ere to eat Thanksgiving dinner," cried my
brother-in-law.

"No, she is sure to stay as long as she has said she would," said
mamma.

Mothers are the brace of the universe. The family trailed down to the
front door. Everybody was carrying something. There were two
carriages, for they were all going to the station with us.

"For all the world like a funeral, with loads of flowers and everybody
crying," said my brother, cheerfully.

I never shall forget that drive to the station; nor the last few
moments, when Bee and I stood on the car-steps and talked to those who
were on the platform of the station. Can anybody else remember how she
felt at going to Europe for the first time and leaving everybody she
loved at home? Bee grieved because there were no flowers at the train
after all. But the next morning they appeared, a tremendous box,
arranged as a surprise.

Telegrams came popping in at all the big stations along the way,
enlivening our gloom, and at the steamer there were such loads of
things that we might almost have set up as a florist, or fruiterer, or
bookseller. Such a lapful of steamer letters and telegrams! I read a
few each morning, and some of them I read every morning!

I don't like ocean travel. They sent grapefruit and confections to my
state-room, which I tossed out of the port-hole. You know there are
some people who think you don't know what you want. I travelled
horizontally most of the way, and now people roar when I say I wasn't
ill. Well, I wasn't, you know. We--well, Teddy would not like me to be
more explicit. I own to a horrible headache which never left me. I
deny everything else. Let them laugh. I was there, and I know.

The steamer I went on allows men to smoke on all the decks, and they
all smoked in my face. It did not help me. I must say that I was
unspeakably thankful to get my foot on dry ground once more. When we
got to the dock a special train of toy cars took us through the
greenest of green landscapes, and suddenly, almost before we knew it,
we were at Waterloo Station, and knew that London was at our door.

II

LONDON

People said to me, "What are you going to London for?" I said, "To
get an English point of view." "Very well," said one of the knowing
ones, who has lived abroad the larger part of his life, "then you must
go to 'The Insular,' in Piccadilly. That is not only the smartest
hotel in London, but it is the most typically British. The rooms are
let from sea