Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/24

10 "Whose Union?" Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the brighter.

"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.

"What Anne?" "I know the Anne!" exclaimed Francesca excitedly. "She came from the Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and had something to do with Jingling Geordie in 'The Fortunes of Nigel.' It is marvelous how one's history comes back to one!"

"Quite marvelous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in which it comes back is marvelous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died a hundred years before the Anne I mean,—the last of the Stuarts, you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the Georges." "Which William and Mary?" "What Georges?" But this was too much even for Salemina's