Hilda looked at me in astonishment, as I sat panting with my unwonted exertions. “Is it possible,” she cried, “that the walk up these few steps has exhausted you? You must be ill, or is it the fault of the queer clothes that you wear that you are incapable of taking exercise? But whichever way it is, you cannot sit here, so be kind enough to excuse me.”
The next moment I was lifted up as if I were a child, and Hilda ran nimbly up another long flight of steps with me, finally depositing me in a room that was very handsomely furnished, though most of the articles in it were of a style the like whereof I had never seen before. Seeing that I had apparently been Rip-van-Winkelized for about six hundred years, this is not at all surprising.
But I could not help noticing a piano, which was the facsimile of one which was in my own possession before I fell asleep. In fact, I had an idea that it was the very same piano, though how it got here I could not imagine. Hilda saw me looking at it, and did not remove my mystification by remarking, “Yes, it is a curious old thing, isn’t it, and in excellent preservation, I believe. We have several more of them in the capital, all formerly owned by Englishwomen who originally settled in Dublin after the wars.”
“Then is this Dublin?” I asked. “If so, I am not so very far from home, after all.”
“This place used to be called Dublin in the time of the ancient Irish, but when the country was turned over to what was then contemptuously called ‘petticoat government,’ nearly all place-names were changed, and the names of famous women applied to them. Thus we have Fawcetville, Beecherstown, Weldonia, Besantsville, Jarrettburn, and hundreds of other names, the etymological origin of which is easily traceable. In fact, it is one of our laws that no town or village shall receive a name which does not commemorate some woman who has done all she could to advance the interests of her sex.”
Our conversation lasted awhile longer, but Hilda had her studies to attend to, and after reaching several books from a bookshelf for me to amuse myself with during her absence, she left me for awhile to my own devices promising to do all she could to make my visit a pleasant one.
There were many things here to arouse my curiosity, but I was most anxious to see if the books were printed in a style which I could understand, as I hoped to gain a great deal of information relative to the strange land in which I found myself, through no effort of will on my own part.
Fortunately I found the type and paper very beautiful, and with the exception that the spelling was considerably more phonetic than that in vogue with us, I found very little difference between our language as at present printed, and as exponed in the pages of “The History of Amazonia,” which was the first book I opened.
I must have spent at least two hours in close reading, and if anyone would like to know the results of my investigations in posthumous history, she or he will find them recorded in the next chapter.