Of course, the voice question had almost as much vogue as the colour question. That, in turn, has been altered. There are as many soft contraltos, or, at least, mezzo-sopranos coming from the United States as from England nowadays. Altogether, there is less need for antagonism and more need for good fellowship between the United States and Great Britain, than at any period since "The Great Misunderstanding" of a hundred years ago. This helps to explain the circumstances of the very rapid friendship that had sprung up between Sir Raife Remington, Bart., of Aldborough Park, and Miss Hilda Muirhead, the daughter of Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead, Esq., President of the Fifth State Bank of Illinois, U.S.A. In writing of Americans it has ever been customary to allude to their wealth, of which many people possess an exaggerated estimate. The successful American is, frequently, very generous, and it is from that freedom and generosity that the exaggerated notion springs. Mr Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead was not a very wealthy man, but he was a prosperous man, and a generous man, a fine and courtly type of the American banker. His daughter, Hilda, who had formed such a rapid friendship with Raife Remington, on the piazza--the balcony--in the drawing-room--on the staircase--in the foyer--or any of those places where friendships are made abroad, calls for more description. Hilda Muirhead was not more than twenty. In some respects she had the knowledge and experience of a woman of thirty. In other respects she was a simple _ingenue_, with the attractive grace of a gazelle-like child. The latter was her natural mood and attitude. The former had been acquired and thrust upon her by the bitterness of cruel experience at an immature period of her life. She had a gift of talk, and the charm of her conversation won for her the attention which invariably ended in admiration. Many girls, of any nationality, do not realise the value of natural and intellectual conversation. Her father had seen to it that Hilda did. Hilda's mother died in her infancy, leaving Hilda an only child of a devoted and gentle parent. Hilda's appearance was striking in the extreme, and if she had been of the "abounding" type who flaunt themselves for admiration, she would have, in an obsolete vernacular, "swept the board." Her restraint and lack of self-consciousness were an addition to her charm. Her hair was a glory to behold. Few had seen the full extent of that glory of her womanhood. Her old nigger "mammy" was almost the only one who had seen it in its full maturity. Her face had an indefinable irregularity of contour, and showed the southern blood in her veins. Her eyes were only large when she opened them under some strong emotion. They were not of that pertinacious, staring type, that are aggressively anxious to attract on all occasions. Her eyes were grey, and constructed for the purpose of normal sight and restrained emotion--but they were beautiful eyes.