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 it awful,' his sister remarked, sportively, to Sir Rufus.

'Gracious, daughter!' the old lady exclaimed, trying to catch Agatha's eye.

'That's what she's always telling me, as if she were trying to keep me from going. I don't know what she has been doing over there that she wants to prevent me from finding out.' Sir Rufus's eyes, while he made this observation, rested on the young lady in the most respectful yet at the same time the most complacent manner.

She smiled back at him and said with a laugh still clearer than his own, 'I know the kind of people who will like America and the kind of people who won't.'

'Do you know the kind who will like you and the kind who won't?' Sir Rufus Chasemore inquired.

'I don't know that in some cases it particularly matters what people like,' Macarthy interposed, with a certain severity.

'Well, I must say I like people to like my country,' said Agatha.

'You certainly take the best way to make them, Miss Grice!' Sir Rufus exclaimed.

'Do you mean by dissuading them from visiting it, sir?' Macarthy asked.

'Oh dear no; by being so charming a representative of it. But I shall most positively go on the first opportunity.'

'I hope it won't be while we are on this side,' said Mrs. Grice, very civilly.

'You will need us over there to explain everything,' her daughter added.

The Englishman looked at her a moment with