our
duties and generally kept our heads.

"Now, I guess, Ma'am, your husband has quite a lot of business to do in
a year?" and I said yes, that of course there was endless work in the
management of a large estate, and politics, besides hunting and
shooting, which was stern business with us! Then he told me with them
the leisured class had no responsibilities, except to keep an eye on
their brokers, and so they got into mischief.

"'Tisn't in the American blood to be idle," he said; "they can't keep
straight if they are." After that I asked him what he thought about the
English and American marriages among our nobility, and he got so
vehement that he brought his hand down on the table and made such a
clatter everyone looked.

It would take too long, Mamma, to repeat all his words, which were too
quaint; but the sense of them, was that he would forbid them by law,
because American girls to begin with had been brought up with the idea
they were to be petted and bowed down to by all men, and no Englishman
in his heart considered a woman his equal! And then to go on with, they
did not know a thing of the duties of the position, or the tenue which
is required to keep up the dignity of an old title, so when it came to
the scratch they were found wanting. "Which of 'em's got prestige, I
ask you, Ma'am, in your country? They may rub along all right, and when
it is a question of society I guess they're queens, but which of 'em
acts like the real thing in the country, or is respected by the
people?"

I really did not know what to say, Mamma, so he went on. "They're all
right sometimes till the rub, and they may do better if they've been
educated in Europe--they are so mightily adaptable; but just an
American girl like my Lola there,--I'd rather see her dead than married
to your greatest Dook."

I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said,
"Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won't grin and bear
it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it
into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and
that is not good for prestige. You asked me about the thing in
principle and I'm bound to tell you the truth. We aren't brought up on
tradition in our country, and our girls don't know what noblesse oblige
means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it's old fashioned
anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won't
work." I said I t