under far less parental pressure, but although it was indeed the hour the man was not available.  Neither, such was the irony of circumstances, would our immediate union have affected the motion in the slightest degree.  But although I presented these considerations to momma many times a day, she adhered so persistently to the idea of promoting a happy reunion that I was obliged to keep a very careful eye on the possibility of surreptitious messages from Liverpool.  Once on dry land, however, momma saw her duty in another light.  I might say that she swallowed her principles with the first meal she really enjoyed, after which she expressed her conviction that it was best to let the dead past bury its dead, so long as the obsequies did not necessitate her immediate return to America.

I was looking forward immensely to observing the Senator in London, remembering the effect it had upon my own imagination, but on our arrival he conducted himself in a manner which can only be described as non-committal.  He went about with his hands in his pockets, smoking large cigars with an air of reserved criticism that vastly impressed the waiters, acquiescing in strawberry jam for breakfast, for example, in a manner which said that, although this might be to him a new and complex custom, he was acquainted with Chicago ones much more recondite.  His air was superior, but modestly so, and if he said nothing you would never suppose it was because he had nothing to say.  He meant to give Great Britain a chance before he pronounced anything distinctly unfavourable even to her steaks, and in the meantime to remember what an up-to-date American owes to his country’s reputation in the hotels of a foreign town.

He was very much at his ease, and I saw him looking at a couple of just introduced Englishmen embarking in conversation, as if he wondered what could possibly be the matter with them.  I am sorry that I can’t say as much for my other parent, but before monarchical institutions momma weakened.  She had moments of terrible indecision as to how to do her hair, and I am certain it was not a matter of indifference to her that she should make a good impression upon the head butler.  Also, she hesitated about examining the mounted Guardsman on duty at Whitehall, preferring to walk past with a casual glance, as if she were accustomed to see things quite as wonderful every day at home, whereas nothing to approach it has ever existed in America, except in the imagination of Mr. Barnum, and he is dead.  And shopwalkers patronised her.  I congratulated myself sometimes that I was there to assert her dignity.