t person,
and is to be met under very different circumstances. He may ask me my
politics. Of course I can tell him that I am a Mugwump, but what if he
asks me why I am a Mugwump?"

"He will not," Hilda answered. "Englishmen are not wholly devoid of
feeling!"

"And how shall I address him?" I went on. "Does one call him 'your
Grace,' or 'your Royal Highness'? Oh for a thousandth-part of the
unblushing impertinence of that countrywoman of mine who called your
future king 'Tummy'! but she was a beauty, and I am not pretty enough to
be anything but discreetly well-mannered. Shall you sit in his presence,
or stand and grovel alternately? Does one have to curtsy? Very well,
then, make any excuses you like for me, Hilda: say I'm eccentric, say
I'm deranged, say I'm a Nihilist. I will hide under the scullery table,
fling myself in the moat, lock myself in the keep, let the portcullis
fall on me, die any appropriate early English death,--anything rather
than curtsy in a tailor-made gown; I can kneel beautifully, Hilda, if
that will do: you remember my ancestors were brought up on kneeling, and
yours on curtsying, and it makes a great difference in the muscles."

Hilda smiled benignantly as she wound the coil of russet hair round her
shapely head. "He will think whatever you do charming, and whatever you
say brilliant," she said; "that is the advantage in being an American
woman."

Just at this moment Lady Veratrum sent a haughty maid to ask us if we
would meet her under the trees in the park which surrounds the house.
I hailed this as a welcome reprieve to the dreaded function of tea with
the duke, and made up my mind, while descending the marble staircase,
that I would slip away and lose myself accidentally in the grounds,
appearing only in time for the London train. This happy mode of issue
from my difficulties lent a springiness to my step, as we followed a
waxwork footman over the velvet sward to a nook under a group of copper
beeches. But there, to my dismay, stood a charmingly appointed tea-table
glittering with silver and Royal Worcester, with several liveried
servants bringing cakes and muffins and berries to Lady Veratrum, who
sat behind the steaming urn. I started to retreat, when there
appeared, walking towards us, a simple man, with nothing in the least
extraordinary about him.

"That cannot be the Duke of Cimicifugas," thought I, "a man in a
corduroy jacket, without a sign of a suite; probably it is a Banished