_I often have wished that it were easier to substitute for “American” some name which should more specifically indicate the United States. It is the United States girl I am talking about; it is the United States spirit which I have sought to discover, and not the spirit of the wider America of which the foreigner, and even the British foreigner, so frequently, and so reasonably, seems to be thinking when he uses the name “American.” Now that Miss America for the first time has seen her soldier brothers go abroad to fight and to conquer, it may be that in one way or another there will be a further modification of the term, in which direction it would be difficult to say at this hour._ _Because this is an apology and not a mere preface, I may be permitted, I hope, to express to the American girls in various States of the Union, from Boston to San Antonio, who have sat before my camera, my regret that I should have translated them so inadequately. It would, indeed, be hard to do justice to the American girl, and one well might hesitate to describe, or even to discuss her, were not her always gracious generosity so safely to be looked for._ _A. B._ [Illustration: CONTENTS I. THE AMERICAN TYPE _Page_ 1 II. THE TWIG 23 III. A CENTURY’S RUN 47 IV. STITCHES AND LINKS 75 V. “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOCIETY” 95 VI. LACE AND DESTINY 121 VII. CHANCE AND CHOICE 143 VIII. THE NEW OLD MAID 165 IX. “AND SO THEY WERE MARRIED” 187] [Illustration] I THE AMERICAN TYPE [Illustration] The tradition that the women of the region in which we live illustrate all of those traits that give an abiding charm to the sex, is one that sometimes may be unreasonable, perhaps even comic; yet it cannot be discreditable. Balzac, who remarks somewhere that nothing unites men so much as a certain conformity of view in the matter of women, may seem unphilosophical when he remarks somewhere else upon the absurdity of English women. His French antipathy has an unreasonably affirmative sting. But we do not care how many Thackerays regard the English girl as the bright particular flower of creation. We like and expect the author of “The Newcomes” to say: “I think it is not national prejudice which makes me believe that a high-bred English lady is the most complete of all Heaven’s subjects in this world.” For the same reason we delight in N. P. Willis’s confidence when he declares that “there is no such beautiful work under the sky as an American girl in her bellehood.” And Mr. Willis adds with the same whimsical consciousness of national partiality: “I _think_ I am not prejudiced.”