Mr. Erwin entered about the completion of her preparations, and without turning round from her glass she said, “I want you to think of the worst thing you can, Henshaw. I don't see how I'm ever to lift up my head again.” As if this word had reminded her of her head, she turned it from side to side, and got the effect in the glass, first of one ear-ring, and then of the other. Her husband patiently waited, and she now confronted him. “You may as well know first as last, Henshaw, and I want you to prepare yourself for it. Nothing can be done, and you will just have to live through it. Lydia—has come over—on that ship—alone,—with three young men,—and not the shadow—not the ghost—of another woman—on board!” Mrs. Erwin gesticulated with her hand-glass in delivering the words, in a manner at once intensely vivid and intensely solemn, yet somehow falling short of the due tragic¹ effect. Her husband stood pulling his mustache straight down, while his wife turned again to the mirror, and put the final touches to her personal appearance with hands which she had the effect of having desperately² washed of all responsibility. He stood so long in this meditative³ mood that she was obliged to be peremptory⁴ with his image in the glass. “Well?” she cried.

 

“Why, my dear,” said Mr. Erwin, at last, “they were all Americans together, you know.”

 

“And what difference does that make?” demanded Mrs. Erwin, whirling from his image to the man again.

 

“Why, of course, you know, it isn't as if they were—English.” Mrs. Erwin flung down three hair-pins upon her dressing-case, and visibly despaired. “Of course you don't expect your countrymen—” His wife's appearance was here so terrible that he desisted, and resumed by saying, “Don't be vexed⁵, my dear. I—I rather like it, you know. It strikes me as a genuine bit of American civilization.”

 

“American civilization! Oh, Henshaw!” wailed

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