“Lady Chevenix is a homely looking person with henna-assisted hair and the true British haughty manner,” they put!  They were not so disagreeable about me, but not flattering.  Then they snap-shotted us, and Octavia really does look rather odd, as her nose got out of focus, I suppose, and appears like Mr. Punch’s; underneath is written, “An English Peeress and Society Beauty.”  We laughed so!

New York Harbour is a wonderful sight, but you have read all about it often.  The streets by it are awful, badly paved and hideous architecture, immense tall houses here and there, gaunt and staring like giants who have seen Medusa’s head and been turned into stone.  Farther up town the buildings are all much the same, so their huge height does not show so greatly as with a few lower ones in between.

Every creature in the street has got a purposeful determined air, and even the horses, many of them without blinkers, have it, too, I wonder if we shall catch it before we leave.  Nobody appears English—­I mean of origin, even if their name is Smith or Brown; every other nation, with the strong stamp of “American” dominating whatever country they originally hailed from, but not English.  They have all the appearance of rushing to some special place, not just taking a walk to nowhere.

You would have to come here to understand the insolence of the servants in most places.  We naturally ordered tea (down the telephone) when we arrived, and presently a waiter brought a teapot and two cups and nothing else; and when we remonstrated he picked his teeth and grinned and said, “If you don’t ask for what you want you won’t get it.  You said tea, and you’ve got tea, you never mentioned sugar and milk.”  Then he bounced off, and when the lift boy whistled as he brought me up, and the Irish chambermaid began to chat to Octavia, she said she could not bear it any longer, and Tom must go out and find another hotel.  So late last night we got here, which is charming; perhaps the attendants are paid extra for manners.  But even here they call Octavia “Lady Chevenix” and me “Lady Valmond” every minute—­never just “My Lady” like at home, and I am sure they would rather die than say “Your Ladyship!”

Mr. Renour had to leave us; we were so sorry, but he got a telegram as we landed, saying the superintendent of his mine had been shot and there was “trouble” out there, so he had to fly off at once.  However, we have promised to go and stay with him presently and he is going to show us all the mining camps.

To-day we have rested, and quantities of the people one knows in London sent us flowers, and they are the best I have ever seen—­roses so enormous they look like peonies, and on colossal stalks—­in fact, everything is twice the size of at home.

We are going to dine at Sherry’s to-night with a party.  It is the fashionable restaurant, and I will finish when I come back.

1:30 A.M.