by one, and she has to gather
them together. She is at sea with a vengeance! Her husband is all right,
the brute! so is pretty Miss So-and-So, who is chatting with him, the
cat!

Their smiles and insulting pictures of health are more than she can
bear. She is a good Christian, but if only that girl could be sick, too!
What business has she to be well?

Of course, her husband has packed her up, tucked her in most carefully,
and placed grapes and iced soda-water within her reach. He has done his
duty, and now he makes himself scarce. Maybe he is flirting on the
weather side, maybe he is in the smoke-room having a game of piquet or
poker.

Anyway, he is all right, having a good time. Why isn't he sick, too?

For six or seven days, that bright American woman, who runs household,
husband, children, and servants with one glance of the eye, is at the
mercy of everyone who belongs to her, suffering agonies, tortures of
body and mind, and you would imagine that a boat sees her on the
Atlantic for the last time.

You would think that all the beauties of American scenery, its
seashores, lakes, and mountains, will attract her next season. Not a bit
of it. In order to be seen at the dreary funereal functions of Mayfair
and Belgravia, she will cross again. She goes where duty calls her. She
has to be 'in it' first, in the hope of soon being 'of it.'

And, in order to secure her social standing on a sure basis, twice a
year she will pack her belongings and suffer death agonies. The pluck
and power of endurance of women is perfectly prodigious.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SECRET OF WOMAN'S BEAUTY

The secret of a woman's beauty is not to be discovered in her
dressing-room, as cynics might intimate; it is not obtained by the use
of cosmetics, pomade, magic waters, and ointments; by the application of
red, white, and black, neither by painting nor dyeing; the real secret
of woman's beauty lies in resplendent health and a cheerful mind.

It was only a few days ago that I said to a lady, an intimate friend of
mine, who has just been promoted to the dignity of a grandmother: 'Won't
you make up your mind one of these days to look over thirty years of
age?' My lady friend is very beautiful, and she knows it; but she
carries her beauty without any affectation and bumptiousness.

She is simplicity personified, and if you were to talk to her about her
looks she would smile, and immediately beg you to kindly change the
subject of c