“Ah, but I do mind you,” said Ophelia. “Don’t you think we could go back and send some people to help these gentlemen?”
It was the coolest proposition that I had ever heard, but in two minutes Miss Gledd was putting it into execution. Hannibal Hoskins was driving her back in the sleigh which I had hired, and I was left with my friend to extricate those other two brutes from the ditch.
“That’s so like Pheely Gledd,” said my friend. “She always has her own way.”
Then it was that I questioned Miss Gledd’s beauty, and was told that before long I should find myself to be wrong. I had almost acknowledged myself to be wrong before that night was over.
I was at a tea-party that same evening at which Miss Gledd was present;—it was called a tea-party, though I saw no tea. I did, however, see a large hot supper, and a very large assortment of long-necked bottles. I was standing rather listlessly near the door, being short of acquaintance, when a young Yankee dandy, with a very stiff neck, informed me that Miss Gledd wanted to speak to me. Having given me this intimation he took himself off, with an air of disgust, among the long-necked bottles.
“Mr. Green,” she said,—I had just been introduced to her as she was being whisked away by Hoskins in my sleigh—“Mr. Green, I believe I owe you an apology. When I took your sleigh from you I didn’t know you were a Britisher,—I didn’t, indeed.”
I was a little nettled, and endeavoured to explain to her that an Englishman would be just as ready to give up his carriage to a lady as any American.
“Oh, dear, yes; of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean that; and now I’ve put my foot into it worse than ever; I thought you were at home here, and knew our ways, and if so you wouldn’t mind being left with a broken sleigh.”
I told her that I didn’t mind it. That what I had minded was the being robbed of the privilege of driving her home, which I had thought to be justly mine.
“Yes,” said she, “and I was to leave my friend in the ditch! That’s what I never do. You didn’t suffer any disgrace by remaining there till the men came.”