"Probably she didn't say Barkley," observed Francesca cuttingly; "she would have been sure to commit that sort of solecism."
"Why, don't you say Barkley in the States?"
"Certainly not; we never call them the States, and with us c-l-e-r-k spells clerk, and B-e-r-k Berk."
"No odder than your saying Bark, and not half as odd as your calling it [)A]lbany," I interpolated, to help Francesca.
"Quite so," said Mr. Anstruther; "but how do you say [)A]lbany in America?"
"Penelope and I allways call it Allbany," responded Francesca nonsensically, "but Salemina, who has been much in England, [)a]lways calls it [)A]lbany."
This anecdote was the signal for Miss Ardmore to remark (apropos of her own discrimination and the American accent) that hearing a lady ask for a certain med'cine in a chemist's shop, she noted the intonation, and inquired of the chemist, when the fair stranger had retired, if she were not an American. "And she was!" exclaimed the Honorable Elizabeth triumphantly. "And what makes it the more curious, she had been over here twenty years, and of course spoke English quite properly."
In avenging fancied insults, it is certainly more just to heap punishment on the head of the real offender than upon his neighbor, and it is a trifle difficult to decide why Francesca should chastise Mr. Macdonald for the good-humored sins of Mr. Anstruther and Miss Ardmore; yet she does so, nevertheless.
The history of these chastisements she recounts in the nightly half-hour which she spends with me when I am endeavoring to compose myself for sleep. Francesca is fluent at all times, but once seated on the foot of my bed she becomes eloquent!
This is her perennial introduction, and I respond as invariably, "What began?"
"Oh, to-day's argument with Mr. Macdonald. It was a literary quarrel this afternoon."
"There is a good deal of nonsense in that old saw," she interrupted; "at all events, the most foolish fools I have ever known stayed still and didn't do anything. Rushing shows a certain movement of the mind, even if it is in the wrong direction. However, Mr. Macdonald is both opinionated and dogmatic, but his worst enemy could never call him a fool."
"Don't you suppose I know to whom you alluded, dear? Is not your style so simple, frank, and direct that a wayfaring girl can read it and not err therein? No, I am not sitting on your feet, and it is not time to go to sleep; I wonder you do not tire of making these futile protests. As a matter of fact, we began this literary discussion yesterday morning, but were interrupted; and knowing that it was sure to come up again, I prepared for it with Salemina. She furnished the ammunition, so to speak, and I fired the guns."