The Little Red Foot

by Robert W. Chambers

"No," said I, "not any story concerning this very pest of suitors which plague you—or, if not you, then me!—as the suitors of the first Penelope plagued Telemachus."

Now she was laughing, and, at one moment, hid her face in her yarn, still laughing.

"Does this plague you, John Drogue?" she asked, still all rosy in her mirth.

"Well," said I, "they all seem popinjays to me in their blue and gold and buff. But it was once red-coats, too, at Caughnawaga, or so I hear."

"Oh. Did you hear that?"

"I did. They sat like flies around a sap-pan."

"Deary me!" she exclaimed, all dimples, "who hath gossiped of me at Cayadutta Lodge?"

"Penelope?"

"I am attentive, sir."

"I suppose all maids enjoy admiration."