“I don't know,” with chilling deliberation. “I am NOT an American.”
The curate said “Indeed!” and had the astonishing good sense not to say any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
“But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley,” he declared. “I shall count upon it in the near future.”
After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence. Hephzy spoke first.
“Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances,” she said. “Seems to me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know.”
The young lady rose. “I am going,” she said. “I am going, if you and—my uncle—will excuse me.”
That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise and disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had learned that “privacy” was another sacred and inviolable English custom. The rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the shutters were closed and the shades drawn.
“Well?” said I to Hephzy.
“Well,” said Hephzy, “it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be. I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em somethin'. And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I guess; at any rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the last that she was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said sounded funny.”
“What did she say?”