“I am gradually changing into a French girl,” she wrote to her father.  “One morning I found I was thinking it would be nice to go into a convent, and another day I almost entirely agreed with one of the girls who was declaiming against her brother who had fallen in love with a Californian.  You had better take me away and send me to Germany.”

Reuben Vanderpoel laughed.  He understood Betty much better than most of her relations did.  He knew when seriousness underlay her jests and his respect for her seriousness was great.  He sent her to school in Germany.  During the early years of her schooldays Betty had observed that America appeared upon the whole to be regarded by her schoolfellows principally as a place to which the more unfortunate among the peasantry emigrated as steerage passengers when things could become no worse for them in their own country.  The United States was not mentally detached from any other portion of the huge Western Continent.  Quite well-educated persons spoke casually of individuals having “gone to America,” as if there were no particular difference between Brazil and Massachusetts.

“I wonder if you ever saw my cousin Gaston,” a French girl once asked her as they sat at their desks.  “He became very poor through ill living.  He was quite without money and he went to America.”

“To New York?” inquired Bettina.

“I am not sure.  The town is called Concepcion.”

“That is not in the United States,” Betty answered disdainfully.  “It is in Chili.”

She dragged her atlas towards her and found the place.

“See,” she said.  “It is thousands of miles from New York.”  Her companion was a near-sighted, rather slow girl.  She peered at the map, drawing a line with her finger from New York to Concepcion.

“Yes, they are at a great distance from one another,” she admitted, “but they are both in America.”

“But not both in the United States,” cried Betty.  “French girls always seem to think that North and South America are the same, that they are both the United States.”

“Yes,” said the slow girl with deliberation.  “We do make odd mistakes sometimes.”  To which she added with entire innocence of any ironic intention.  “But you Americans, you seem to feel the United States, your New York, to be all America.”

Betty started a little and flushed.  During a few minutes of rapid reflection she sat bolt upright at her desk and looked straight before her.  Her mentality was of the order which is capable of making discoveries concerning itself as well as concerning others.  She had never thought of this view of the matter before, but it was quite true.  To passionate young patriots such as herself at least, that portion of the map covered by the United States was America.  She suddenly saw also that to her New York had been America.  Fifth Avenue Broadway, Central Park, even Tiffany’s had been “America.”  She laughed and reddened a shade as she put the atlas aside having recorded a new idea.  She had found out that it was not only Europeans who were local, which was a discovery of some importance to her fervid youth.