Daisy Miller | Page 2

In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with
a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes.
"Will you give me a lump of sugar?" he asked in a sharp, hard little
voice-- a voice immature and yet, somehow, not young.
Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee
service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. "Yes,
you may take one," he answered; "but I don't think sugar is good for
little boys."
This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of the
coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his
knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He
poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne's bench and
tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.
"Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!" he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a
peculiar manner.
Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honor
of claiming him as a fellow countryman. "Take care you don't hurt your
teeth," he said, paternally.
"I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only got
seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out right
afterward. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't help it.
It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come out. In
America they didn't come out. It's these hotels."
Winterbourne was much amused. "If you eat three lumps of sugar, your
mother will certainly slap you," he said.
"She's got to give me some candy, then," rejoined his young
interlocutor. "I can't get any candy here--any American candy.
American candy's the best candy."
"And are American little boys the best little boys?" asked

Winterbourne.
"I don't know. I'm an American boy," said the child.
"I see you are one of the best!" laughed Winterbourne.
"Are you an American man?" pursued this vivacious infant. And then,
on Winterbourne's affirmative reply--"American men are the best," he
declared.
His companion thanked him for the compliment, and the child, who
had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while
he attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he
himself had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to
Europe at about this age.
"Here comes my sister!" cried the child in a moment. "She's an
American girl."
Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady
advancing. "American girls are the best girls," he said cheerfully to his
young companion.
"My sister ain't the best!" the child declared. "She's always blowing at
me."
"I imagine that is your fault, not hers," said Winterbourne. The young
lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with
a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-colored ribbon. She was
bareheaded, but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep
border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. "How
pretty they are!" thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his
seat, as if he were prepared to rise.
The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the
garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted
his alpenstock into a vaulting pole, by the aid of which he was
springing about in the gravel and kicking it up not a little.

"Randolph," said the young lady, "what ARE you doing?"
"I'm going up the Alps," replied Randolph. "This is the way!" And he
gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne's
ears.
"That's the way they come down," said Winterbourne.
"He's an American man!" cried Randolph, in his little hard voice.
The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight
at her brother. "Well, I guess you had better be quiet," she simply
observed.
It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He
got up and stepped slowly toward the young girl, throwing away his
cigarette. "This little boy and I have made acquaintance," he said, with
great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man
was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under
certain rarely occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions
could be better than these?-- a pretty American girl coming and
standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however,
on hearing Winterbourne's observation, simply glanced at him; she then
turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the
opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had gone too far, but he
decided that he must advance farther, rather than retreat. While he was
thinking of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little
boy again.
"I should like