"Io," corrected Stevenson, waving his fork, for he, too, was helping to beat the eggs:
"Argos-on-Manasquan."
He lingered over the name Manasquan as though he enjoyed saying it.
"The first thing that impressed me in travelling in America," said he, "was your Indian names for towns and rivers. Temiscami, Coghnawaga, Ticonderoga, the very sound of them thrills one with romantic fancies. Why do you not revive more of these charming Indian names?"
"We are too young yet to appreciate our legendary wealth," said Mr. Sanborn, with an emphasis on the "legendary."
"Qui s'excuse, s'accuse," reminded Mrs. Low, who was a French woman.
"Quite right," assented Mr. Sanborn, "it is not precedent we lack, but valuations."
"To return to Argos," said Mrs. Sanborn—the peace-maker—"I always feel in the presence of a divine mystery when I milk Tidy. No one could be guilty of a frivolous thing before the calm eye of that little cow."
Mrs. Sanborn possessed the reverent spirit of the pre-Raphaelites which burned modestly in its Quaker shrine or flared up like lightning as occasion required; and she delighted in the deification of her little cow. And why not? Had not Tidy's worshipped ancestors nourished kings of antiquity, and given idols to their temples, and stood she not to-day as perfect a symbol of maternity?
I do not now remember whether it was referring to Samoa as Stevenson's "port o' dreams" that brought up the discussion of dreams. To some one who asked him if he believed that dreams came true, he replied, "Certainly, they are just as real as anything else."