men, as they often do, whose equals in every point, were they
their own countrymen, they would consider decidedly bad _partis_--men
with no advantages of any description, without either position, career
or any visible means of livelihood, often passably destitute of
education and character as well. How they contrive to be satisfied with
their bargain in this case is a puzzle, but satisfied they are.

Marriages of this sort, where the man has absolutely nothing to offer
beyond the charms of his more or less blandly persuasive person, excite
no surprise abroad. That a penniless male fortune-hunter should marry a
girl with wealth is considered in Europe at the present day not only
just, proper and quite as it should be, but rather _comme il faut_ than
otherwise. Let the case be reversed, and a man of fortune permit himself
the caprice of marrying a portionless girl, and society cries out in
horror against the mesalliance.

American women in Europe have two chief aims and occupations. The first
is to obtain an _entree_ into the society of the country in which they
are residing, and to identify themselves with that society: the second
is to revile one another.

So far as the first aim is concerned, it is certainly most laudable,
taken in one sense: the persons who can live in the midst of a people
without endeavoring to gain an insight into its character and its
customs must be possessed of an exceptionally oyster-like organization
indeed. But the majority of American women seek foreign society on other
grounds than this--chiefly from that tendency to ape everything European
and to decry everything American to which I have already alluded as
being characteristic of us as a nation. England and the English are the
principal models chosen for imitation. It is marvellous to notice the
fondness of American women abroad for the English accent and manner of
speech and way of thinking; how enthusiastically they attend all the
meets in Rome; how plaintively they tell one if one happens to have
arrived quite recently from home, "Really, there is no riding across
country in _your_ America, you know." In the cities of the Continent
that have large English and American colonies they attend the English
church in preference to their own. I believe it is considered more
exclusive to do so, and better form. In this mania for all things
English we are not alone. John Bull happens to be the fashion of the day
quite as much on the continent o