“What’s that?”

“Flattery.  You don’t say such things to each other at the club.  What is your objection to Newport?”

“I didn’t say I had any.  But if you compel me well, the whole thing seems to be a kind of imitation.”

“How?”

“Oh, the way things go on—­the steeple-chasing and fox-hunting, and the carts, and the style of the swell entertainments.  Is that ill-natured?”

“Not at all.  I like candor, especially English candor.  But there is Miss Eschelle.”

Carmen drove up with Count Crispo, threw the reins to the groom, and reached the ground with a touch on the shoulder of the count, who had alighted to help her down.

“Carmen,” said Margaret, “Mr. Ponsonby says that all Newport is just an imitation.”

“Of course it is.  We are all imitations, except Count Crispo.  I’ll bet a cup of tea against a pair of gloves,” said Carmen, who had facility in picking up information, “that Mr. Ponsonby wasn’t born in England.”

Mr. Ponsonby looked redder than usual, and then laughed, and said, “Well, I was only three years old when I left Halifax.”

“I knew it!” cried Carmen, clapping her hands.  “Now come in and have a cup of English breakfast tea.  That’s imitation, too.”

“The mistake you made,” said Margaret, “was not being born in Spain.”

“Perhaps it’s not irreparable,” the count interposed, with an air of gallantry.

“No, no,” said Carmen, audaciously; “by this time I should be buried in Seville.  No, I should prefer Halifax, for it would have been a pleasure to emigrate from Halifax.  Was it not, Mr. Ponsonby?”

“I can’t remember.  But it is a pleasure to sojourn in any land with Miss Eschelle.”

“Thank you.  Now you shall have two cups.  Come.”

The next morning, Mr. Jerry Hollowell, having inquired where Margaret was staying, called to pay his respects, as he phrased it.  Carmen, who was with Margaret in the morning-room, received him with her most distinguished manner.  “We all know Mr. Hollowell,” she said.

“That’s not always an advantage,” retorted Uncle Jerry, seating himself, and depositing his hat beside his chair.  “When do you expect your husband, Mrs. Henderson?”

“Tomorrow.  But I don’t mean to tell him that you are here—­not at first.”

“No,” said Carmen; “we women want Mr. Henderson a little while to ourselves.”

Why, I’m the idlest man in America.  I tell Henderson that he ought to take more time for rest.  It’s no good to drive things.  I like quiet.”

“And you get it in Newport?” Margaret asked.

“Well, my wife and children get what they call quiet.  I guess a month of it would use me up.  She says if I had a place here I’d like it.  Perhaps so.  You are very comfortably fixed, Miss Eschelle.”

“It does very well for us, but something more would be expected of Mr. Hollowell.  We are just camping-out here.  What Newport needs is a real palace, just to show those foreigners who come here and patronize us.  Why is it, Mr. Hollowell, that all you millionaires can’t think of anything better to do with your money than to put up a big hotel or a great elevator or a business block?”