This latter clause, however, aroused Miss Sibby’s ire. To talk of paying her! And in the presence of her genteel neighbors, too!
“No, ma’am!” exclaimed the old lady. “No, ma’am, you don’t pay me nothing! Not if I know it, sez I! You’re welkim, ma’am, sez I, to the very best in the house, as long as you choose to honor me with your company. But you don’t pay for it! No, ma’am! No! Sybilla Bayard is poor enough, the Lord knows, sez I! And she has fallen far enough from her high estate, sez I! She who was descended from the great Duke of England; but she don’t sell her hospitality, sez I! Not the descendant from the Duke of England don’t, sez I!”
Poor Miss Sibby! Poor, simple old body! She was very much laughed at on account of her boasted ancestor, the “Duke of England.” Yet her mistake was not so great as it seemed, for it was only the slight mistake of using the definite article “the” for the indefinite article “a,” nor were her claims quite so ridiculous as they appeared to be, as will soon be proved.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am, I’m sure. I didn’t mean no offense whatever! But—are you—descended from the Duke of England?” inquired the strange guest, opening her eyes wide with astonishment.
“I am,” replied Miss Sibby, with great dignity. “And I’ll prove it. My father was a Bayard, and his mother was a Barbar, and her great-great-grandfather was Henry Howard, third son of Thomas, Duke of England. These two ladies can testify to that, I reckon.”
The stranger turned wondering eyes upon the two sisters.
Miss Grandiere answered by saying:
“Miss Bayard means a duke of England, and, as a mere matter of detail, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, one of whose younger sons came over in 1634 with the Calverts.”
“Duke of Norfolk be hanged! Why, Norfolk is in this country, over yonder in Virginny somewhere, and we haven’t got any dukes here! no, ma’am. My grandmother’s great-grandfather was the son of the Duke of England!” persisted the old descendant of the Howards.
“But, my dear Miss Sibby, England is not a duchy!”