“She had the most curious and painful brainful of sense preferred in the whole show. “When I was a small boy my pocket was one day dispossessed of some green apples, a quantity of horse nails and lead sinkers, a squirt gun, a bird's nest; a piece of beeswax and a hawk's wing. This collection would rank high as an exhibit of eccentric assets, but the contents of this lady's mind belongs in the same alcove. “It is to be credited to Alabama where she was born about sixty years before I met her in Paris last summer. She had a charming southern accent. It was the best thing she had. I liked it. I like all those little provincialisms which have the flavor of their native air and soil. Why shouldn't the manner of decent men and women grow in the way of nature out of their environment? I love the drawl that is the natural product of New England, the quaint, indolent slur of Dixieland, the breezy dialect of the Far West. If they all talked alike what a dull country we should have! “Certain of the schools are trying to force a common method of speech. It is the dialect of Mayfair and Fifth Avenue. It would seem that they wish to turn us into human bricks of the same size, grade and color. Under the encouragement of Mr. Henry James, whose slender Americanism perished at last in formal expatriation, our New York and New England girls have begun to talk like Duchesses. But among women of the South and the Far West, you may still hear the real, genuine American talk. To me it is refreshing. “At least this may be said for The Wedding Tourist--she was no school-made, rococo Duchess. She was as real and unaffected as a bale of hay. “Sometimes I call her The Grasshopper Widow because she was always on the move. She had hopped twice around the world and back. When she needed a husband she reached out and grabbed one and hastened away on another wedding tour as if nothing had happened. “To her, life was a series of wedding tours. She had jumped from one honeymoon to another in the most casual and engaging fashion. She was, indeed, a kind of professional honey-mooner who from the beginning of her matrimonial career had enjoyed the pseudonym of Baby. Inns, table d'hôtes, ruins, art galleries, theaters, scenery and honey-fuglement had filled her life. “She had explored the capitals of the world with real feminine curiosity. She had loved their music and doted upon their art and tasted their religion and rustled in their silks and generally beat the bushes to see what would run out. “When we first met, a remark of hers suggested my query: “'Was your husband a Yale man?' “'Which one? I've had two an' a half.' “'Two and a half I I never heard of a fractional husband before.'