Mr. Stevens has crossed on this boat twice, and introduced me to both the captain and the chief engineer before I started; they've both been awfully kind to me, and I've seen the "inwards and outwards" of the ship from garret to cellar, so to speak, and learned enough about navigation and machinery to make me want to learn a lot more. But even without all this, there would have been plenty to do. This isn't a "fashionable line," so they say, but it's a good deal more fashionable than anything we ever saw in Hamstead, Vermont! There's dancing every evening--not a bit like what we have at home, and it really made me gasp a little at first--you thought I was hard to shock, too, didn't you? Well, believe me, I blushed the first time I discovered that I was expected to hold my partner so tight that you couldn't get a sheet of paper between us. However, I soon stopped blushing, and bent all my energies to the agreeable task of learning instead, and the girls are all so friendly and jolly, that I believe I'm getting the hang of the new ways pretty well. There are no square dances at all and very few waltzes or two-steps, but two newer ones, the one-step and fox-trot, hold the floor, literally and figuratively! I wish I could describe the girls' dresses to you, they're so, pretty, but I can't a bit, except to say that they rather startled me at first, too; they appear to be made out of about one yard of material, and none of that yard goes to sleeves, and not much to waist. A very lively young lady sits next to me at the table, and I worried incessantly at first as to what would happen if her shoulder-straps should break: but apparently they are stronger than they look. When they--the girls, I mean--feel a little chilly on deck, they put on scarves of tulle--a gauzy stuff about half as thick as mosquito netting. I don't quite see why they're not all dead of pneumonia, but they seem to thrive. I've also learned--or am trying to learn--to play a game of cards called "bridge"; it's along the same lines as good old bid-whist, but considerably dressed up. I like that, too, but feel pretty stupid at it, as most of the players can remember every two-spot for six hands back, and hold dreadful post-mortems of their opponents' mistakes at the end of the game. I've brought along the old French grammar I had in high school, as well as some new phrase-books that Mr. Stevens gave me, and take them to bed with me to study every night, for he told me that you could get along 'most anywhere if you knew French. There's a library aboard, too, so I've read several novels, and I'm getting used to my clothes--I don't believe I've got too many after all--and to taking a cold bath every morning and shaving at least once a day.