_Jinny._ Breckenridge Calhoun is my 'childhood's friend,' the kind of man whose estates join yours, who has known you ever since you were born; liked you, quarrelled with you, forgotten you, and been sweet upon you by turns; and who finally marries you, when you have both given up hope of finding anybody more original and startling.--By the way, am I the first American girl you've met? _Sir A._ Not the first I've met, but the first I've known. There was a jolly sort of schoolgirl from Indiana whom I saw at my old aunt's house in Edinburgh. There were half a dozen elderly tabbies pressing tea and scones on her, and she cried, just as I was coming in at the door, 'Oh, no more tea, please! I could hear my last scone splash!' _Jinny (shaking with laughter)._ Oh, how lovely! I am so glad you had such a picturesque and fearless young person as a first experience; but as she has been your only instructress, you have much to learn, and I might as well begin my duty to you at once. _Sir A._ You're taking a deal of trouble. _Jinny._ Oh, it's no trouble, but a pleasure rather, to put a fellow-being on the right track. You must first disabuse your mind of the American girl as you find her in books. _Sir A._ Don't have to; never read 'em. _Jinny._ Very well, then,--the American girl of the drama and casual conversation; that's worse. You must forget her supposed freedom of thought and speech, her rustling silk skirts, her jingling side bag or chatelaine, her middle initial, her small feet and hands, her high heels, her extravagant dress, her fortune,--which only one in ten thousand possesses,--her overworked father and weakly indulgent mother, called respectively poppa and momma. These are but accessories,--the frame, not the picture. They exist, that is quite true, but no girl has the whole list, thank goodness! I, for example, have only one or two of the entire lot. _Sir A._ Which ones? I was just thinking you had 'em all. _Jinny._ You must find out something for yourself! The foundation idea of modern education is to make the pupil the discoverer of his own knowledge. As I was saying when interrupted, if you remove these occasional accompaniments of the American girl you find simply the same old 'eternal feminine.' Of course there is a wide range of choice. You seem to think over here that there is only one kind of American girl; but if you would only go into the subject deeply you would find fat and lean, bright and dull, pert and meek, some that could only have been discovered by Columbus, others that might have been brought up in the rocky fastnesses of a pious Scottish home. _Sir A._ I don't get on with girls particularly well. _Jinny._ I can quite fancy that! Not one American girl in a hundred would take the trouble to understand you. You need such a lot of understanding that an indolent girl or a reserved one or a spoiled one or a busy one would keep thinking, 'Does it pay?'