As if for a reward of virtue, just as I had disposed of my leavings, and stuck the roses into my belt, the last of the luggage arrived. There were two Custom House men near to choose from, and as I've heard, in choosing between two evils it's better to choose the less, I smiled beseechingly at the smaller man who had just crammed a pile of lace blouses into the box of a lady with nervous prostration. Whether he was sated with cruelty, or whether he was naturally of an angelic disposition, I shall probably never know now; but the fact remains that, instead of turning out the Fiend I'd been led to expect, he was one of the most considerate men I've ever met. He wouldn't even let me unlock my own boxes, but took the keys and opened them for me himself. (Didn't an executioner braid the hair of some queen whose head he was going to chop off? I must look the incident up, when I have time.) Anyway, I thought of it when the Custom House man was being so polite; but the analogy didn't go any farther, for my head never came off at all, and two of the boxes remained unopened. "You're English, aren't you?" he asked, and when I said yes, and that I was only on a short visit, he treated my belongings as if they were sacred. If he disturbed anything, he laid it back nicely, keeping up a running conversation as he went on. I told him that Englishwomen might bring home all the pretty clothes they liked from other countries, and that I considered it most ungallant in such a chivalrous nation as America to deny ladies a few Paris dresses. "Do you happen to know, miss, what's the income-tax in your country?" he asked, tenderly putting back some yellow hairpins which had fallen out of a box of mine. "Dear me, no," I exclaimed. "But I think it's sometimes more than a shilling in the pound; I've heard my brother say so; and as for the death duties, it's more than your life's worth to die." "A-ah!" said the nice man. "We haven't got any income-tax on this side, and folks can die in peace, whenever they please. I guess that kind of evens things up, don't it?" I didn't know what to answer, so I thanked him for his kindness, and we parted the best of friends. Mrs. Ess Kay appeared so quickly afterwards, that it almost seemed as if she must have been lying in wait. She was looking pale and shattered, and Louise, following close behind, was positively haggard. Only Sally had weathered the storm without being outwardly the worse for wear; but even she didn't look as good-natured as usual. "How have you got along, you poor, deserted darling?" affectionately enquired Mrs. Ess Kay, undismayed by a fixed gaze from Sally, which apparently signified reproach. "It wasn't very bad, and I've quite enjoyed myself," I replied, forgetting some tedious moments in the light of others not tedious, and hoping that the roses in my belt might pass unnoticed.