of America, perhaps of
the world!" I said to myself, almost scornfully; but when we had bowled
into Bellevue Avenue, where Mrs. Ess Kay said that her cottage was, I
began to understand.

I wasn't sure at first sight what I did think of the great splendid
houses, with mere pocket-handkerchief lawns such as people would have
for suburban villas at home; but they gave me a tremendous impression
of concentrated wealth. This seemed a place where everybody was rich,
where millions were at a discount, and I thought--whatever else I did
think--that it would be a place to stop away from unless you were
happy--happy and strong and gay.

But there was one thing I was very sure of. The Avenue itself was more
full than our Park in the topmost height of the Season.

People don't look happy, driving in the Park, not even the pretty
people. I have found that, whenever I have been, and though that isn't
so very often yet, Vic says it is really and truly always the same.

The great beauties look bored, and some of them have their faces
painted and the air of wearing transformations; but not one of the
charming women driving up and down Bellevue Avenue that afternoon
looked bored, and hardly any were painted. I never saw people appear to
be so delighted with life, and so thoroughly alive, as if the glorious
sea air were frothing in their veins, like champagne.

In the Park you don't see people laughing and talking to each other in
carriages. They simply lean back on the cushions with an expression
that seems to say, "This is the only thing I can think of to do, so I'm
doing it just to kill time." Probably they don't really feel like that,
but they look it. And as for the people who sit and watch, or stand and
wait, they've usually a strained expression in their eyes, as if they
were afraid of missing somebody or something of importance.

But here in Bellevue Avenue everybody was smiling and chatting; and I
noticed that the men weren't so preternaturally alert as the men in New
York. Some had actually taken time to get fat, which, so far I'd had
reason to suppose, was a thing that never happened to American men.

And somehow the young girls had the air of being a great deal more
important than we are at home. You could tell from the very way they
sat and held up their heads in the motor cars and dog carts and other
things, that they thought the world was theirs, and they were _the_
people to know in it. One was driving a tandem, and