the whole, she would rather be without, since it might impair that quality on which she prides herself greatly-her clearness and independence of judgment. You hear no whisper of that complaint which goes up more often than one perhaps realises on this side of the Atlantic, and which maintains that feminine nature has not fulfilled itself unless it experiences wifehood and motherhood. It even happens from time to time that a woman is at no pains to hide the conviction that she, as a woman, has condescended when she conveys on a man the favour of marrying him. The habit one frequently hears of a woman's addressing her husband to his face as Mr. So-and-So seems to epitomise this. Should he speak of the contract of matrimony as though it were the latest deal in rails or timber, Madame does not reprove him, which she certainly would do had the expression displeased her.

The American can love sometimes. But a glowing passion as distinguished from a calm preference is not recognised as the necessary basis-in theory, bien entendu―of the matrimonial union, as it is with us.

I recollect one instance, when a woman had regarded riches and place well lost for love, that her friend, in telling me of it, concluded: But then Caroline always was so unpractical.'

The 'summer girl'—for there is a term ready coined by which to describe her-oftentimes so beautiful, nearly always dainty in her muslin gowns and her sun-bonnets, frequently fades fast. Her empire commences when her European sister has still many years of the schoolroom before her. She is sometimes dans le train at fourteen. The heyday of her attractiveness is from sixteen to twenty. To our eyes, especially when she comes from the South, she is old before she is young. Her toilet assists that impression. The girlish in dress, the girlish in manner, appears to be unknown, save in the few cases where she has been brought up with what are termed European ideas'; and then, like all converts, her guardians are apt to overdo it. The girl is so shielded, so sheltered, so chaperoned and surrounded with 'refinement,' that she is driven in upon herself, and, since her race individuality must work on something, she becomes self-analytical to an extent which is unparalleled.

But not the most seriously minded of these girls likes to be unattended. She is by no means the farouche maiden who scorns men. Tennyson's Princess would find no disciples in her ranks. If she is a bright girl,' is there not a bright boy' to match her?—

and the two gravitate together. To do the bright boy' justice, he does not distrust brains in a woman; indeed, is rather proud of being associated with them. But then attention is not called to feminine ability by untidy heads, unbecoming gowns, and ill-shaped shoes, as it is supposed to be with us.

Ticket the summer girl with what label you will, a young man is a necessary part of her programme. She would feel badly '— or rather her pride would-had she no special friend. Someone who will walk with her, golf with her, dance with her, bring her 'candy,' refresh her with ice-cream sodas at that drug store which seems to sell most things in preference to medicines.

The liberty Mademoiselle enjoys with her 'boy,' who treats her entirely en bon camarade, is astonishing.

Perhaps they begin the day by breakfasting together after their elders leave the table. He plays tennis with her in the morning, bathes with her in the noonday heat, in the afternoon drives her in a buggy, waltzes almost exclusively with her in the evening, takes her to sit out among the trees-and there they remain. Long after the band has ceased to play it is possible that still she will be rocking amid the whispering leaves, with the rush of the river coming up from the ravine below, with the stars sparkling in the purple darkness above her head.

And he will be by her side. By her side, mind, merely that. To neither of them will it be anything but an episode of those July days. They will part when the time comes with no more regret than he will feel at saying adieu to the boys' with whom he will play poker when finally she has gone to bed. To her the evening, and he himself, will be but one among many similar experiences. In current English slang, 'There is nothing at all in it.'

I recollect one of those glorious evenings, when the cool stillness was particularly grateful after a day during which the thermometer had indulged in aspirations towards three figures, that I was sitting on the verandah opening out of my room in company with an American friend.

We had just decided that it was 'too lovely' to retire, though most of the windows were darkened and not a soul was in sight, when two women and a man, middle-aged all, came out of the hotel to return to their little wooden summer cottage in a species of hooded wagonette which was awaiting them.

The mother of the party hesitated.
'Say,' she demanded, where is Sadie ??

No one seemed to know where Sadie was, and no one seemed at all disconcerted by her absence. As the young lady was evidently not there, they sat down to await her.

The clocks in the village tolled the hour with twelve long strokes. Paterfamilias pulled his waistcoat lower over his ample person, lighted a cigar, and expectorated with philosophy. Momma and Auntie filled up the time with an animated discussion on the merits of various brands of 'canned peaches.'

At length two figures emerged from the shadow of the trees, sauntered up the side walk, and Sadie and her boy presented themselves.

'Well,' she began, by way of greeting; and then, when she had leisure to think of the possibility, 'Say! Have we kept you waiting?'

Auntie ceased to advocate 'Lemon Clings,' and began to make shrill inquiries of the young man relative to the progress of Christian Science in his city.'

She fell upon him with such swiftness that she must have been awaiting her opportunity for days.

Presently Momma scrambled into the wagonette, and somewhat tartly intimated to her middle-aged sister that she was ready. Auntie hustled up'; Poppa deposited his large bulk slowly on to a seat which creaked beneath the process-but Sadie? Sadie, after all that waiting for her, elected that she would walk home, and that her boy should escort her.

Off they started, up those plank side walks, with the scent of a hundred roses, and countless starry jasmine flowers rising to greet them with each step of their way, they perhaps the only way farers through that silent, peerless night.

I have since been told that the only surprising thing about the episode was the presence of the elders, and that it would have been quite comme il faut had Sadie sauntered down with a girl companion, I turned in surprise.

'Is that usual?' I asked of my friend.

'I don't know,' she confessed; 'I never did it myself. You see Mamma had European ideas about my bringing-up. That girl is from Cleveland, and he is just out of college, but his home is in Vermont, and I don't know either of their cities. Besides, they are quite common people, I should think.'

The next morning I was sufficiently curious to watch the parting, for I knew that he was leaving. Sadie hardly hurried up from the

bathing stage, whither she had been accompanied by a new candidate for the position of her boy.' There was a handshake as the former one stood by his 'valise' on the side walk; there was no word of future meetings; they both of them remarked, for the benefit of the world at large, that they had had a good time. That was all they asked. The light words concealed nothing deeper. There had been no tender adieu à deux under the stars the previous evening.

Sadie nodded cheerfully as he entered the hotel omnibus; he waved quite as much to the group of boys as to her. The horses had hardly started on their leisurely trot before she turned and took her towels from the friend of the morning. She sat down on the wooden steps of the verandah, intimated that her new boy might hold her hairpins while she rolled the long fair locks, that had hitherto flowed over her shoulders to dry, into a knot. Then she expressed her willingness to seal the new conditions by responding to his suggestion that she should lunch with him in the hotel.

Suppose you ask Doris (pronounced as though the o were doubled), and if Billy (pronounced Burly) comes too that will fix it,' she added.

Sometimes Mademoiselle plays tennis, and then she makes a business of it, travelling hither and thither, from Cincinnati to Toronto, from New York to Chicago, appearing at tournament fixtures with a persistency which would receive the ugly name of pot-hunting' with us. But no one holds it up against her. Whatever your hand findeth to do, do that with all your might and on every occasion,' is a version of the Biblical precept universally in favour.

How hard she works, with what an expenditure of energy does she gain these trophies! Shields, or cups, or sugar basins, hardly ever feminine

gew-gaws.

Would not a watch or bracelet be more suitable?' I asked the secretary, as he showed me a display of prizes, among which I could distinguish those for the ladies only by their tickets.

'The girls like cups best,' came the answer; they keep them in their rooms and show them to other girls,' and I saw that I ought to have understood that these were certificates of proficiency, not adornments.

It is part of the same earnestness which makes her practise over the net so many hours a day as regularly as a virtuoso runs

scales up and down his pianoforte. She plays in the heat, with that scorching sun upon her. Her endurance is marvellous. Talk about the English girl's staying power, it cannot outrival the American tennis girl's. She plays a game which is harder than the average man's. There is not a technicality she does not understand. She smashes her service in a way that makes one smile when one recollects the gentle, slow balls it used to be considered chivalrous for Adonis to drop before the weaker sex. She bewails her lack of judgment as though it were a serious moral dereliction if she takes a ball that her critics decide would otherwise have gone out. She plays in a costume appropriate to her view of the game. She is either hatless-under that sun-or if her own is not handy she borrows any hat gear from an acquaintance, masculine or feminine, which will crush down over her brow. Should her blouse be decorated with a collar, she takes it off on the court before she commences to play; if the said garment has not short sleeves to begin with, she rolls them up to make them so. She wears laced, spiked shoes, and she lifts her foot to have the mud scraped from the spaces left on the sole as much as a matter of course as she drinks iced water between the games. Her petticoats, too, are somewhat shorter than a kilt, and as she plays with much energy and a nonchalance with regard to appearances, one wonders if she would not have been rather better for a divided skirt.

But through everything, whether it be victory or defeat, at the beginning of the day or at the end, she is smiling, good-tempered, remarkably fair. She can even see good points in the girls from other clubs; the gibe about the feminine inclination to cheapen will not hold good with her. She has a sportsman's admiration for stamina, coupled with some of his optimism with regard to luck.

'Well, maybe it will be my turn when I meet you next week at the Springs,' was the answer of the vanquished after a hard-fought set of singles, as the two shook hands in the proper masculine fashion.

Mademoiselle golfs just as energetically. All day long, if the whim takes her that way, she toils round the links, driving almost as hard as her 'boy,' principally anxious to get round more holes than yesterday, jubilant if she beats her record on the eighteen.

If the heat inconveniences her, again it is the collar that is sacrificed, and, if she is careful about appearances, this time she may go so far as to turn in the attachment band of her shirtwaist until it forms a 'V' at her throat.