“Well, then, if you must know, I was thirsting to take a table and call for coffee; but having no man at hand to chaperon me, I dared not.”
“Je vous en prie,” cried Peter, with a gesture of gallantry; and he led her to one of the round marble tables. “Due caffe,” he said to the brilliant creature (chains, buckles, ear-rings, of silver filigree, and head-dress and apron of flame-red silk) who came to learn their pleasure.
“Softly, softly,” put in Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. “Not a drop of coffee for me. An orange-sherbet, if you please. Coffee was a figure of speech—a generic term for light refreshments.”
Peter laughed, and amended his order.
“Do you see those three innocent darlings playing together, under the eye of their governess, by the Wellingtonia yonder?” enquired the lady.
“The little girl in white and the two boys?” asked Peter.
“Precisely,” said she. “Such as they are, they're me own.”
“Really?” he responded, in the tone of profound and sympathetic interest we are apt to affect when parents begin about their children.
“I give you my word for it,” she assured him. “But I mention the fact, not in a spirit of boastfulness, but merely to show you that I 'm not entirely alone and unprotected. There's an American at our hotel, by the bye, who goes up and down telling every one who'll listen that it ought to be Washingtonia, and declaiming with tears in his eyes against the arrogance of the English in changing Washington to Wellington. As he's a respectable-looking man with grown-up daughters, I should think very likely he's right.”
“Very likely,” said Peter. “It's an American tree, is n't it?”