very strictest English principles.

Gold.: But, my dear young ladies---

Kalyba: Oh, don't! You mustn't. It's too affectionate.

Nekaya: It really does unsettle us.

Gold.: Are you really under the impression that English girls
are
so ridiculously demure? Why, an English girl of the
highest
type is the best, the most beautiful, the bravest, and
the
brightest creature that Heaven has conferred upon this
world
of ours. She is frank, open-hearted, and fearless, and
never shows in so favorable a light as when she gives her
own blameless impulses full play!

Nekaya Oh, you shocking story!
and
Kalyba:

Gold.: Not at all. I'm speaking the strict truth. I'll tell
you
all about her.

SONG -- Mr. Goldbury.

A wonderful joy our eyes to bless,
In her magnificent comeliness,
Is an English girl of eleven stone two,
And five foot ten in her dancing shoe!
She follows the hounds, and on the pounds--
The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish--

Over the hedges and brooks she bounds,
Straight as a crow, from find to finish.
At cricket, her kin will lose or win--
She and her maids, on grass and clover,
Eleven maids out--eleven maids in--
And perhaps an occasional "maiden over!"

Go search the world and search the sea,
Then come you home and sing with me
There's no such gold and no such pearl
As a bright and beautiful English girl!

With a ten-mile spin she stretches her limbs,
She golfs, she punts, she rows, she swims--
She plays, she sings, she dances, too,
From ten or eleven til all is blue!
At ball or drum, til small hours come
(Chaperon's fans concealing her yawning)
She'll waltz away like a teetotum.
And never go home til daylight's dawning.
Lawn-tennis may share her favours fair--
Her eyes a-dance, and her cheeks a-glowing--
Down comes her hair, but then what does she care?
It's all her own and it's wor