et
forth again, better informed.

As I rang the first doorbell, another visitor came up the steps, a
beautiful old lady in widow's dress, a cardcase in her hand.

"Have you rung, sir?" said she, in a manner at once gentle and
voluminous.

"Yes, madam."

Nevertheless she pulled it again. "It doesn't always ring," she
explained, "unless one is accustomed to it, which you are not."

She addressed me with authority, exactly like Aunt Carola, and with even
greater precision in her good English and good enunciation. Unlike the
girl at the Exchange, she had no accent; her language was simply
the perfection of educated utterance; it also was racy with the free
censoriousness which civilized people of consequence are apt to exercise
the world over. "I was sorry to miss your visit," she began (she knew
me, you see, perfectly); "you will please to come again soon, and
console me for my disappointment. I am Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, and my
house is in Le Maire Street (Pronounced in Kings Port, Lammarree) as you
have been so civil as to find out. And how does your Aunt Carola do in
these contemptible times? You can tell her from me that vulgarization is
descending, even upon Kings Port."

"I cannot imagine that!" I exclaimed.

"You cannot imagine it because you don't know anything about it, young
gentleman! The manners of some of our own young people will soon be as
dishevelled as those in New York. Have you seen our town yet, or is it
all books with you? You should not leave without a look at what is
still left of us. I shall be happy if you will sit in my pew on Sunday
morning. Your Northern shells did their best in the bombardment--did
you say that you rang? I think you had better pull it again; all the
way out; yes, like that--in the bombardment, but we have our old
church still, in spite of you. Do you see the crack in that wall? The
earthquake did it. You're spared earthquakes in the North, as you seem
to be spared pretty much everything disastrous--except the prosperity
that's going to ruin you all. We're better off with our poverty than
you. Just ring the bell once more, and then we'll go. I fancy Julia--I
fancy Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael--has run out to stare at the Northern
steam yacht in the harbor. It would be just like her. This house is
historic itself. Shabby enough now, to be sure! The great-aunt of my
cousin, John Mayrant (who is going to be married next Wednesday, to such
a brute of a girl, poor boy!), live