, abstracted way of talking as if she were thinking
aloud. "I used to imagine they had less, and yet, when you come to
think of it, Dickens and Thackeray and Barrie, and so many other of the
humourists we admire most, are Britishers. Besides, I never in all my
days heard people laugh so hard as in that London theatre. There was a
man behind us, and every time he laughed auntie looked round to see if
a door had opened, he made such a draught. But you have some funny
expressions, Mr. Stephens!"

"What else strikes you as funny, Miss Sadie?"

"Well, when you sent me the temple ticket and the little map, you
began your letter, 'Enclosed, please find,' and then at the bottom, in
brackets, you had '2 enclo.'"

"That is the usual form in business."

"Yes, in business," said Sadie, demurely, and there was a silence.

"There's one thing I wish," remarked Miss Adams, in the hard, metallic
voice with which she disguised her softness of heart, "and that is, that
I could see the Legislature of this country and lay a few cold-drawn
facts in front of them, I'd make a platform of my own, Mr. Stephens, and
run a party on my ticket. A Bill for the compulsory use of eyewash would
be one of my planks, and another would be for the abolition of those
Yashmak veil things which turn a woman into a bale of cotton goods with
a pair of eyes looking out of it."

"I never could think why they wore them," said Sadie; "until one day I
saw one with her veil lifted. Then I knew."

"They make me tired, those women," cried Miss Adams, wrathfully. "One
might as well try to preach duty and decency and cleanliness to a line
of bolsters. Why, good land, it was only yesterday at Abou-Simbel, Mr.
Stephens, I was passing one of their houses,--if you can call a mud-pie
like that a house,--and I saw two of the children at the door with the
usual crust of flies round their eyes, and great holes in their poor
little blue gowns! So I got off my donkey, and I turned up my sleeves,
and I washed their faces well with my handkerchief, and sewed up the
rents,--for in this country I would as soon think of going ashore
without my needle-case as without my white umbrella, Mr. Stephens. Then
as I warmed on the job I got into the room,--such a room!--and I packed
the folks out of it, and I fairly did the chores as if I had been the
hired help. I've seen no more of that temple of Abou-Simbel than if I
had never left Boston; but, my sakes, I saw more dust and mess than