“Oh-h-h!” said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the vocative.—­“You see,” she added, turning to me, “I am so unprepared by previous training that I shall never become au fait in French proprieties.  Indeed, I hold them in great reverence, but they seem to be for ever hedging me in; nor can I understand the meaning of half of them.  In America I was guided by plain right and wrong.—­Why shall we not outrage etiquette, Amy, by ‘going alone,’ as you call it, to Monceaux?  Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way that we may walk there without a chaperon?  I should have thought seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that there be any danger at all.—­In America, Mr. Farquhar, your escort would be enough for us, and the fact that Amy is your sister would give a sort of double security to your protection.”

“Oh, dear Miss Leare—­” began Amy.

“Hermie, Amy—­Hermione, which is English and American for Tasso’s Erminia.—­Do you like my name, Mr. Farquhar?  We have strange names in America, English people are pleased to say.—­Victor!” she went on, calling to the chasseur without pausing for any reply, “stop at some place where they sell candy.  Mr. Farquhar will get out and buy us some.”

Obediently to her order, we stopped at a confectioner’s.  I was directed to put my hand into the carriage-pocket, where I should find some “loose change,” kept there for candy and the hurdy-gurdy boys.  Then I was directed to go into the “store” and choose a pound of all sorts of “mixed candy.”

I had not more than made myself intelligible to a young person behind the counter when the carriage-door was opened and both the girls came in, Miss Hermione declaring that she knew I should be embarrassed by the multitude of “sweeties,” and that I should need their experience to know what I was about.

With dawdling, laughing and good-comradeship we chose our bonbons, and getting back into the barouche we proceeded to crunch them as we drove on to Monceaux.  It was like being children over again, with a slight sense of being out of bounds.  I had never seen confectionery eaten wholesale in that fashion.  Such bonbons were expensive, too.  Trained in the personal economy of English middle-class life, it would never have occurred to me to buy several francs’ worth of sugar-plums and to eat them by the handful.  But as the fair American sat before me, smiling, laughing, petting Amy and saying fascinating impertinences to myself, I thought I had never seen so bewitching a creature.  Her frame, though svelte and admirably proportioned, gave me an idea of vigor and strength not commonly associated at that time with the girls of America.  Her complexion, too, was healthy:  she was not so highly colored as an English country girl, but her skin was bright and clear.  Her face was a perfect oval, her hair glossy and dark, her eyes expressive hazel.  Her points were all good:  her ears, her hands, her feet, her upper lip and nostrils showed blood, and the daintiness and taste of her rich dress seemed to denote her good taste and fine breeding.  My sisters, could not tie their bonnet-strings as she tied hers, nor were their dresses anything like hers in freshness, fit or daintiness of trimming.