end you invitations to go to needlework exhibitions
where you have to pay five shillings admission."

I said nothing, and he laughed.

"I know they have done that to you," he exclaimed. "Haven't they?"

"I have been delightfully entertained at luncheons and dinners and
teas, and I have been introduced to as charming people in London as I
ever hope to meet anywhere," I said, stolidly.

"But you won't tell about the needlework. Oh, I say, but that's jolly!
Fancy what you said when you began to get those beastly things!" And
he laughed again.

"I didn't say anything," I said. Then he roared. Yet he claimed to be
a "typical Britisher."

"We mean kindly," he went on. "You mustn't lay it up against us."

"Oh, we don't. We are having a lovely time."

There are times when the truth would be brutal.

Then this oasis of a man, this "typical Britisher," went away, and my
sister and I dressed for the theatre. A friend had sent us her box,
and assured us that it was perfectly proper for us to go alone. So we
went. Up to this time we had not hinted to each other that we were
homesick. The play was most amusing, yet we couldn't help watching the
audience. Such a bored-looking set, the women with frizzled hair held
down by invisible nets, mingling with their eyebrows, and done
hideously in the back. Low-necked gowns, exhibiting the most beautiful
shoulders in the world. Gorgeous jewels in their hair and gleaming all
over their bodices, but among half a dozen emerald, turquoise, and
diamond bracelets there would appear a silver-watch bracelet which
cost not over ten dollars, and spoiled the effect of all the others.

English women as a race are the worst-dressed women in the world. I
saw thousands of them in Piccadilly and Regent Street, and at Church
Parade in the Park, with high, French-heeled slippers over colored
stockings. And as to sizes, I should say nines were the average. There
are some smaller, but the most are larger.

The Prince of Wales was in the box opposite to ours, and when we were
not looking at him we gazed at the impassive faces of the audience.
They never smiled. They never laughed. The subtlest points in the play
went unnoticed, yet it is one which has had a record run and bids fair
to keep the boards for the rest of the season.

Suddenly my sister, although we had not spoken of the homesickness
that was weighing us down, touched my arm and said, "Look quick!
There's one!"

"Where? Where?"

"Down