"Nothing is better than being an American."
"You are patriotic," I observed.
"If your ancestors fought with Indians, and English and rebels, and if you expect to die for your country, you ought to be patriotic."
I surveyed him curiously. He was too grave and joyless for a boy in a normal condition. "In youth one does not usually speak of dying," I said.
His face flushed. "Ah, mademoiselle, I am homesick! I have not seen America for a year."
"Indeed? Such a patriotic boy should stay at home."
"My mother wished me to finish my education abroad."
"A woman should educate her children in the country in which they are to live," I said, irritably.
"I guess you're most old enough to be my mother, aren't you?" he replied, gently, and with such tenderness of rebuke that I smiled irrepressibly. He had delicately intimated that if I were his mother I would not care to have him discuss me with a stranger.
"I've got to learn foreign languages," he said, doggedly. "We've been here one year; we must stay one more and then go to Italy, then to Germany. I'm thankful the English haven't a different language. If they had, I'd have to go learn it."