laughed, and looked like milkmaids. They had no style, no figure. Their
shoulders were high, and their chests were flat, and they were one-sided,
and they stooped,--all of which would have been of no account, if they had
only been unconsciously enjoying themselves; but they consciously were
not. It is possible that they thought they were happy, but I knew better.
You are never happy, unless you are master of the situation; and they were
not. They endeavored to appear at ease,--a thing which people who are at
ease never do. They looked as if they had all their lives been meaning to
go to Saratoga, and now they had got there and were determined not to
betray any unwontedness. It was not the timid, eager, delighted,
fascinating, graceful awkwardness of a new young girl; it was not the
careless, hearty, whole-souled enjoyment of an experienced girl; it was
not the natural, indifferent, imperial queening it of an acknowledged
monarch: but something that caught hold of the hem of the garment of them
all. It was they with the sheen damped off. So it was not imposing. I
could pick you up a dozen girls straight along, right out of the pantries
and the butteries, right up from the washing-tubs and the sewing-machines,
who should be abundantly able to "hoe their row" with them anywhere. In
short, I was extremely disappointed. I expected to see the high fashion,
the very birth and breeding, the cream cheese of the country, and it was
skim-milk. If that is birth, one can do quite as well without being born
at all. Occasionally you would see a girl with gentle blood in her veins,
whether it were butcher-blood or banker-blood, but she only made the
prevailing plebsiness more striking. Now I maintain that a woman ought to
be very handsome or very clever, or else she ought to go to work and do
something. Beauty is of itself a divine gift and adequate. "Beauty is its
own excuse for being" anywhere. It ought not to be fenced in or
monopolized, any more than a statue or a mountain. It ought to be free and
common, a benediction to all weary wayfarers. It can never be profaned;
for it veils itself from the unappreciative eye, and shines only upon its