It's the novelty of antiquity that makes it so charming
to people from my country. I suppose it seems quite natural, now,
to you that your parish church should be six hundred years old,
and have tombs in the chancel, with Elizabethan ruffs, or its floor
inlaid with Plantagenet brasses. To us, all that seems mysterious,
and in a certain sort of way one might almost say magical. Nobody
can love Europe quite so well, I'm sure, who has lived in it from
a child. YOU grew up to many things that burst fresh upon us at
last with all the intense delight of a new sensation."
They stood still as they spoke, and looked hard at one another.
There was a minute's pause. Then Bernard began again. "Melissa,"
he faltered out, in a rather tremulous voice, "are you sorry to go
home again?"
"I just hate it!" Melissa answered, with a vehement burst. Then
she added, after a second, "But I've enjoyed the voyage."
"You'd like to live in Europe?" Bernard asked.
"I should love it!" Melissa replied. "I'm fond of my folks,
of course, and I should be sorry to leave them; but I just love
Europe. I shall never go again, though. I shall come right away
back to Kansas City now, and keep store for father for the rest of
my natural existence.
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