Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/233

Rh demoiselle; don't waste your time on that—that aged crocodile.' The English, you know, have no sentiment. They call us unfeeling because French parents select a suitable man for an innocent young daughter to marry, and bid her feel for him all the tenderness possible. But those calculating English meeses would marry old Scaramouch himself if he had money enough."

The Colonel did not like to hear his favorite nation abused, and rather squirmed under this; but he reflected that Madame de Fonblanque's remarks were due, no doubt, to the traditional jealousy between the French and the English.

Madame de Fonblanque gave the straightest possible account of herself, including the desertion of her maid the day before.

"I thought, with my trusty Suzanne, I could face anything. I did not imagine I could go anywhere in this part of America that I would not find hotels, railroads, telegraph offices—"

"There is one tavern in the county, and that a very poor one, six miles away—and not a line of telegraph wire or railway nearer than two counties off," explained Letty, smiling.

Madame de Fonblanque clapped her hands.