Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/80

72 72 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. " I am sure you understand everything, and that differences of nationality are no barrier to you," Ralph went on. Miss Stackpole gazed at him still. " Do you mean the foreign languages 1 " " The languages are nothing. I mean the spirit the genius." " I am not sure that I understand you," said the correspondent of the Interviewer; " but I expect I shall before I leave." " He is what is called a cosmopolitan," Isabel suggested. " That means he's a little of everything and not much of any. I must say I think patriotism is like charity it begins at home." " Ah, but where does home begin, Miss Stackpole 1 " Ralph inquired. " I don't know where it begins, but I know where it ends. It ended a long time before I got here." " Don't you like it over here 1 " asked Mr. Touchett, with his mild, wise, aged, innocent voice. " Well, sir, I haven't quite made up my mind what ground E shall take. I feel a good deal cramped. I felt it on the journey from Liverpool to London." " Perhaps you were in a crowded carriage," Ralph suggested. " Yes, but it was crowded with friends a party of Americans whose acquaintance I had made upon the steamer ; a most lovely group, from Little Rock, Arkansas. In spite of that I felt cramped I felt something pressing upon me; I couldn't tell what it was. I felt at the very commencement as if I were not going to sympathise with the atmosphere. But I suppose I shall make my own atmosphere. Your surroundings seem very attractive." " Ah, we too are a lovely group ! " said Ralph. " Wait a little and you will see." Miss Stackpole showed every disposition to wait, and evidently was prepared to make a considerable stay at Gardencourt. She occupied herself in the mornings with literary labour ; but in spite of this Isabel spent many hours with her friend, who, once her daily task performed, was of an eminently social tendency. Isabel speedily found occasion to request her to desist from celebrating the charms of their common sojourn in print, having discovered, on the second morning of Miss Stackpole's visit, that she was engaged upon a letter to the Interviewer, of which the title, in her exquisitely neat and legible hand (exactly that of the copy-books which our heroine remembered at school), was "Americans and Tudors Glimpses of Gardencourt." Miss