and her eyes downcast, and a pretty expression of doing what she was told. 'My dear,' said Lady Torquilin, 'this is Miss Gladys Fortescue. Gladys--Miss Wick, my young lady friend from Chicago. Miss Fortescue has a brother in America, so you will have something to chat about.' 'Howdj-do?' said Miss Fortescue. She said it very quickly, with a sweet smile, and an interesting little mechanical movement of the head, blushing at the same time; and we shook hands. That is, I think one of us did, though I can't say positively which one it was. As I remember the process, there were two shakes; but they were not shakes that ran into each other, and one of them--I think it was mine--failed to 'come off,' as you say in tennis. Mine was the shake that begins nowhere in particular, and ends without your knowing it--just the ordinary American shake arranged on the muscular system in common use with us. Miss Fortescue's was a rapid, convulsive movement, that sprang from her shoulder and culminated with a certain violence. There was a little push in it, too, and it exploded, as it were, high in air. At the same time I noticed the spectacles of a small man who stood near very much in peril from Miss Fortescue's elbow. Then I remembered and understood the sense of dislocation I had experienced after shaking hands with Mrs. Fry Hamilton, and which I had attributed, in the confusion of the moment, to being held up, so to speak, as an American. 'Do you know my brother?' said Miss Fortescue. 'I am afraid not,' I replied. 'Where does he live?' 'In the United States,' said Miss Fortescue. 'He went out there six months ago with a friend. Perhaps you know his friend--Mr. Colfax.' I said I knew two or three Mr. Colfaxes, but none of them were English--had not been, at least, for some time back; and did Miss Fortescue know what particular part of the Union her brother and his friend had gone to? 'You know,' I said, 'we have an area of three million square miles,' I daresay I mentioned our area with a certain pardonable pride. It's a thing we generally make a point of in America. I shouldn't have thought there was anything particularly humorous in an area, but Miss Fortescue laughed prettily. 'I remember learning that from my governess,' she said. 'My brother is out in the West--either in the town of Minneapolis and the State of Minnesota, or the town of Minnesota and the State of Minneapolis. I never know, without looking out his address, which comes first. But I daresay there are a good many people in the United States--you might easily miss him.' 'We have sixty millions, Miss Fortescue,' I said; and Miss Fortescue returned that in that case she didn't see how we could be expected to know anybody; and after that the conversation flagged for a few seconds, during which we both looked at the other people. 'I have never been to America,' Miss Fortescue said. 'I should like to go. Is it very cold?' I did not mention the area again. 'In some places,' I said.