“As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!” Betsy Strouss replied, with some irony. “A young lady full of high spirits by nature, and have never had her first dance yet! The laws and institutions of this kingdom is too bad for me, General. I shall turn foreigner, like my poor husband.”
“It is vere goot, vere goot always,” said the placid Maximilian; “foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de sea, or de fighting, or being born, or someting else.”
“Hold your tongue, Hans,” cried his Wilhelmina; “remember that you are in England now, and must behave constitutionally. None of your loose outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England. Was I born according to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less than the will of the Lord, that made the whole of them, and made you too? General, I beg you to excuse him, if you can. When he gets upon such things, he never can stop. His goodness is very great; but he must have a firm hand put upon his 'philosophy.' Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe for an hour and a quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil are, for his Excellence is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty of stump in them. His Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish, besides coming cheaper. Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here. Trust you in me, miss, and soon I will make you a credit to the General.”
I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own ideas; but when she entreated to finish me up with the “leastest little touch of red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of not sleeping,” I stopped her at once, and she was quite content with the color produced by the thought of it. Meanwhile Major Hockin, of course, was becoming beyond all description impatient. He had made the greatest point of my being adorned, and expected it done in two minutes! And he hurried me so, when I did come down, that I scarcely noticed either cab or horse, and put on my new gloves anyhow.
“My dear, you look very nice,” he said at last, when thoroughly tired of grumbling. “That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed at sight of the child he went to steal.”
“Mr. Goad!” I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark remembrance; “if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me to see Mr. Goad himself?”
“That depends, as the Frenchmen say. It is too late now to shrink back from any thing. If I can spare you, I will. If not, you must not be ashamed to show yourself.”
“I am never ashamed to show myself. But I would rather not go to that place at all. If things should prove to be as I begin to think, I had better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament that I ever began. My father was right; after all, my father was wise; and I ought to have known it. And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the truth, and would not tell me, for fear of my rushing to the Yosemite. Cabman, please to turn the horse and go in the opposite direction.” But the Major pulled me back, and the driver lifted his elbow and said, “All right.”
“Erema,” the Major began, quite sternly, “things are gone a little too far for this. We are now embarked upon a most important investigation”—even in my misery I could scarce help smiling at his love of big official words—“an investigation of vast importance. A crime of the blackest dye has been committed, and calmly hushed up, for some petty family reason, for a period of almost twenty years. I am not blaming your father, my dear; you need not look so indignant. It is your own course of action, remember, which has led to the present—the present—well, let us say imbroglio. A man of honor and an officer of her Majesty's service stands now committed at your request—mind, at your own request—”
“Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to—to go as far as I should wish.”