Mr. Montague said it had been my suggestion, not his, that the “dragon” might be overcome by kindness. He did not believe she could, but he was quite willing to suspend hostilities until my plan had been tried and the result reported to the meeting. It was only when they brought in a motion to expel me from the smoking-room that I succumbed to the pressure. The voyage was just beginning, and what is a voyage to a smoker who dare not set foot in the smoking-room? I do not care to dwell on the painful interview I had with the “dragon.” I put my foot in it at the very first by pretending that I thought she came from New York, whereas she had really come from Boston. To take a New York person for a Bostonian is flattery, but to reverse the order of things, especially with a woman of the uncertain temper of Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling, was really a deadly insult, and I fear this helped to shipwreck my mission, although I presume it would have been shipwrecked in any case. Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling gave me to understand that if there was one thing more than another she excelled in it was the reading of character. She knew at a glance whether a man could be trusted or not; most men were not, I gathered from her conversation. It seems she had taken a great many voyages across the Atlantic, and never in the whole course of her experience had she seen such an objectionable body of young men as on this present occasion. She accused me of being a married man, and I surmised that there were other iniquities of which she strongly suspected me. The mission was not a success, and I reported at the adjourned meeting accordingly. Mr. Stewart Montague gave it as his opinion that the mission was hopeless from the first, and in this I quite agreed with him. He said he would try his plan at dinner, but what it was he refused to state. We asked if he would report on the success or failure, and he answered that we would all see whether it was a success or failure for ourselves. So there was a good deal of interest centring around the meal, an interest not altogether called forth by the pangs of hunger. Dinner had hardly commenced when Mr. Stewart Montague leaned over the table and said, in quite an audible voice, to the young lady opposite him, “I understand you have never been over the ocean before?” The young lady looked just a trifle frightened, blushed very prettily, and answered in a low voice that she had not. Then he said, “I envy you the first impressions you will have of Europe. It is a charming country. Where do you go after leaving England?” “We are going across to Paris first,” she replied, still in a low voice. Most of us, however, were looking at the “dragon.” That lady sat bolt upright in her chair as if she could not believe her ears. Then she said, in an acid voice, “Miss Fleming.” “Yes, Mrs. Scrivener-Yapling,” answered that young lady. “Will you oblige me by coming here for a moment?”