It was mainly due to Pomona that we went to Europe at all. For years
Euphemia and I had been anxious to visit the enchanted lands on the
other side of the Atlantic, but the obstacles had always been very
great, and the matter had been indefinitely postponed. Pomona and Jonas
were still living with us, and their little girl was about two years
old. Pomona continued to read a great deal, but her husband's influence
had diverted her mind toward works of history and travel, and these she
devoured with eager interest. But she had not given up her old fancy
for romance. Nearly everything she read was mingled in her mind with
Middle Age legends and tales of strange adventure. Euphemia's frequent
reference to a trip to Europe had fired Pomona's mind, and she was now
more wildly anxious for the journey than any of us. She believed that
it would entirely free Jonas from the chills and fever that still
seemed to permeate his being. And besides this, what unutterable joy to
tread the sounding pavements of those old castles of which she had so
often read! Pomona further perceived that my mental and physical
systems required the rest and change of scene which could be given only
by a trip to Europe. When this impression had been produced upon
Euphemia's mind, the matter, to all intents and purposes, was settled.
A tenant, who I suspect was discovered and urged forward by the
indefatigable Pomona, made an application for a year's lease of our
house and farm. In a business view I found I could make the journey
profitable, and there seemed to be no reason why we should not go, and
go now.
It appeared to be accepted as a foregone conclusion by Euphemia and
Pomona that the latter, with her husband and child, should accompany
us; but of this I could not, at first, see the propriety.
"We shall not want servants on a trip like that," I said; "and although
I like Jonas and Pomona very much, they are not exactly the people I
should prefer as travelling companions."
"If you think you are going to leave Pomona behind," said Euphemia,
"you are vastly mistaken. Oceans and continents are free to her, and
she will follow us at a distance if we don't let her go with us. She
was quite content not to go with us to Florida, but she is just one
tingle from head to foot to go to Europe. We have talked the whole
thing over, and I know that she will be of the greatest possible use
and comfort to me in ever so many ways; and Jonas will be needed to
take care of the baby. Jonas has money, and they will pay a great part
of their own expenses, and will not cost us much, and you needn't be
afraid that Pomona will make us ashamed of ourselves, if we happen to
be talking to the Dean of Westminster or the Archbishop of Canterbury,
by pushing herself into the conversation."
"Indeed," said I, "if we ever happen to be inveigled into a confab with
those dignitaries, I hope Pomona will come to the front and take my
place."
The only person not entirely satisfied with the proposed journey was
Jonas.
"I don't like trapsin' round," said he, "from place to place, and never
did. If I could go to some one spot and stay there with the child,
while the rest of you made trips, I'd be satisfied, but I don't like
keepin' on the steady go."
This plan was duly considered, and the suitability of certain points
was discussed. London was not believed sufficiently accessible for
frequent return trips; Paris could scarcely be called very central;
Naples would not be suitable at all times of the year, and Cairo was a
little too far eastward. A number of minor places were suggested, but
Jonas announced that he had thought of a capital location, and being
eagerly asked to name it, he mentioned Newark, New Jersey.
"I'd feel at home there," he said, "and it's about as central as any
place, when you come to look on the map of the world."
But he was not allowed to remain in his beloved New Jersey, and we took
him with us to Europe.
We did not, like the rest of the passengers on the steamer, go directly
from Liverpool to London, but stopped for a couple of days in the
quaint old town of Chester. "If we don't see it now," said Euphemia,
"we never shall see it. When we once start back we shall be raving
distracted to get home, and I wouldn't miss Chester for anything."
"There is an old wall there," said the enthusiastic Pomona to her
husband, "built by Julius Caesar before the Romans became Catholics,
that you kin walk on all round the town; an' a tower on it which the
king of England stood on to see his army defeated, though of course it
wasn't put up for that purpose; besides, more old-timenesses which the
book tells of than we can see in a week."
"I hope," said Jonas, wearily shifting the child from one arm to the
other, "that there'll be some good place there to sit down."
When we reached Chester, we went directly to the inn called "The Gentle
Boar," which was selected by Euphemia entirely on account of its name,
and we found it truly a quaint and cosey little house. Everything was
early English and delightful. The coffee-rooms, the bar-maids, the
funny little apartments, the old furniture, and "a general air of the
Elizabethan era," as Euphemia remarked.
"I should almost call it Henryan," said Pomona, gazing about her in
rapt wonderment.
We soon set out on our expeditions of sight-seeing, but we did not keep
together. Euphemia and I made our way to the old cathedral. The ancient
verger who took us about the edifice was obliged to show us everything,
Euphemia being especially anxious to see the stall in the choir which
had belonged to Charles Kingsley, and was much disturbed to find that
under the seat the monks of the fifteenth century had carved the
subject of one of Baron Munchausen's most improbable tales.
"Of course," said she, "they did not know that Charles Kingsley was to
have this stall, or they would have cut something more appropriate."
"Those old monks 'ad a good deal of fun in them," said the verger,
"hand they were particular fond of showing up quarrels between men and
their wives, which they could do, you see, without 'urting each other's
feelings. These queer carvings are hunder the seats, which turn hup in
this way, and I've no doubt they looked at them most of the time they
were kneeling on the cold floor saying their long, Latin prayers."
"Yes, indeed!" said Euphemia. "It must have been a great comfort to the
poor fellows."
"We went all through that cathedral," exclaimed Pomona, when she came
in the next day. "The old virgin took us everywhere."
"Verger," exclaimed Euphemia.
"Well, he looked so like a woman in his long gown," said Pomona, "I
don't wonder I mixed him. We put two shillin's in his little box,
though one was enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round and
pointed out all the beautiful carvin's and things on the choir, the
transits, and the nave, but when Jonas stopped before the carved figger
of the devil chawin' up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit of
a knave, the old feller didn't know what he meant. An' then we wandered
alone through them ruined cloisters and subterraneal halls, an' old
tombstones of the past, till I felt I don't know how. There was a girl
in New Jersey who used to put on airs because her family had lived in
one place for a hundred years. When I git back I'll laugh that girl to
scorn."
After two days of delight in this quaint old town we took the train
Londonward. Without consultation Jonas bought tickets for himself and
wife, while I bought Euphemia's and mine. Consequently our servants
travelled first-class, while we went in a second-class carriage. We
were all greatly charmed with the beautiful garden country through
which we passed. It was harvest time, and Jonas was much impressed by
the large crops gathered from the little fields.
"I might try to do something of that kind when I go back," he afterward
said, "but I expect I'd have to dig a little hole for each grain of
wheat, and hoe it, and water it, and tie the blade to a stick if it was
weakly."
"An' a nice easy time you'd have of it," said Pomona; "for you might
plant your wheat field round a stump, and set there, and farm all
summer, without once gettin' up."
"And that is Windsor!" exclaimed Euphemia, as we passed within view of
that royal castle. "And there lives the Sovereign of our Mother
Country!"
I was trying to puzzle out in what relationship to the Sovereign this
placed us, when Euphemia continued:--
"I am bound to go to Windsor Castle! I have examined into every style
of housekeeping, French flats and everything, and I must see how the
Queen lives. I expect to get ever so many ideas."
"All right," said I; "and we will visit the royal stables, too, for I
intend to get a new buggy when we get back."
We determined that on reaching London we would go directly to lodgings,
not only because this was a more economical way of living, but because
it was the way in which many of Euphemia's favorite heroes and heroines
had lived in London.
"I want to keep house," she said, "in the same way that Charles and
Mary Lamb did. We will toast a bit of muffin or a potted sprat, and
we'll have a hamper of cheese and a tankard of ale, just like those old
English poets and writers."
"I think you are wrong about the hamper of cheese," I said. "It
couldn't have been as much as that, but I have no doubt we'll have a
jolly time."
We got into a four-wheeled cab, Jonas on the seat with the driver, and
the luggage on top. I gave the man a card with the address of the house
to which we had been recommended. There was a number, the name of a
street, the name of a place, the name of a square, and initials
denoting the quarter of the town.
"It will confuse the poor man dreadfully," said Euphemia. "It would
have been a great deal better just to have said where the house was."
The man, however, drove to the given address without mistake. The house
was small, but as there were no other lodgers, there was room enough
for us. Euphemia was much pleased with the establishment. The house was
very well furnished, and she had expected to find things old and
stuffy, as London lodgings always were in the books she had read.
"But if the landlady will only steal our tea," she said, "it will make
it seem more like the real thing."
As we intended to stay some time in London, where I had business to
transact for the firm with which I was engaged, we immediately began to
make ourselves as much at home as possible. Pomona, assisted by Jonas,
undertook at once the work of the house. To this the landlady, who kept
a small servant, somewhat objected, as it had been her custom to attend
to the wants of her lodgers.
"But what's the good of Jonas an' me bein' here," said Pomona to us,
"if we don't do the work? Of course, if there was other lodgers, that
would be different, but as there's only our own family, where's the
good of that woman and her girl doin' anything?"
And so, as a sort of excuse for her being in Europe, she began to get
the table ready for supper, and sent Jonas out to see if there was any
place where he could buy provisions. Euphemia and I were not at all
certain that the good woman of the house would be satisfied with this
state of things; but still, as Jonas and Pomona were really our
servants, it seemed quite proper that they should do our work. And so
we did not interfere, although Euphemia found it quite sad, she said,
to see the landlady standing idly about, gazing solemnly upon Pomona
as she dashed from place to place engaged with her household duties.
After we had been in the house for two or three days, Pomona came into
our sitting-room one evening and made a short speech.
"I've settled matters with the woman here," she said, "an' I think
you'll like the way I've done it. I couldn't stand her follerin' me
about, an' sayin' 'ow they did things in Hingland, while her red-faced
girl was a-spendin' the days on the airy steps, a-lookin' through the
railin's. 'Now, Mrs. Bowlin',' says I, 'it'll just be the ruin of you
an' the death of me if you keep on makin' a picter of yourself like
that lonely Indian a-sittin' on a pinnacle in the jographys, watchin'
the inroads of civilization, with a locomotive an' a cog-wheel in
front, an' the buffalo an' the grisly a-disappearin' in the distance.
Now it'll be much better for all of us,' says I, 'if you'll git down
from your peak, and try to make up your mind that the world has got to
move. Aint there some place where you kin go an' be quiet an'
comfortable, an' not a-woundin' your proud spirit a-watchin' me bake
hot rolls for breakfast an' sich?' An' then she says she'd begun to
think pretty much that way herself, an' that she had a sister a-livin'
down in the Sussex Mews, back of Gresham Terrace, Camberwell Square,
Hankberry Place, N.W. by N., an' she thought she might as well go there
an' stay while we was here. An' so I says that was just the thing, and
the sooner done the happier she'd be. An' I went up stairs and helped
her pack her trunk, which is a tin one, which she calls her box, an' I
got her a cab, an' she's gone."
"What!" I cried; "gone! Has she given up her house entirely to us?"
"For the time bein' she has," answered Pomona, "for she saw very well
it was better thus, an' she's comin' every week to git her money, an'
to see when we're goin' to give notice. An' the small girl has been
sent back to the country."
It was impossible for Euphemia and myself to countenance this
outrageous piece of eviction; but in answer to our exclamations of
surprise and reproach, Pomona merely remarked that she had done it for
the woman's own good, and, as she was perfectly satisfied, she didn't
suppose there was any harm done; and, at any rate, it would be "lots
nicer" for us. And then she asked Euphemia what she was going to have
for breakfast the next morning, so that Jonas could go out to the
different mongers and get the things.
"Now," said Euphemia, when Pomona had gone down stairs, "I really feel
as if I had a foothold on British soil. It doesn't seem as if it was
quite right, but it is perfectly splendid."
And so it was. From that moment we set up an English Rudder Grange in
the establishment which Pomona had thus rudely wrenched, as it were,
from the claws of the British Lion. We endeavored to live as far as
possible in the English style, because we wanted to try the manners and
customs of every country. We had tea for breakfast and ale for
luncheon, and we ate shrimps, prawns, sprats, saveloys, and Yarmouth
bloaters. We "took in the Times," and, to a certain extent, we
endeavored to cultivate the broad vowels. Some of these things we did
not like, but we felt bound to allow them a fair trial.
We did not give ourselves up to sight-seeing as we had done at Chester,
because now there was plenty of time to see London at our leisure. In
the mornings I attended to my business, and in the afternoons Euphemia
and I generally went out to visit some of the lions of the grand old
city.
Pomona and Jonas also went out whenever a time could be conveniently
arranged, which was done nearly every day, for Euphemia was anxious
they should see everything. They almost always took their child, and to
this Euphemia frequently objected.
"What's the good," she said, "of carrying a baby not two years old to
the Tower of London, the British Museum, and the Chapel of Henry VII.?
She can't take any interest in the smothered princes, or the Assyrian
remnants. If I am at home, I can look after her as well as not."
"But you see, ma'am," said Pomona, "we don't expect the baby'll ever
come over here ag'in, an' when she gits older, I'll tell her all about
these things, an' it'll expan' her intelleck a lot more when she feels
she's seed 'em all without knowin' it. To be sure, the monnyments of
bygone days don't always agree with her; for Jone set her down on the
tomb of Chaucer the other day, an' her little legs got as cold as the
tomb itself, an' I told him that there was too big a difference between
a tomb nigh four hundred years old an' a small baby which don't date
back two years, for them to be sot together that way; an' he promised
to be more careful after that. He gouged a little piece out of
Chaucer's tomb, an' as we went home we bought a copy of the old
gentleman's poems, so as we could see what reason there was for keepin'
him so long, an' at night I read Jone two of the Canterbury Tales. 'You
wouldn't 'a' thought,' says Jone, 'jus' by lookin' at that little piece
of plaster, that the old fellow could 'a' got up such stories as
them.'"
"What I want to see more'n anything else," said Pomona to us one day,
"is a real lord, or some kind of nobleman of high degree. I've allers
loved to read about 'em in books, and I'd rather see one close to, than
all the tombs and crypts and lofty domes you could rake together; an' I
don't want to see 'em neither in the streets, nor yet in a House of
Parliament, which aint in session; for there, I don't believe, dressin'
in common clothes as they do, that I could tell 'em from other people.
What I want is to penetrate into the home of one of 'em, and see him as
he really is. It's only there that his noble blood'll come out."
"Pomona," cried Euphemia, in accents of alarm, "don't you try
penetrating into any nobleman's home. You will get yourself into
trouble, and the rest of us, too."
"Oh, I'm not a-goin' to git you into any trouble, ma'am," said Pomona;
"you needn't be afeard of that." And she went about her household
duties.
A few days after this, as Euphemia and I were going to the Tower of
London in a Hansom cab--and it was one of Euphemia's greatest delights
to be bowled over the smooth London pavements in one of these vehicles,
with the driver out of sight, and the horse in front of us just as if
we were driving ourselves, only without any of the trouble, and on
every corner one of the names of the streets we had read about in
Dickens and Thackeray, and with the Sampson Brasses, and the
Pecksniffs, and the Mrs. Gamps, and the Guppys, and the Sir Leicester
Dedlocks, and the Becky Sharps, and the Pendennises, all walking about
just as natural as in the novels--we were surprised to see Pomona
hurrying along the sidewalk alone. The moment our eyes fell upon her a
feeling of alarm arose within us. Where was she going with such an
intent purpose in her face, and without Jonas? She was walking
westward, and we were going to the east. At Euphemia's request I
stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after her, but she had disappeared
in the crowd.
"She is up to mischief," said Euphemia.
But it was of no use to worry our minds on the subject, and we soon
forgot, in the ancient wonders of the Tower, the probable
eccentricities of our modern handmaid.
We returned; night came on; but Pomona was still absent. Jonas did not
know where she was, and was very much troubled; and the baby, which had
been so skilfully kept in the background by its mother that, so far, it
had never annoyed us at all, now began to cry, and would not be
comforted. Euphemia, with the assistance of Jonas, prepared the evening
meal, and when we had nearly eaten it, Pomona came home. Euphemia asked
no questions, although she was burning with curiosity to know where
Pomona had been, considering that it was that young woman's duty to
inform her without being asked.
When Pomona came in to wait on us, she acted as if she expected to be
questioned, and was perfectly willing to answer, but Euphemia stood
upon her dignity, and said nothing. At last Pomona could endure it no
longer, and standing with a tray in her hand, she exclaimed:--
"I'm sorry I made you help git the dinner, ma'am, and I wouldn't 'a'
done it for anything, but the fact is I've been to see a lord, an' was
kep' late."
"What!" cried Euphemia, springing to her feet; "you don't mean that!"
And I was so amazed that I sat and looked at Pomona without saying a
word.
"Yes," cried Pomona, her eyes sparkling with excitement, "I've seen a
lord, and trod his floors, and I'll tell you all about it. You know I
was boun' to do it, and I wanted to go alone, for if Jone was with me
he'd be sure to put in some of his queer sayin's an' ten to one hurt
the man's feelin's, and cut off the interview. An' as Jone said this
afternoon he felt tired, with some small creeps in his back, an' didn't
care to go out, I knew my time had come, and said I'd go for a walk.
Day before yesterday I went up to a policeman an' I asked him if he
could tell me if a lord, or a earl, or a duke lived anywhere near here.
First he took me for crazy, an' then he began to ask questions which he
thought was funny, but I kep' stiff to the mark, an' I made him tell me
where a lord did live,--about five blocks from here. So I fixed things
all ready an' today I went there."
"You didn't have the assurance to suppose he'd see you?" cried
Euphemia.
"No, indeed, I hadn't," said Pomona, "at least under common
circumstances. You may be sure I racked my brains enough to know what I
should do to meet him face to face. It wouldn't do to go in the common
way, such as ringin' at the front door and askin' for him, an' then
offerin' to sell him furniter-polish for his pianner-legs. I knowed
well enough that any errand like that would only bring me face to face
with his bailiff, or his master of hounds, or something of that kind.
So, at last, I got a plan of my own, an' I goes up the steps and rings
the bell, an' when the flunkey, with more of an air of gen'ral
upliftedness about him than any one I'd seen yet, excep' Nelson on top
of his pillar, opened the door an' looked at me, I asked him,--
"'Is Earl Cobden in?'
"At this the man opened his eyes, an' remarked:--
"'What uv it if he is?'
"Then I answers, firmly:--
"'If he's in, I want yer to take him this letter, an' I'll wait here.'"
"You don't mean to say," cried Euphemia, "that you wrote the earl a
letter?"
"Yes, I did," continued Pomona, "and at first the man didn't seem
inclined to take it. But I held it out so steady that he took it an'
put it on a little tray, whether nickel-plated or silver I couldn't
make out, and carried it up the widest and splendidest pair o' stairs
that I ever see in a house jus' intended to be lived in. When he got to
the fust landin' he met a gentleman, and give him the letter. When I
saw this I was took aback, for I thought it was his lordship a-comin'
down, an' I didn't want to have no interview with a earl at his front
door. But the second glance I took at him showed me that it wasn't him.
He opened it, notwithstanding', an' read it all through from beginnin'
to end. When he had done it he looked down at me, and then he went back
up stairs a-follered by the flunk, which last pretty soon came down
ag'in an' told me I was to go up. I don't think I ever felt so much
like a wringed-out dish-cloth as I did when I went up them palatial
stairs. But I tried to think of things that would prop me up. P'r'aps,
I thought, my ancient ancestors came to this land with his'n; who
knows? An' I might 'a' been switched off on some female line, an' so
lost the name an' estates. At any rate, be brave! With such thoughts as
these I tried to stiffen my legs, figgeratively speakin'. We went
through two or three rooms (I hadn't time to count 'em) an' then I was
showed into the lofty presence of the earl. He was standin' by the
fire-place, an' the minnit my eyes lit upon him I knowed it was him."
"Why, how was that?" cried Euphemia and myself almost in the same
breath.
"I knowed him by his wax figger," continued Pomona, "which Jone and I
see at Madame Tussaud's wax-works. They've got all the head people of
these days there now, as well as the old kings and the pizeners. The
clothes wasn't exactly the same, though very good on each, an' there
was more of an air of shortenin' of the spine in the wax figger than in
the other one. But the likeness was awful strikin'.
"'Well, my good woman,' says he, a-holdin' my open letter in his hand,
'so you want to see a lord, do you?'"
"What on earth did you write to him?" exclaimed Euphemia. "You mustn't
go on a bit further until you have told what was in your letter."
"Well," said Pomona, "as near as I can remember, it was like this:
'_William, Lord Cobden, Earl of Sorsetshire an' Derry. Dear Sir. Bein'
brought up under Republican institutions, in the land of the free--'_ I
left out '_the home of the brave_' because there wasn't no use crowin'
about that jus' then--'_I haven't had no oppertunity of meetin' with a
individual of lordly blood. Ever since I was a small girl takin' books
from the circulatin' libery, an' obliged to read out loud with divided
sillerbles, I've drank in every word of the tales of lords and other
nobles of high degree, that the little shops where I gen'rally got my
books, an' some with the pages out at the most excitin' parts,
contained. An' so I asks you now, Sir Lord--_' I did put _humbly_, but
I scratched that out, bein' an American woman--'_to do me the favor of
a short audience. Then, when I reads about noble earls an' dukes in
their brilliant lit halls an' castles, or mounted on their champin'
chargers, a-leadin' their trusty hordes to victory amid the glittering
minarets of fame, I'll know what they looks like._' An' then I signed
my name.
"'Yes, sir,' says I, in answer to his earlship's question," said
Pomona, taking up her story, "'I did want to see one, upon my word.'
"'An' now that you have seen him,' says he, 'what do you think of him?'
"Now, I had made up my mind before I entered this ducal pile, or put my
foot on one ancestral stone, that I'd be square and honest through the
whole business, and not try no counterfeit presentiments with the earl.
So I says to him:--
"'The fust thing I thinks is, that you've got on the nicest suit of
clothes that I've ever seed yit, not bein' exactly Sunday clothes, and
yit fit for company, an' if money can buy 'em--an' men's clothes is
cheap enough here, dear only knows--I'm goin' to have a suit jus' like
it for Jone, my husband.' It was a kind o' brown mixed stuff, with a
little spot of red in it here an' there, an' was about as gay for plain
goods, an' as plain for gay goods, as anythin' could be, an' 'twas easy
enough to see that it was all wool. 'Of course,' says I, 'Jone'll have
his coat made different in front, for single-breasted, an' a buttonin'
so high up is a'most too stylish for him, 'specially as fashions 'ud
change afore the coat was wore out. But I needn't bother your earlship
about that.'
"'An' so,' says he, an' I imagine I see an air of sadness steal over
his features, 'it's my clothes, after all, that interest you?'
"'Oh, no,' says I, 'I mention them because they come up fust. There is,
no doubt, qualities of mind and body--'
"'Well, we won't go into that,' said his earlship, 'an' I want to ask
you a question. I suppose you represent the middle class in your
country?'
"'I don't know 'zactly where society splits with us,' says I, 'but I
guess I'm somewhere nigh the crack.'
"'Now don't you really believe,' says he, 'that you and the people of
your class would be happier, an' feel safer, politically speakin', if
they had among 'em a aristocracy to which they could look up to in
times of trouble, as their nat'ral born gardeens? I ask yer this
because I want to know for myself what are the reel sentiments of yer
people.'
"'Well, sir,' says I, 'when your work is done, an' your kitchen cleaned
up, an' your lamp lit, a lord or a duke is jus' tip-top to read about,
if the type aint too fine an' the paper mean beside, which it often is
in the ten-cent books; but, further than this, I must say, we aint got
no use for 'em.' At that he kind o' steps back, and looks as if he was
goin' to say somethin', but I puts in quick: 'But you mustn't think, my
earl,' says I, 'that we undervallers you. When we remembers the field
of Agincourt; and Chevy Chase; an' the Tower of London, with the block
on which three lords was beheaded, with the very cuts in it which the
headsman made when he chopped 'em off, as well as two crooked ones
a-showin' his bad licks, which little did he think history would
preserve forever; an' the old Guildhall, where down in the ancient
crypt is a-hangin' our Declaration of Independence along with the Roman
pots and kittles dug up in London streets; we can't forgit that if it
hadn't 'a' been for your old ancestral lines as roots, we'd never been
the flourishin' tree we is.'
"'Well,' said his earlship, when I'd got through, an' he kind o' looked
as if he didn't know whether to laugh or not, 'if you represent the
feelin's of your class in your country, I reckon they're not just ready
for a aristocracy yit.'
"An' with that he give me a little nod, an' walked off into another
room. It was pretty plain from this that the interview was brought to a
close, an' so I come away. The flunk was all ready to show me out, an'
he did it so expeditious, though quite polite, that I didn't git no
chance to take a good look at the furniter and carpets, which I'd 'a'
liked to have done. An' so I've talked to a real earl, an' if not in
his ancestral pile, at any rate in the gorgeousest house I ever see.
An' the brilliantest dream of my youth has come true."
When she had finished I rose and looked upon her.
"Pomona," said I, "we may yet visit many foreign countries. We may see
kings, queens, dukes, counts, sheikhs, beys, sultans, khedives, pashas,
rajahs, and I don't know what potentates besides, and I wish to say
just this one thing to you. If you don't want to get yourself and us
into some dreadful scrape, and perhaps bring our journeys to a sudden
close, you must put a curb on your longing for communing with beings of
noble blood."
"That's true, sir," said Pomona, thoughtfully, "an' I made a pretty
close shave of it this time, for when I was talkin' to the earl, I was
just on the p'int of tellin' him that I had such a high opinion of his
kind o' folks that I once named a big black dog after one of 'em, but I
jus' remembered in time, an' slipped on to somethin' else. But I
trembled worse than a peanut woman with a hackman goin' round the
corner to ketch a train an' his hubs just grazin' the legs of her
stand. An' so I promise you, sir, that I'll put my heel on all
hankerin' after potentates."
And so she made her promise. And, knowing Pomona, I felt sure that she
would keep it--if she could.