default of other amusement, so that
all went well at first. But the second stage of Mrs. Sykes's friendship
was not apt to be so pleasant as the first, and accordingly she much
astonished her neighbor one morning by saying to her curtly, "Why don't
you speak English?"

"Why, I do. I talk it all the time, don't I?" replied the lady.

"No, you don't. Just look here. I have made a list of the things you
say. They are not English at all. I don't know what you mean, often."

"Do you mean to say that you never heard anybody talk like me?" asked
the lady indignantly, as she fumbled in her bag for her glasses.

"Oh, I didn't say that. I've heard _some_ of the words among our
lodging-house-keepers; but you have invented others, and your
pronunciation is abominable. You should really mend it, if you can,"
replied Mrs. Sykes, with decision.

The list which had been so civilly put in the Topekan lady's hands was a
long one, and ran as follows: "Chawcolate, pawk, hawrid, cawd, squrl,
stoopid, winder, lemmy, gimmy, years (for ears), 'cute, edgercation,
conchienchous," etc., etc.

The fingers that held it trembled with rage long before it was finished,
for the Topekan lady had wealth and social aspiration, if not
"edgercation;" and when Mrs. Sykes broke in with, "Well, what do you say
to that?" she had a good deal to say, and said it very forcibly, in such
English as she could command, after which she swelled in speechless
anger opposite for the remainder of their journey.

"There it is again. If I say the least thing to these Americans they fly
out like that," complained Mrs. Sykes to Miss Noel.

But for sheer ill humor nothing could have surpassed her conduct when
they had "done" San Francisco, which she declared to be "a dull, dirty,
windy place, with a harbor of which entirely too much is
made,--ridiculously over-praised, in fact," and got under way for the
Yosemite. The roads, the rough vehicle, the country, could not be
sufficiently abused. However, when the spot was reached, she relented,
as she had done at Niagara, and, looking up at the giant trees,
graciously conceded that they also were "quite up to the mark."

It was a pleasant spectacle to see Sir Roberts enthusiasm. Such gazing
and neck-craning and measuring and speculating! Such critical inspection
of bark, leaves, soil, lichens! Such questioning of the guides! Such
keen delight, wonder, remeasuring, recraning, theories, calculations,
endless contemplation! T