o represent
one of the loveliest English ladies: "If you would be as lovely as the
beautiful Lady de Gray, use Gray perfumes."

_Soyez donc belle_, to be used as an advertisement in the forests of
Minnesota!

* * * * *

[Illustration: "I RETURNED THANKS."]

My lectures have never been criticised in more kind, flattering, and
eulogistic terms than in the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers, which
I am reading on my way to Chicago. I find newspaper reading a great
source of amusement in the trains. First of all because these papers
always are light reading, and also because reading is a possibility in a
well lighted carriage going only at a moderate speed. Eating is
comfortable, and even writing is possible _en route_. With the exception
of a few trains, such as are run from New York to Boston, Chicago, and
half a dozen other important cities, railway traveling is slower in
America than in England and France; but I have never found fault with
the speed of an American train. On the contrary, I have always felt
grateful to the driver for running slowly. And every time that the car
reached the other side of some of the many rotten wooden bridges on
which the train had to pass, I returned thanks.

CHAPTER XXV.

DETROIT--THE TOWN--THE DETROIT "FREE PRESS"--A LADY INTERVIEWER--THE
"UNCO GUID" IN DETROIT--REFLECTIONS ON THE ANGLO-SAXON "UNCO GUID."

_Detroit, February 22._

Am delighted with Detroit. It possesses beautiful streets, avenues, and
walks, and a fine square in the middle of which stands a remarkably fine
monument. I am also grateful to this city for breaking the monotony of
the eternal parallelograms with which the whole of the United States are
built. My national vanity almost suggests to me that this town owes its
gracefulness to its French origin. There are still, I am told, about
25,000 French people settled in Detroit.

I have had to-night, in the Church of Our Father, a crowded and most
brilliant audience, whose keenness, intelligence, and kindness were very
flattering.

I was interviewed, both by a lady and a gentleman, for the Detroit _Free
Press_, that most witty of American newspapers. The charming young lady
interviewer came to talk on social topics, I remarked that she was armed
with a copy of "Jonathan and his Continent," and I came to the
conclusion that she would probably ask for a few explanations about that
book. I was not mistaken. She too