Chapter XXV. "We Began to Marry Them, My Good Fellow!" - Page 2

was a matter of silly, little ambitions on the other. But that it is an extraordinary country there is no sane denying--huge, fabulously resourceful in every way--area, variety of climate, wealth of minerals, products of all sorts, soil to grow anything, and sun and rain enough to give each thing what it needs; last, or rather first, a people who, considered as a nation, are in the riot of youth, and who began by being English--which we Englishmen have an innocent belief is the one method of 'owning the earth.' That figure of speech is an Americanism I carefully committed to memory. Well, after all, look at the map--look at the map! There we are."

They had frequently discussed together the question of the development of international relations. Lord Dunholm, a man of far-reaching and clear logic, had realised that the oddly unaccentuated growth of intercourse between the two countries might be a subject to be reflected on without lightness.

"The habit we have of regarding America and Americans as rather a joke," he had once said, "has a sort of parallel in the condescendingly amiable amusement of a parent at the precocity or whimsicalness of a child. But the child is shooting up amazingly--amazingly. In a way which suggests divers possibilities."

The exchange of visits between Dunholm and Stornham had been rare and formal. From the call made upon the younger Lady Anstruthers on her marriage, the Dunholms had returned with a sense of puzzled pity for the little American bride, with her wonderful frock and her uneasy, childish eyes. For some years Lady Anstruthers had been too delicate to make or return calls. One heard painful accounts of her apparent wretched ill-health and of the condition of her husband's estate.

"As the relations between the two families have evidently been strained for years," Lord Dunholm said, "it is interesting to hear of the sudden advent of the sister. It seems to point to reconciliation. And you say the girl is an unusual person.

"From what one hears, she would be unusual if she were an English girl who had spent her life on an English estate. That an American who is making her first visit to England should seem to see at once the practical needs of a neglected place is a thing to wonder at. What can she know about it, one thinks. But she apparently does know. They say she has made no mistakes--even with the village people. She is managing, in one way or another, to give work to every man who wants it. Result, of course--unbounded rustic enthusiasm."

Lord Dunholm laughed between the soothing whiffs of his cigar.

"How clever of her! And what sensible good feeling! Yes--yes! She evidently has learned things somewhere. Perhaps New York has found it wise to begin to give young women professional training in the management of English estates. Who knows? Not a bad idea."

It was