iends there, and it was pervaded by a tone,
almost affectionate, towards Miss Forsythe, which touched her very
deeply. She said it was such a manly letter.

America, the earl said, interested him more and more. In all history, he
wrote, there never had been such an opportunity for studying the
formation of society, for watching the working out of political problems;
the elements meeting were so new, and the conditions so original, that
historical precedents were of little service as guides. He acknowledged
an almost irresistible impulse to come back, and he announced his
intention of another visit as soon as circumstances permitted.

I had noticed this in English travelers of intelligence before. Crude as
the country is, and uninteresting according to certain established
standards, it seems to have a "drawing" quality, a certain unexplained
fascination. Morgan says that it is the social unconventionality that
attracts, and that the American women are the loadstone. He declares.
that when an Englishman secures and carries home with him an American
wife, his curiosity about the country is sated. But this is generalizing
on narrow premises.

There was certainly in Lyon's letter a longing to see the country again,
but the impression it made upon me when I read it--due partly to its tone
towards Miss Forsythe, almost a family tone--was that the earldom was an
empty thing without the love of Margaret Debree. Life is so brief at the
best, and has so little in it when the one thing that the heart desires
is denied. That the earl should wish to come to America again without
hope or expectation was, however, quite human nature. If a man has found
a diamond and lost it, he is likely to go again and again and wander
about the field where he found it, not perhaps in any defined hope of
finding another, but because there is a melancholy satisfaction in seeing
the spot again. It was some such feeling that impelled the earl to wish
to see again Miss Forsythe, and perhaps to talk of Margaret, but he
certainly had no thought that there were two Margaret Debrees in America.

To her aunt's letter conveying the intelligence of Mr. Lyon's loss,
Margaret replied with a civil message of condolence. The news had already
reached the Eschelles, and Carmen, Margaret said, had written to the new
earl a most pious note, which contained no allusion to his change of
fortune, except an expression of sympathy with his now enlarged
opportunity for car