"Penelope and I allways call it Allbany," responded Francesca nonsensically, "but Salemina, who has been much in England, [)a]lways calls it [)A]lbany."
This anecdote was the signal for Miss Ardmore to remark (apropos of her own discrimination and the American accent) that hearing a lady ask for a certain med'cine in a chemist's shop, she noted the intonation, and inquired of the chemist, when the fair stranger had retired, if she were not an American. "And she was!" exclaimed the Honorable Elizabeth triumphantly. "And what makes it the more curious, she had been over here twenty years, and of course spoke English quite properly."
In avenging fancied insults, it is certainly more just to heap punishment on the head of the real offender than upon his neighbor, and it is a trifle difficult to decide why Francesca should chastise Mr. Macdonald for the good-humored sins of Mr. Anstruther and Miss Ardmore; yet she does so, nevertheless.
The history of these chastisements she recounts in the nightly half-hour which she spends with me when I am endeavoring to compose myself for sleep. Francesca is fluent at all times, but once seated on the foot of my bed she becomes eloquent!
"It all began with his saying"—
This is her perennial introduction, and I respond as invariably, "What began?"
"Oh, to-day's argument with Mr. Macdonald. It was a literary quarrel this afternoon."
"'Fools rush in'"—I quoted.
"There is a good deal of nonsense in that old saw," she interrupted; "at all events, the most foolish fools I have ever known stayed still and didn't do anything. Rushing shows a certain movement of the mind, even if it is in the wrong direction. However, Mr. Macdonald is both opinionated and dogmatic, but his worst enemy could never call him a fool."
"I didn't allude to Mr. Macdonald."