Gutenberg Literary Edition #1868

I PAGE PENELOPE IN SWITZERLAND 3 II PENELOPE IN VENICE 39 III PENELOPE’S PRINTS OF WALES 105 IV PENELOPE IN DEVON 119 V PENELOPE AT HOME 165

SALEMINA and I were in Geneva. If you had ever travelled through Europe with a charming spinster who never sat down at a Continental _table d’hôte_ without being asked by an American _vis-à-vis_ whether she were one of the P.’s of Salem, Massachusetts, you would understand why I call my friend Salemina. She doesn’t mind it. She knows that I am simply jealous because I came from a vulgarly large tribe that never had any coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors always sealed their letters with their thumb nails.

Whenever Francesca and I call her “Salemina,” she knows, and we know that she knows, that we are seeing a group of noble ancestors in a sort of halo over her serene and dignified head, so she remains unruffled under her _petit nom_, inasmuch as the casual public comprehends nothing of its spurious origin and thinks it was given her by her sponsors in baptism.

Francesca, Salemina, and I have very different backgrounds. The first-named is an extremely pretty person of large income who is travelling with us simply because her relatives think that she will “see Europe” more advantageously under our chaperonage than if she were accompanied by persons of her own age or “set.”