r, the muleteer and the
donkey girl behind us, with the animals, "you are a very odd boy. I
suppose it is being American. Are all American boys like you?"

"Yes," said he, twinkling, "all. I am cut on exactly the same pattern
as the rest," and he smiled a charming smile, of which I could not
resist the curious fascination. "Did you never meet any American boys,
till you met me?"

"I can't remember having any real conversation with one, except once.
His mother had asked me in his presence (it was in New York) how I
liked America, and I had answered that it dazzled me; that the only
yearning I felt was for something dark and quiet, and small and
uncomfortable. She was rather pleased, but the boy put a string across
the drawing-room door when I went out, and tripped me up. Then we had
a little conversation--quite a short one--but full of repartee. That's
my solitary experience."

"I should have wanted to trip you up for that speech, too; so you see
the likeness is proved. It is a funny thing, I know very few
Englishmen. I've met several, but, as you say, I never had any real
conversation with them."

"Maybe, if you had, you wouldn't be so down on your sex when it has
reached adolescence."

[Illustration: "'DO YOU KNOW,' SAID I, 'YOU ARE A VERY QUEER BOY'".]

"I'm afraid there isn't much difference in men, whatever their
country. But it's--their attitude towards women which I hate."

I laughed. "What do you know about that?"

"I have a sister," said he, after a minute's pause. And he did not
laugh. "She and I have been--tremendous chums all our lives. There
isn't a thing she has done, or a thought she has had, that I don't
know, and the other way round, of course."

"Twins?" I asked.

"She is twenty-one."

"Oh, four or five years older than you."

The boy evidently did not take this as a question. "She is
unfortunately an heiress," he said. "Money has brought misery upon
her, and through her, on me; for if she suffers, I suffer too. She
used to believe in everybody. She thought men were even more sincere
and upright than women, because their outlook on life was larger, and
so it was easy for her to be deceived. When she came out she wasn't
quite eighteen (you see we have no father or mother, only a lazy old
guardian-uncle), and she thought everyone was wonderfully kind to her,
so she was very happy. I suppose there never was a happier girl--for a
while. But by-and-bye she began to find out things. She discov