a very long, somewhat truthful, and truly degraded litany. She taught her that it isn't handsome is as handsome does, but the boots and shoes, after all. She taught her that a girl must dress beautifully to be beautiful, that she must learn all the world's ways and secrets, and at the same time appear in speech and manner like a child of Nature, like a newly opened rose. And she taught her to love her country like this: "America, my dear, is the one place where a girl can marry enough money to live somewhere else. Or, if her husband is tied to his affairs, it is the one place where she can get the most for his money--not as we get the most for ours, for we couldn't live two minutes on our income in America--but where the most people will bow the lowest to her because she is rich; where she will be the most courted and the most envied." The two mammas worked along similar lines, but for different reasons. Mrs. Burton strove to make Eve ornamental so that she might acquire millions; Mrs. Williams strove to Anglicize and Europeanize her son so that he might ornament those which were already his. Those little spread eagles, the corpuscles in his blood, folded their wings a trifle as he grew older, and weren't always so ready to scream and boast; but they remained eagles, and no amount of Eton and Oxford could turn them into little unicorns or lions. You may wonder why Fitz's father, a strong, sane man, permitted such attempts at denationalization upon his son and heir. Fitz so wondered--once. So wrote. And was answered thus: ... If you're any good it will all come out in the wash. If you aren't any good it doesn't matter whether your mother makes an Englishman out of you or a Mandarin. When you come of age you'll be your own man; that's been the bargain between your mother and me. That will be the time for you to decide whether to be governed or to help govern. I am not afraid for you. I never have been.