h she
were stopping to consider. "I think every serious-minded person must
be proud to inherit fine qualities and to pass them on. Surely it
isn't enough to give _old_ blood to the next generation--it must be
_good_ blood. Yes! the right stock certainly means something to an
American."

"But if you've nothing that answers to Burke and Debrett, I don't see
how you can find out anybody's pedigree," objected Miss Smeardon. Then
with an air of innocent curiosity and a glance supposed to be arch,
"Are the Red Indians, the Negroes, and the Chinese in your so-called
directories?"

"As many of them as are in business, or have won their way to any
position among men no doubt are there, I suppose," answered Robinette
straightforwardly. "I think we just guess at people's ancestry by the
way they look, act, and speak," she continued musingly. "You can
'guess' quite well if you are clever at it. No Indians or Chinese ever
dine with me, Miss Smeardon, though I'd rather like a peaceful Indian
at dinner for a change; but I expect he'd find me very dull and
uneventful!"

"Dull!--that's a word I very often hear on American lips," broke in
Lavendar as he looked over the top of Henry Newbolt's poems. "I
believe being dull is thought a criminal offence in your country. Now,
isn't there some danger involved in this fear of dullness?"

"I shouldn't wonder," Robinette answered thoughtfully, looking into
the fire. "Yes; I dare say there is, but I'm afraid there are social
and mental dangers involved in _not_ being afraid of it, too!" Her
mischievous eyes swept the room, with Mrs. de Tracy's solemn figure
and Miss Smeardon's for its bright ornaments. "The moment a person or
a nation allows itself to be too dull, it ceases to be quite alive,
doesn't it? But as to us Americans, Mr. Lavendar, bear with us for a
few years, we are so ridiculously young! It is our growing time, and
what you want in a young plant is growth, isn't it?"

"Y-yes," Lavendar replied: then with a twinkle in his blue eyes he
added: "Only somehow we don't like to hear a plant grow! It should
manage to perform the operation quite silently, showing not processes
but results. That's a counsel of perfection, perhaps, but don't slay
me for plain-speaking, Mrs. Loring!"

Robinette laughed. "I'll never slay you for saying anything so wise
and true as that!" she said, and Lavendar, flushing under her praise,
was charmed with her good humour.

"America's a very large country,