"You have reason to laugh at me; it is very ridiculous, but"—
"And then to think of the sad change that has befallen you! To subside from an eagle-feathered Sachem, eating succatash with an Indian Princess, into a tame civilized gentleman, in a swallow-tailed coat, handing apples to a poor little Yankee girl! I do not wonder you were melancholy and tried to shoot yourself."
"It was the most fortunate shot I ever made, since"—
"I am not sure of that. Perhaps if you had succeeded you might have been transmigrated back into the wigwam, and resumed your addresses to the Princess."
"Your fancy outstrips mine. I find it hard, by the side of a real
Princess, to think of an imaginary one."
"Faithless, like all your fickle sex. Ah me, poor princess!"
Here Mrs. Bernard made a motion to rise, which was followed by the other ladies, and as Anne turned away she said:—
"You who have set me an example of desertion can not be surprised at my leaving you, which please to consider a punishment for the Princess' wrongs."
"And a severe one," said Pownal.
But a short time elapsed before the ladies were rejoined by the gentlemen in the withdrawing room, where we will leave them to look after some other friends of ours.