“Oh, yes you are. You hold your head as if the ground warn’t good enough for you to walk on. I can’t help lookin’ at you because you’re so beautiful with your black hair and your blue eyes and white skin, and your nose is just lovely! That there Lady Agatha don’t look so very different from any other old maid that I can see, and I’m sure she dresses wors’n anything I _ever_ seen. I don’t mind her, but _you_--_you_--make me feel like dirt. I just stare and stare at you and hate myself because I can’t keep from wishin’ I was you----” Here she made a struggle to control her voice and keep down her tears. “I went to school till a year ago,” she continued, “and I’ve paid lots of visits to well-to-do farmers in this county, whose daughters has had a year’s schoolin’ in Utica, and I call them all by their first names--so I can’t bear to feel the way you and all these high-toned help make me feel----” Here I felt so sorry for her, she was so plainly suffering in her dumb lacerated pride, that I took her hand and patted it. “Don’t worry about all that,” I said. “We belong to different countries, that is all. Everything is on quite another plan in England. I can imagine how absurd our old-fashioned titles must seem to you over here. You see how wise your ancestors were to drop them. I cannot help mine, but I can assure you that I am not proud--I never have thought of such a thing. It is you who are proud, and I think your pride very fine. Why do you wish to see my brother?” She was somewhat mollified by this time and answered with a flash of anticipation in her eyes: “Because I’ve read about dooks and I’d give my eyes to speak to one. I didn’t kinder believe there were such things outside of books and noospapers.” “Well, you shall speak to my brother,” I said. “Come with me.” I led the way to the veranda, not without misgivings, for I did not know what sort of humour our invalid would be in. And he _was_ in a wax about something. “Bertie,” I said, “here is a young person, native to this beautiful wilderness, who wants to speak to you, being under the delusion that Dukes are quite unlike ordinary mortals.” Bertie, who was muffled up in a horrid old overcoat, with white mits on his hands, glowered over his book. “What rot!” he exclaimed. “What infernal rot. I should think you would have more sense. I wish you’d get me a decent novel. I hate these American things--all analysis, epigrams, scenery and virtue. America must be a provincial hole. Fetch me----” But I had hastened the maiden away. As she was about to retire to the back regions, she stopped and turned her head. “Well,” she remarked, “I guess I’m as good as he is, anyway. White mits! My land! _He_ don’t make me feel nobody, only tired.” And she looked quite pleased as she flirted her skirts through the doorway. This letter should go by parcel post! My love to you. HELEN. Letter III