"Here is a little maid who was a charmer from her cradle," said the
delightful actress, picking up the child and
PLAYFULLY TOSSING
it out of the third-floor window. Seeing me look relieved, though
somewhat surprised, she said merrily: "I have plenty more of them at
home, and they are
ALL CHARMING,
every one of them! If you want to be charming you must be natural--I
always am. Even in my cradle I was
QUITE NATURAL.
And now, please go. Your conversation bores me inexpressibly, and your
countenance, which is at once vacuous and singularly plain, disagrees
with me thoroughly. Go! or I shall
BE SICK!"
So saying the great actress gave me a
VIGOROUS KICK
which landed me outside her room, considerably shaken, and entirely
under the spell of her matchless charm.
* * * * *
For "quite a while" during the first tour I stayed in Washington with
my friend Miss Olive Seward, and all the servants of that delightful
household were colored. This was my first introduction to the negroes,
whose presence more than anything else in the country, makes America
seem foreign to European eyes. They are more sharply divided into high
and low types than white people, and are not in the least alike in their
types.
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