Winterbourne was much amused.  “If you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother will certainly slap you,” he said.

“She’s got to give me some candy, then,” rejoined his young interlocutor.  “I can’t get any candy here—­any American candy.  American candy’s the best candy.”

“And are American little boys the best little boys?” asked Winterbourne.

“I don’t know.  I’m an American boy,” said the child.

“I see you are one of the best!” laughed Winterbourne.

“Are you an American man?” pursued this vivacious infant.  And then, on Winterbourne’s affirmative reply—­“American men are the best,” he declared.

His companion thanked him for the compliment, and the child, who had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he attacked a second lump of sugar.  Winterbourne wondered if he himself had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to Europe at about this age.

“Here comes my sister!” cried the child in a moment.  “She’s an American girl.”

Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady advancing.  “American girls are the best girls,” he said cheerfully to his young companion.

“My sister ain’t the best!” the child declared.  “She’s always blowing at me.”

“I imagine that is your fault, not hers,” said Winterbourne.  The young lady meanwhile had drawn near.  She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon.  She was bareheaded, but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty.  “How pretty they are!” thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise.

The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the garden, which overlooked the lake.  The little boy had now converted his alpenstock into a vaulting pole, by the aid of which he was springing about in the gravel and kicking it up not a little.

“Randolph,” said the young lady, “what are you doing?”

“I’m going up the Alps,” replied Randolph.  “This is the way!” And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne’s ears.

“That’s the way they come down,” said Winterbourne.

“He’s an American man!” cried Randolph, in his little hard voice.

The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight at her brother.  “Well, I guess you had better be quiet,” she simply observed.

It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented.  He got up and stepped slowly toward the young girl, throwing away his cigarette.  “This little boy and I have made acquaintance,” he said, with great civility.  In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what