Balzac had described many cities, but hadn't described Woollett Massachusetts.

"You say that," she returned, "as if you wanted one immediately to know the worst." "Oh I think it's a thing," he said, "that you must already have made out.

I feel it so that I certainly must look it, speak it, and, as people say there, 'act' it.

It sticks out of me, and you knew surely for yourself as soon as you looked at me." "The worst, you mean ?" "Well, the fact of where I come from.

There at any rate it IS; so that you won't be able, if anything happens, to say I've not been straight with you." "I see"-- and Miss Gostrey looked really interested in the point he had made.