"Of course I like him. I told you I should, from the moment you described his queer tower and his solitary life to me. I always like people who have something to characterize them and set them apart from the mere dead-level rank and file of mediocrity," answered Millicent. "But may not a hermit like Graham be mediocre like everybody else?" "No, the fact of his living alone does not make him interesting; but he would not live alone if he were like everybody else. Ordinary people all herd together." "You must find all of us very ordinary people, I should think, after the people you have lived among,--romantic Italians and that sort?" "But Italians are by no means all interesting. The great charm about them is that they are usually a happy people, and that it does not take so much to make them contented as it does you more complex Americans." "_You_ Americans? How soon are you going to call yourself an American? But you do not answer my question. How can you manage to get on as well as you do with commonplace people like ourselves?" "_You_ are not commonplace. A man who knows how to milk cows and digs potatoes, who rubs down his own horse and feeds his stock, and can withal dance like a city beau, and keep a table full of people laughing from the soup to the coffee, cannot be called commonplace." "Thank you, Princess, most heartily for the compliment. I see you will not be pinned down by my rather personal question. Let me pay you with some of your own coin. I think it quite remarkable that you have so quickly fitted into the life here, and have accepted so quietly things which must be very strange to you. The difference of the way of living, the surroundings, the very strangeness of being waited on by these Chinamen, must be very uncomfortable, I fear?" "Do not suggest a word against Ah Lam; he is the most delightful servant I have ever seen. Our Italian domestics are like great children, who have to be humored and managed with the extreme of tact and care. Ah Lam is like nothing but one of the automata described by Bulwer in ’The Coming Race,’ which stand motionless against the wall until roused to action by the vrill wand, when they promptly perform the duty in hand. Ah Lam is only mechanical as far as regularity goes, for he has feelings and deep sentiments beneath his calm exterior. Do you know that he brings me fresh roses every morning, and that when he returned from San Francisco yesterday he brought me a present?" "They all do that; they are the most generous creatures in the world. What did Lam bring you?" "The prettiest little China silk handkerchief, which he presented with these words: ’I solly got no more, I _so_ poor.’ Was it not touching?" "How do your lessons get on?"