"
"Well, then, I should not certainly describe you English as a talking
people," continued Eve, laughing. "In the way of society, you are quite as
agreeable as a people, who never laugh and seldom speak, can possibly make
themselves."
"_Et les jeunes Americaines_?" said Mademoiselle Viefville, laconically.
"My dear mademoiselle, your question is terrific! Mr. Blunt has informed
me that _they_ actually giggle!"
"_Quelle horreur_!"
"It is bad enough, certainly; but I ascribe the report to calumny. No; if
I must speak, let me have Paris for its society, and Naples for its
nature. As respects New York, Mr. Blunt, I suspend my judgment."
"Whatever may be the particular merit which shall most attract your
admiration in favour of the great emporium, as the grandiloquent writers
term the capital of your own state, I think I can venture to predict it
will be neither of those just mentioned. Of society, indeed, New York has
positively none: like London, it has plenty of company, which is
disciplined something like a regiment of militia composed of drafts from
different brigades, and which sometimes mistakes the drum-major for
the colonel."
"I had fancied you a New Yorker, until now," observed Mr. Sharp.
"And why not now? Is a man to be blind to facts as evident as the noon-day
sun, because he was born here or there? If I have told you an unpleasant
truth, Miss Effingham, you must accuse _la franchise_ of the offence.
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