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298 turned this way and that while the critical Deborah studied the effect of her latest creation in gowns.

"Raise your arm, my dear,—so! I believe it is a trifle tight— What were you saying?"

"Lieutenant Aylesworth,—isn't he adorable?"

"My dear," said the Marchioness, "it hasn't been your good fortune to come in contact with many of the real American men. You have seen the imitations. Therefore you are tremendously impressed with the real article when it is set before you. Aylesworth is a splendid fellow. He is big and clean and gentle. There isn't a rotten spot in him. But you must not think of him as an exception. There are a million men like him in this wonderful country,—ay, more than a million, my dear. Give me an American every time. If I couldn't get along with him and be happy to the end of my days with him, it would be my fault and not his. They know how to treat a woman, and that is more than you can say for our own countrymen as a class. All that a woman has to do to make an American husband happy is to let him think that he isn't doing quite enough for her. If I were twenty-five years younger than I am, I would get me an American husband and keep him on the jump from morning till night doing everything in his power to make himself perfectly happy over me. This Lieutenant Aylesworth is a fair example of what they turn out over here, my dear Jane. You will find his counterpart everywhere, and not always in the uniform of the U. S. Navy. They are a new breed of men, and they are full of the joy of living. They represent the revivified strength of a dozen run-down nations, our own Empire among them."