“A coon told you?” she had cried in ever-increasing amazement.
“Sartin, Miss Madge!”
“A coon!” she had repeated. “A coon—told you—down at the depot—that—I was—going—to Europe next week!”
Every eye had stared in wondering astonishment at Madge Finisterre at her announcement that she was going to Europe. Then there was a general laugh, and one of the smartest of the “boys” had cried:—
“I low there’s been a mistake some, Miss Madge, an’ that, too, all roun’. Fact is, we’ve been runnin’ two separate tickets over this news business, an’ thought it wur one an’ the same. We wur talkin’ ’bout Seth Hammond’s herd o’ hogs as wur cut up by the Poughkeepsie express ’smarnin’.”
She had joined in the laugh, and then in reply to the question of another of the men, as to whether it was really true that she was going to “Urop,” she had replied in the affirmative, adding, by way of explanation:
“I guess you all know that my momma is British, that she belonged to what the Britishers call, ‘the Quality’. She was the youngest sister of Sir Archibald Carlyon, was travelling over here, out west, when she was about my age, got fixed up in an awkward shop by half-breeds, and was rescued by my dear old poppa. Fact, that’s how he came to be my poppa, for she married him. Spite of her high connections in England, she was very poor, and she loved dad. If dear momma could only face the water journey, she’d go over with me.”
“Air you goin’ alone, Miss?” one of the boys had asked.
Then—how well she remembered it to-night!—she had given the answer, part of which she had given to George Carlyon that very day:
“Oh, I’ll git all right, boys, you can bet on that, without anyone dandying around me. For I guess if there’s one thing the Britishers are learning about our women, it’s this—that if a United States gel’s got dollars under her boots to wheel around on it ain’t much fuss for her to skate through their old country, nor yet through Europe, come to that, even if she has no more language under her tongue than good, plain, Duchess county American.”