“Have you been in Italy?” asked Bud. “I’d love to see that old Italy—for the sake of Romeo and Juliet, you know, and my dear, dear Portia.”
“I know,” said Charles. “Allow me! Perfect beauties, all fine, fine gyurls; but I don’t think very much of dagoes. I have slept in their sailors’ homes, and never hear Italy mentioned but I feel I want to scratch myself.”
“Dagoes!” cried Bud; “that’s what Jim called them. Have you been in America?”
“Have I been in America? I should think I have,” said he emphatically, “The Lakes. It’s yonder you get value—two dollars a-day and everywhere respected like a perfect gentleman. Men’s not mice out yonder in America.”
“Then you maybe have been in Chicago?” cried Bud, her face filled with a happy expectation as she pressed the dog in her arms till its fringe mixed with her own wild curls.
“Chicago?” said the Captain. “Allow me! Many a time. You’ll maybe not believe it, but it was there I bought this hat.”
“Oh!” cried Bud, with the tears in her eyes and speechless for a moment, “I—I—could just hug that hat. Won’t you please let me—let me pat it?’
“Pat away,” said Captain Charles, laughing, and took it off with the sweep of a cavalier that was in itself a compliment. “You know yon place—Chicago?” he asked, as she patted his headgear fondly and returned it to him. For a little her mind was far away from the deck of Lady Anne’s yacht, her eyes on the ripple of the tide, her nostrils full, and her little bosom heaving.
“You were there?” he asked again.
“Chicago’s where I lived,” she said. “That was mother’s place,” and into his ear she poured a sudden flood of reminiscence—of her father and mother, and the travelling days and lodging-houses, and Mr and Mrs Molyneux, and the graves in the far-off cemetery. The very thought of them all made her again American in accent and in phrase. He listened, understanding, feeling the vexation of that far-sundering by the sea as only a sailor can, and clapped her on the shoulder, and looking at him she saw that in his eyes which made her love him more than ever.