“I beg your pardon, Miss Debree, but would you mind telling me whether the movement of Women’s Rights is gaining in America?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Lyon,” Margaret replied, after a pause, with a look of weariness.  “I’m tired of all the talk about it.  I wish men and women, every soul of them, would try to make the most of themselves, and see what would come of that.”

“But in some places they vote about schools, and you have conventions—­”

“Did you ever attend any kind of convention yourself, Mr. Lyon?”

“I?  No.  Why?”

“Oh, nothing.  Neither did I. But you have a right to, you know.  I should like to ask you one question, Mr. Lyon,” the girl, continued, rising.

“Should be most obliged.”

“Why is it that so few English women marry Americans?”

“I—­I never thought of that,” he stammered, reddening.  “Perhaps—­perhaps it’s because of American women.”

“Thank you,” said Margaret, with a little courtesy.  “It’s very nice of you to say that.  I can begin to see now why so many American women marry Englishmen.”

The Englishman blushed still more, and Margaret said good-night.

It was quite evident the next day that Margaret had made an impression on our visitor, and that he was struggling with some new idea.

“Did you say, Mrs. Fairchild,” he asked my wife, “that Miss Debree is a teacher?  It seems very odd.”

“No; I said she taught in one of our schools.  I don’t think she is exactly a teacher.”

“Not intending always to teach?”

“I don’t suppose she has any definite intentions, but I never think of her as a teacher.”

“She’s so bright, and—­and interesting, don’t you think?  So American?”

“Yes; Miss Debree is one of the exceptions.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that all American women were as clever as Miss Debree.”

“Thank you,” said my wife.  And Mr. Lyon looked as if he couldn’t see why she should thank him.

The cottage in which Margaret lived with her aunt, Miss Forsythe, was not far from our house.  In summer it was very pretty, with its vine-shaded veranda across the front; and even in winter, with the inevitable raggedness of deciduous vines, it had an air of refinement, a promise which the cheerful interior more than fulfilled.  Margaret’s parting word to my wife the night before had been that she thought her aunt would like to see the “chrysalis earl,” and as Mr. Lyon had expressed a desire to see something more of what he called the “gentry” of New England, my wife ended their afternoon walk at Miss Forsythe’s.

It was one of the winter days which are rare in New England, but of which there had been a succession all through the Christmas holidays.  Snow had not yet come, all the earth was brown and frozen, whichever way you looked the interlacing branches and twigs of the trees made a delicate lace-work, the sky was gray-blue, and the low-sailing sun had just enough heat to evoke moisture from the frosty ground and suffuse the atmosphere into softness, in which all the landscape became poetic.  The phenomenon known as “red sunsets” was faintly repeated in the greenish crimson glow along the violet hills, in which Venus burned like a jewel.