FullReads

… Here I was, then, after this series of hopeless blunders, sole alone at the gare [French for station] of this little out-of-the-way town. My dear, there was never an American here since Christopher Columbus slept here when he was a boy. And here, you see, I was like to remain; for there was no possibility of the others getting back to me till to-morrow, and no good in my trying to overtake them. All I could do was just to bear it, and live on, and live through from Thursday to Monday; and, really, what was worst of all was that Friday was Christmas day.

Well, I found a funny little carriage, with a funny old man who did not understand my patois any better than I did his; but he understood a franc-piece. I had my guide-book, and I said auberge; and we came to the oddest, most outlandish, and old-fashioned establishment that ever escaped from one of Julia Nathalie woman’s novels. And here I am.

And the reason, my dear Mrs. Barthow, that I take to-day to write to you, you and the Colonel will now understand. You see it was only ten o’clock when I got here; then I went to walk, many enfans terribles following respectfully; then I came home, and ate the funny refection; then I got a nap; then I went to walk again, and made a little sketch in the churchyard: and this time, one of the children brought up her mother, a funny Norman woman, in a delicious costume,–I have a sketch of another just like her,–and she dropped a courtesy, and in a very mild patois said she hoped the children did not trouble madame. And I said, “Oh, no!” and found a sugar-plum for the child and showed my sketch to the woman; and she said she supposed madame was Anglaise.

I said I was not Anglaise,–and here the story begins; for I said I was Americaine. And, do you know, her face lighted up as if I had said I was St. Gulda, or St. Hilda, or any of their Northmen Saints.

“Americaine! est-il possible? Jeannette, Gertrude, faites vos reverences. Madame est Americaine.”

And, sure enough, they all dropped preternatural courtesies. And then the most eager enthusiasm; how fond they all were of les Americaines, but how no Americaines had ever come before! And was madame at the Three Cygnets? And might she and her son and her husband call to see madame at the Three Cygnets? And might she bring a little etrenne to madame? And I know not what beside.

I was very glad the national reputation had gone so far. I really wished I were Charles Sumner (pardon me, dear Agnes), that I might properly receive the delegation. But I said, “Oh, certainly!” and, as it grew dark, with my admiring cortege whispering now to the street full of admirers that madame was Americaine, I returned to the Three Cygnets.

And in the evening they all came. Really, you should see the pretty basket they brought for an etrenne. I could not guess then where they got such exquisite flowers; these lovely stephanotis blossoms, a perfect wealth of roses, and all arranged with charming taste in a quaint country basket, such as exists nowhere but in this particular section of this quaint old Normandy. In came the husband, dressed up, and frightened, but thoroughly good in his look. In came my friend; and then two sons and two wives, and three or four children: and, my dear Agnes, one of the sons, I knew him in an instant, was a man we had at Talbot Court House when your husband was there. I think the Colonel will remember him,–a black-whiskered man, who used to sing a little song about le vin rouge of Bourgogne.