, don't you think? So American?"

"Yes; Miss Debree is one of the exceptions."

"Oh, I didn't mean that all American women were as clever as Miss
Debree."

"Thank you," said my wife. And Mr. Lyon looked as if he couldn't see why
she should thank him.

The cottage in which Margaret lived with her aunt, Miss Forsythe,
was not far from our house. In summer it was very pretty, with its
vine-shaded veranda across the front; and even in winter, with the
inevitable raggedness of deciduous vines, it had an air of refinement,
a promise which the cheerful interior more than fulfilled. Margaret's
parting word to my wife the night before had been that she thought
her aunt would like to see the "chrysalis earl," and as Mr. Lyon had
expressed a desire to see something more of what he called the "gentry"
of New England, my wife ended their afternoon walk at Miss Forsythe's.

It was one of the winter days which are rare in New England, but of
which there had been a succession all through the Christmas holidays.
Snow had not yet come, all the earth was brown and frozen, whichever
way you looked the interlacing branches and twigs of the trees made a
delicate lace-work, the sky was gray-blue, and the low-sailing sun had
just enough heat to evoke moisture from the frosty ground and suffuse
the atmosphere into softness, in which all the landscape became poetic.
The phenomenon known as "red sunsets" was faintly repeated in the
greenish crimson glow along the violet hills, in which Venus burned like
a jewel.

There was a fire smoldering on the hearth in the room they entered,
which seemed to be sitting-room, library, parlor, all in one; the
old table of oak, too substantial for ornament, was strewn with late
periodicals and pamphlets--English, American, and French--and with books
which lay unarranged as they were thrown down from recent reading. In
the centre was a bunch of red roses in a pale-blue Granada jug. Miss
Forsythe rose from a seat in the western window, with a book in her
hand, to greet her callers. She was slender, like Margaret, but taller,
with soft brown eyes and hair streaked with gray, which, sweeping
plainly aside from her forehead in a fashion then antiquated, contrasted
finely with the flush of pink in her cheeks. This flush did not suggest
youth, but rather ripeness, the tone that comes with the lines made in
the face by gentle acceptance of the inevitable in life. In her quiet
and self-possessed manner there was a