Mr. Beaumont and I,’’ she went on, smiling at her companion, ‘‘have had a tremendous discussion. We don’t agree about anything. It’s perfectly delightful.’’

‘‘Oh, I say, Percy!’’ exclaimed Lord Lambeth.

‘‘I disagree,’’ said Beaumont, stroking down his back hair, ‘‘even to the point of not thinking it delightful.’’

‘‘Oh, I say!’’ cried Lord Lambeth again.

‘‘I don’t see anything delightful in my disagreeing with Mrs. Westgate,’’ said Percy Beaumont.

‘‘Well, I do!’’ Mrs. Westgate declared; and she turned to her sister. ‘‘You know you have to go to town. The phaeton is there. You had better take Lord Lambeth.’’

At this point Percy Beaumont certainly looked straight at his kinsman; he tried to catch his eye. But Lord Lambeth would not look at him; his own eyes were better occupied. ‘‘I shall be very happy,’’ cried Bessie Alden. ‘‘I am only going to some shops. But I will drive you about and show you the place.’’

‘‘An American woman who respects herself,’’ said Mrs. Westgate, turning to Beaumont with her bright expository air, ‘‘must buy something every day of her life. If she can not do it herself, she must send out some member of her family for the purpose. So Bessie goes forth to fulfill my mission.’’

The young girl had walked away, with Lord Lambeth by her side, to whom she was talking still; and Percy Beaumont watched them as they passed toward the house. ‘‘She fulfills her own mission,’’ he presently said; ‘‘that of being a very attractive young lady.’’

‘‘I don’t know that I should say very attractive,’’ Mrs. Westgate rejoined. ‘‘She is not so much that as she is charming when you really know her. She is very shy.’’

‘‘Oh, indeed!’’ said Percy Beaumont.

‘‘Extremely shy,’’ Mrs. Westgate repeated. ‘‘But she is a dear good girl; she is a charming species of girl. She is not in the least a flirt; that isn’t at all her line; she doesn’t know the alphabet of that sort of thing. She is very simple, very serious. She has lived a great deal in Boston, with another sister of mine—the eldest of us— who married a Bostonian. She is very cultivated, not at all like me; I am not in the least cultivated. She has studied immensely and read everything; she is what they call in Boston ‘thoughtful.’ ’’

‘‘A rum sort of girl for Lambeth to get hold of!’’ his lordship’s kinsman privately reflected.

‘‘I really believe,’’ Mrs. Westgate continued, ‘‘that the most charming girl in the world is a Boston superstructure upon a New York fonds; or perhaps a New York superstructure upon a Boston fonds. At any rate, it’s the mixture,’’ said Mrs. Westgate, who continued to give Percy Beaumont a great deal of information.

Lord Lambeth got into a little basket phaeton with Bessie Alden, and she drove him down the long avenue, whose extent he had measured on foot a couple of hours before, into the ancient town, as it was called in that part of the world, of Newport. The ancient town was a curious affair—a collection of fresh-looking little wooden houses, painted white, scattered over a hillside and clustered about a long straight street paved with enormous cobblestones.