"You see," she continued, "it is hard for people of refinement to put up with the lack of manners in America. Of course, you will not misunderstand me, my dear; I do not mean people like yourself; indeed, as I was saying to Sir George at dinner, I should hardly know you were an American. I had in mind the lower classes." I feebly remarked that I thought they meant to be "kind." "Kind, my dear," she exclaimed in a shocked tone. "What business have they to be 'kind'? It is for us to be kind, for _them_ to be respectful. I cannot say I met any such. I had an experience once which left an indelible impression on my mind. You," she continued, turning to one of the other women, who were drinking in this unprejudiced view of our country, "can have no conception of what that country really is. While we were in New York, trying to save something out of the wreck of the Erie, my husband met a man from the West who told him that there was a fortune to be made in silver-mines, and he started with him to look into it. I may say here that he lost every penny he put into this venture. The mines were 'pickled'--no, I think the word they used was 'salted.' "However, that does not signify now--what I was going to tell you was, that he was detained longer than he had expected, and wrote me to join him in a place called Cheyenne. So I started; but what I endured in those sleeping-cars I never told even my husband. It wasn't proper! The passengers were of the most ordinary type, mostly bagmen, I should say. And the women! Vulgar and overdressed. I must say, however, I was rather pleased with the black man who waited on the passengers. He was rather grotesque, but was the only one I saw who seemed to have at all the bearing of a servant, and even he had a habit of smiling when spoken to which looked like impudence, till one learned that the poor creature had never been properly trained. Well, at length we reached Cheyenne. I had been told that it was the capital of the State, or whatever the district was called, and you may imagine my disgust when I found that it was a mere jumble of miserable wooden houses. "My husband was not there to meet me--he had gone into the mountains to inspect a mine, and there had been a 'wash-out' or a 'hot-box.' I am sure I do not know the difference; I only know it was either the one or the other which continually caused delays. So there I was, with no one to meet me, and it was night. I looked round for a porter, and of course there was none. I saw a rough-looking man leaning against the station-house, and said to him: 'My man, carry my portmanteau to the hotel, please.'" The pause which followed was so long that I thought the story ended, or that the narrator had fallen asleep. But I was mistaken--her emotion choked her. Finally one of the others said: "And what happened then?"