prone to American phraseology, and had even been at some pains,
during a six months' journey through the States (whither she had
been commissioned by a conscientious trade journal seeking reliable
information concerning the condition of female textile workers) to
acquire a slight but decided American accent. It was her one
affectation, but assumed, as one might feel certain, for a
practical and legitimate object.

"You can have no conception," she would explain, laughing, "what a
help I find it. 'I'm 'Muriken' is the 'Civis Romanus sum' of the
modern woman's world. It opens every door to us. If I ring the
bell and say, 'Oh, if you please, I have come to interview Mr. So-
and-So for such-and-such a paper,' the footman looks through me at
the opposite side of the street, and tells me to wait in the hall
while he inquires if Mr. So-and-So will see me or not. But if I
say, 'That's my keerd, young man. You tell your master Miss
Ramsbotham is waiting for him in the showroom, and will take it
real kind if he'll just bustle himself,' the poor fellow walks
backwards till he stumbles against the bottom stair, and my
gentleman comes down with profuse apologies for having kept me
waiting three minutes and a half.

"'And to be in love with someone," she would continue, "someone
great that one could look up to and honour and worship--someone
that would fill one's whole life, make it beautiful, make every day
worth living, I think that would be better still. To work merely
for one's self, to think merely for one's self, it is so much less
interesting."

Then, at some such point of the argument, Miss Ramsbotham would