“Then how the palace?” asked Maggie Hook.
“The Rev. Archibald Jones, a highly educated English gentleman of no means to speak of, was tutor in a noble family in Germany.”
“But his wife? She was a princess?” cried Mary, almost weeping.
“Every woman is a princess, my dear young lady,” replied the gallant doctor.
“But a real one, Doctor? One who lived in a palace?”
“She lived in the palace, yes. She was attached to the household as English governess. The tutor and the governess met, as well they might even in a grand castle, and being in the same boat as regards teaching and birth, they fell in love. The lady was very beautiful, I understand.”
“And then?” demanded the chorus.
“Then they came to America where the field was larger even than in a palace with the noblesse. The young wife fell sick and the young husband, having saved a bit of money, brought her up into the mountains. The night Phoebe was born he tried to take a short cut down the mountainside to get a doctor who was stopping at a hotel now in ruins——”
Percy bowed his head.
“I recognize the spot,” he said.