“‘Bad company?’ Bad company, in this remote, isolated place?” exclaimed the colonel, gazing at the lady in surprise.
“Yes! bad company, I say! the very worst company! I think it is a shame, a burning and a crying shame,” exclaimed Miss Grip, firing up at the sound of her own words—“a burning and a crying shame that she, Maria da Gloria de la Vera, a Countess of Portugal by birth, should be left here to run wild like any little savage, with no better companion than a low-born, ignorant fisher-boy! There!”
“Lord—bless—my—soul—alive!” cried the colonel, sarcastically.
“Where do you suppose I found them?” sharply demanded Miss Grip, whose temper was rising.
“Found—whom?” coolly inquired the colonel.
“Your niece and ward, the Countess Maria, and your hired servant, David, the fisher-boy.”
“I wish you would not be ridiculous, my dear aunt. What good does that title do our poor little girl, here in democratic America? Why, even her father, a Portuguese nobleman by birth, but a staunch republican in principle, dropped his title when he transferred his interests to the United States,” said Marcel.
“Then he had no right to do it, and his act is of no consequence to his daughter. She is the Countess de la Vera, and she would be recognized as such in any other civilized country except in democratic America, as you call it. But that is not the point.”
“What is the point, then?”
“I asked you just now, where you supposed I found them?”