s of the blooming woman of thirty. Her daughters walk meekly and
with downcast (if still expectant) eyes, and wait for a sign.

That this change is the deliberate work of the American Girl, no one who
knows her grace and talent will deny. In foreign travel and residence she
has been quick to learn her lesson. Dazzled at first by her own capacity
and the opportunities of the foreign field, she took the situation by
storm. But she found too often that she had a barren conquest, and that
the social traditions survived her success and became a lifelong
annoyance; that is to say, it was possible to subdue foreign men, but the
foreign women were impregnable in their social order. The American Girl
abroad is now, therefore, with rare exceptions, as carefully chaperoned
and secluded as her foreign sisters.

It is not necessary to lay too much stress upon this phase of American
life abroad, but the careful observer must notice its reflex action at
home. The American freedom and unconventionality in the intercourse of
the young of both sexes, which has been so much commented on as
characteristic of American life, may not disappear, but that small
section which calls itself "society" may attain a sort of aristocratic
distinction by the adoption of this foreign conventionality. It is
sufficient now to note this tendency, and to claim the credit of it for
the wise and intelligent American Girl. It would be a pity if it were to
become nationally universal, for then it would not be the aristocratic
distinction of a few, and the American woman who longs for some sort of
caste would be driven to some other device.

It is impossible to tell yet what form this feminine reserve and
retirement will take. It is not at all likely to go so far as the
Oriental seclusion of women. The American Girl would never even seemingly
give up her right of initiative. If she is to stay in the background and
pretend to surrender her choice to her parents, and with it all the
delights of a matrimonial campaign, she will still maintain a position of
observation. If she seems to be influenced at present by the French and
Italian examples, we may be sure that she is too intelligent and too fond
of freedom to long tolerate any system of chaperonage that she cannot
control. She will find a way to modify the traditional conventionalities
so as not to fetter her own free spirit. It may be her mission to show
the world a social order free from the forward independe