I
reached over and shook hands with her.
"How was that?" she asked.
"'Twas grand," I said. "The Queen couldn't have done it more to the
manner born."
My sister accepted my compliments complaisantly, as one who should
say, "'Tis no more than my deserts."
"How firm you were," I said, admiringly.
"Wasn't I, though?"
"How humble she was."
"Wasn't she?"
"You were quite as disagreeable and determined as a real Englishwoman
would have been."
"So I was."
A pause full of intense admiration on my part. Then she said, "You
couldn't have done it."
"I know that."
"You are so deadly civil."
"Not to everybody, only to servants." I said this apologetically.
"You never keep a steady hand. You either grovel at their feet or snap
their heads off."
"Quite true," I admitted, humbly.
"But it was grand, wasn't it?" she said.
"Unspeakably grand."
And for Americans it was.
We were still at "The Insular," when one day I took up a handful of
what had once been a tight bodice, and said to my sister:
"See how thin I've grown! I believe I am starving to death.
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