Marylebone at our table the day before the match was to be
played.

"Oh, indeed, my lord!" said Mrs Neverbend. "I am glad to find that a
Britannulan young lady has been so effective. Who is the gentleman?"
It was easy to see by my wife's face, and to know by her tone of
voice, that she was much disturbed by the news.

"Sir Kennington," said Lord Marylebone. "I supposed you had all heard
of it." Of course we had all heard of it; but Lord Marylebone did not
know what had been Mrs Neverbend's wishes for her own son.

"We did know that Sir Kennington had been very attentive, but there
is no knowing what that means from you foreign gentlemen. It's a pity
that poor Eva, who is a good girl in her way, should have her head
turned." This came from my wife.

"It's Oval's head that is turned," continued his lordship; "I never
saw a man so bowled over in my life. He's awfully in love with her."

"What will his friends say at home?" asked Mrs Neverbend.

"We understand that Miss Crasweller is to have a large fortune;
eight or ten thousand a-year at the least. I should imagine that
she will be received with open arms by all the Ovals; and as for a
foreigner,--we don't call you foreigners."

"Why not?" said I, rather anxious to prove that we were foreigners.
"What makes a foreigner but a different allegiance? Do we not call
the Americans foreigners?" Great Britain and France had been for
years engaged in the great maritime contest with the united fleets
of Russia and America, and had only just made that glorious peace by
which, as politicians said, all the world was to be governed for the
future; and after that, it need not be doubted but that the Americans
were foreign to the English;--and if the Americans, why not the
Britannulists? We had separated ourselves from Great Britain, without
coming to blows indeed; but still our own flag, the Southern Cross,
flew as proudly to our gentle breezes as ever had done the Union-jack
amidst the inclemency of a British winter. It was the flag of
Britannula, with which Great Britain had no concern. At the present
moment I was specially anxious to hear a distinguished Englishman
like Lord Marylebone acknowledge that we were foreigners. "If we be
not foreigners, what are we, my lord?"

"Englishmen, of course," said he. "What else? Don't you talk
English?"

"So do the Americans, my lord," said I, with a smile that was
intended to be gracious. "Our language is spreading itself over the
wo