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The American Hotel is a small house, not at all such a one as American travellers of any pretension would think of stopping at, but still very respectable, cleanly, and with a neat sitting-room, where the guests might assemble, after the American fashion. We asked for the landlady, and anon down she came, a round, rosy, comfortable-looking English dame of fifty or thereabouts.
"O Paul, thou hast brought thy pigs to a fine market!" "'T is a market proper for pigs, dear dame," said Paul, who, though with a tear in his eye, did not refuse a joke as bitter as it was inelegant; "for, of all others, it is the spot where a man learns to take care of his bacon." "Hold your tongue!" cried the dame, angrily. "What business has you to gabble on so while you are in limbo?"
It was only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each other that I lost all control over myself. Will you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that the kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will you take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so dearly, and he is so fond of me!
Immediately that her eyes fell upon him the blood in her veins turned to water; not so much that she knew him as her sire, but rather that Nature tugged at her heart strings. Then spake the dame to the Soudan, "Husband, I, too, am French, and would gladly speak with this poor wretch ere he die, if so I may." "Wife," answered the Soudan, "truly, yes; it pleases me well."
"Duty; but such a duty!" She still braced her heels against the ground, and it required all the strength of her guards to push and pull her along. "Verily, I say such a duty," answered Joshua, on whose grave features there came a smile. "Dame Linkon, if you would limber your joints we could make more speed." "I am in no hurry," she answered.
In the opposite corner of the carriage sat an elderly woman, obviously English, obviously also of the grande dame species, with aquiline features, white hair dressed pompadour fashion, and an expression compounded of indifference and quizzical good humour.
Still, although Nelly took no care to show any preference for Eban, it was not in her heart to be rude or unkind to him; but Dame Lanreath tried to make him understand that his visits were not wished for. He, however, fancied that she alone did not like him, and still flattered himself that he was making his way with Nelly. Thus matters went on month after month.
Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language these folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility which seemed to my unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish.
Where could she hope to find a refuge at once? What was to become of them when all they now possessed was spent. The gods be thanked! she was not forlorn; she still had friends. She could find protection and love with Pollux and look to dame Doris for motherly counsel.
Moreover, the reader will have the goodness to imagine that Job Houghton and his dame were suitably provided for, although they could never be persuaded that their son fell otherwise than fighting by the young squire's side; so that Alick, who, as a lover of truth, had made many needless attempts to expound the real circumstances to them, was finally ordered to say not a word more upon the subject.
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