“Matrimony,” smiled the Count.

Her brother threw him a stern smile of approval.

“That’s right slick there!” he exclaimed.

“Lord Tulliwuddle has made a very happy selection in his ambassador,” said Eleanor, with equal cordiality.  “People who are afraid to come to facts tire me.  No doubt you will think it strange and forward of me to talk in this spirit, Count, but if you’d had to go through the worry of being an American heiress in a European state you would sympathize.  Why, I’m hardly ever left in peace for twenty-four hours—­am I, Ri?”

“That is so,” quoth Ri.

“What would you guess my age to be, Count
Bunker?”

“Twenty-one,” suggested Bunker, subtracting two or three years on general principles.

“Well, you’re nearer it than most people.  Nineteen on my last birthday, Count!”

The Count murmured his surprise and pleasure, and Ri again declared, “That is so.”

“And it isn’t the American climate that ages one, but the terrible persecutions of the British aristocracy!  I can be as romantic as any girl, Count Bunker; why, Ri, you remember poor Abe Sellar and the stolen shoe-lace?”

“Guess I do!” said Ri.

“That was a romance if ever there was one!  But I tell you, Count, sentiment gets rubbed off pretty quick when you come to a bankrupt Marquis writing three ill-spelled sheets to assure me of the disinterested affection inspired by my photograph, or a divorced Duke offering to read Tennyson to me if I’ll hire a punt!”

“I can well believe it,” said the Count sympathetically.

“Well, now,” the heiress resumed, with a candid smile that made her cynicism become her charmingly, “you see how it is.  I want a man one can respect, even if he is a peer.  He may have as many titles as dad has dollars, but he must be a man!”

“That is so,” said Ri, with additional emphasis.

“I can guarantee Lord Tulliwuddle as a model for a sculptor and an eligible candidate for canonization,” declared the Count.

“I guess we want something grittier than that,” said Ri.

“And what there is of it sounds almost too good news to be true,” added his sister.  “I don’t want a man like a stained-glass window, Count; because for one thing I couldn’t get him.”

“If you specify your requirements we shall do our best to satisfy you,” replied the Count imperturbably.

“Well, now,” said Eleanor thoughtfully, “I may just as well tell you that if I’m going to take a peer—­ and I must own peers are rather my fancy at present —­it was Mohammedan pashas last year, wasn’t it, Ri?” ("That is so,” from Ri.)—­“If I am going to take a peer, I must have a man that looks a peer.  I’ve been plagued with so many undersized and round-shouldered noblemen that I’m beginning to wonder whether the aristocracy gets proper nourishment.  How tall is Lord Tulliwuddle?”