"Did you?" Miss McPherson said, turning to Grey, who replied: "Yes; and I must say that he received my rather bungling apology better than I supposed he would.
"'All right,' he said, offering me his hand; 'I dare say I was a cad to say what I did of your flag, but you needn't have hit me quite so hard. Where did you learn boxing?'
"'I never learned it,' I told him. 'It was natural to all the Yankees, who were born with clenched fists, ready to go at it.'
"He believed me, and said 'Reely, is that so?' and then he invited me to play billiards with him, and we got to be good friends, and he asked all sorts of questions about America, and said that our girls were the prettiest in the world when they were young. All the English say that, and Neil had heard it forty times, so it was not original with him. He said, however, that pretty as they were, his cousin, Bessie, was far prettier, that she was a most beautiful little creature, and as sweet as she was beautiful."
"Bessie!" Miss McPherson exclaimed, with a peculiar ring in her voice, and a manner of greater interest than she had evinced in Grey's recital of his encounter with Neil, "Do you mean the daughter of Archibald McPherson, my nephew, and did you see her? Did you see Archie?"
Grey colored, and replied; "No, I did not, for mother wished to punish me for fighting Neil, and so when a Mrs. Smithers asked us to spend a week with the McPhersons at her home in Middlesex, I was left behind in London with some friends, but I had great fun. I went to the Tower, and the circus, and the Abbey, and the museum, and everywhere, though I was sorry not to see Bessie, who with her father and mother, was also at Captain Smithers'."
"You saw them, then," Miss McPherson continued, addressing herself to Mrs. Jerrold, "You saw Archie, and his wife and Bessie. What is Archie like? I never saw him, but I have his wife. She was the daughter of a milliner, or dressmaker, or ballet-dancer, from Wales, in the vicinity of Bangor, or Carnarvon, I believe."
"Carnarvon!" Hannah repeated quickly, while a sudden pallor came to her lips and forehead, but no one noticed it, and Geraldine hesitated a little, uncertain as to how far she dared to tell the truth and not give offense.
But she was soon relieved from all uneasiness on that score, by Miss McPherson, who, noticing her hesitancy, said: "Don't be afraid to tell me exactly as it is, for were Archie ten times my nephew, I would rather hear the whole truth just as Grey told it of Neil. So, then, what did you think of Archie? I have an idea he is a good-natured, good for nothing, shiftless fellow, who never earned a penny in his life, and who gets his living from any one who will give it to him."