Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/115

Rh piazzas all summer long, as nineteen-twentieth of us do. But I don't deny that there is a Remnant, as Matthew Arnold calls them, who do go in for tennis, and boating, and bathing, and tramping and climbing." She paused, and then she concluded gleefully, "And you ought to see what wrecks they get home in the fall!"

The joke was on me; I could not help laughing, though I felt rather sheepish before the Altrurian. Fortunately, he did not pursue the inquiry; his curiosity had been given a slant aside from it.

"But your ladies," he asked, "they have the summer for rest, however they use it. Do they generally leave town? I understood Mr. Twelvemough to say so," he added with a deferential glance at me.

"Yes, you may say it is the universal custom in the class that can afford it," said Mrs. Makely. She proceeded as if she felt a tacit censure in his question. "It wouldn't be the least use for us to stay and fry through our summers in the city, simply because our fathers and brothers had to. Besides, we are worn out at the end of the season, and they want us to come away as much as we want to come."