though his words were meant for her sister.

"It is the whole atmosphere of this life that is delightful, and every
little thing seems so harmonious," he said. "You have here the solidity
of traditional En