Moreover, he said to himself, it had been his privilege to see America in perspective--to stand upon a distant eminence, as it were, and look the whole country over, by and large, at a glance. This had enabled him on his return to discover the whimsical aspect of a good many things which the stay-at-home natives took with all seriousness. He had indicated some of these to the two ladies with a light and amiably bantering touch, and with a consciousness that he was opening up novel ground to both his hearers. Still--he wondered if Miss Minster had really liked it. Could it be possible that she belonged to that thin-skinned class of Americans who cannot brook any comment upon anything in or of their country that is not wholly eulogistic--who resent even the most harmless and obvious pleasantry pointed at a cis-Atlantic institution? He decided this promptly in the negative. He had met such people, but he could not associate them in his mind with the idea of great wealth. And Miss Minster was rich--incredibly rich. No doubt she was thinking, even while she listened to him, of the time when she too should go to Europe, and dazzle its golden youth with her beauty and her millions. Now that he thought of it, he had seen much that same look before on the face of an American heiress, on her return from a London “five-o’clock tea,” at which she had met an eligible marquis. Could it be that her thoughts ran, instead, upon an eligible somebody nearer home? He devoted himself at this to canvassing the chances of her fancy being already fixed. It was of little importance that nothing in their conversation suggested this, because it was a subject to which they naturally would not have alluded. Yet he recalled that Mrs. Minster had spoken of their great seclusion more than once. He had gathered, moreover, that they knew very few people in New York City, and that they had little acquaintance with the section of its population which is colloquially known as “society.” This looked mightily like a clear field. Young Mr. Boyce stopped to thrust his cane under a twisted branch which lay on the snow, and toss it high over the fence, when he reached this stage of his meditations. His squared, erect shoulders took on a more buoyant swing than ever as he resumed his walk. A clear field, indeed!