“A coracle. C-o-r-a-c-l-e,” said she, spelling it slowly. “I want to know.”
The bewildered Bates shook his head. “Never heard of one, missy,” said he, bending over the book. “What does it say?”
“'The Ancient Britons,'” said Sylvia, reading gravely, “'were little better than Barbarians. They painted their bodies with Woad'—that's blue stuff, you know, Mr. Bates—'and, seated in their light coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, must have presented a wild and savage appearance.'”
“Hah,” said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable passage was read to him, “that's very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a cory “—a bright light burst upon him. “A curricle you mean, missy! It's a carriage! I've seen 'em in Hy' Park, with young bloods a-drivin' of 'em.”
“What are young bloods?” asked Sylvia, rushing at this “new opening”.
“Oh, nobs! Swell coves, don't you know,” returned poor Bates, thus again attacked. “Young men o' fortune that is, that's given to doing it grand.”
“I see,” said Sylvia, waving her little hand graciously. “Noblemen and Princes and that sort of people. Quite so. But what about coracle?”
“Well,” said the humbled Bates, “I think it's a carriage, missy. A sort of Pheayton, as they call it.”
Sylvia, hardly satisfied, returned to the book. It was a little mean-looking volume—a “Child's History of England”—and after perusing it awhile with knitted brows, she burst into a childish laugh.
“Why, my dear Mr. Bates!” she cried, waving the History above her head in triumph, “what a pair of geese we are! A carriage! Oh you silly man! It's a boat!”