Part 5 (1/2)

And I was so amazed that I sat and looked at Pomona without saying a word.

”Yes,” cried Pomona, her eyes sparkling with excitement, ”I've seen a lord, and trod his floors, and I'll tell you all about it. You know I was boun' to do it, and I wanted to go alone, for if Jone was with me he'd be sure to put in some of his queer sayin's an' ten to one hurt the man's feelin's, and cut off the interview. An' as Jone said this afternoon he felt tired, with some small creeps in his back, an' didn't care to go out, I knew my time had come, and said I'd go for a walk.

Day before yesterday I went up to a policeman an' I asked him if he could tell me if a lord, or a earl, or a duke lived anywhere near here.

First he took me for crazy, an' then he began to ask questions which he thought was funny, but I kep' stiff to the mark, an' I made him tell me where a lord did live,--about five blocks from here. So I fixed things all ready an' today I went there.”

”You didn't have the a.s.surance to suppose he'd see you?” cried Euphemia.

”No, indeed, I hadn't,” said Pomona, ”at least under common circ.u.mstances. You may be sure I racked my brains enough to know what I should do to meet him face to face. It wouldn't do to go in the common way, such as ringin' at the front door and askin' for him, an' then offerin' to sell him furniter-polish for his pianner-legs. I knowed well enough that any errand like that would only bring me face to face with his bailiff, or his master of hounds, or something of that kind.

So, at last, I got a plan of my own, an' I goes up the steps and rings the bell, an' when the flunkey, with more of an air of gen'ral upliftedness about him than any one I'd seen yet, excep' Nelson on top of his pillar, opened the door an' looked at me, I asked him,--

”'Is Earl Cobden in?'

”At this the man opened his eyes, an' remarked:--

”'What uv it if he is?'

”Then I answers, firmly:--

”'If he's in, I want yer to take him this letter, an' I'll wait here.'”

”You don't mean to say,” cried Euphemia, ”that you wrote the earl a letter?”

”Yes, I did,” continued Pomona, ”and at first the man didn't seem inclined to take it. But I held it out so steady that he took it an'

put it on a little tray, whether nickel-plated or silver I couldn't make out, and carried it up the widest and splendidest pair o' stairs that I ever see in a house jus' intended to be lived in. When he got to the fust landin' he met a gentleman, and give him the letter. When I saw this I was took aback, for I thought it was his lords.h.i.+p a-comin'

down, an' I didn't want to have no interview with a earl at his front door. But the second glance I took at him showed me that it wasn't him.

He opened it, notwithstanding', an' read it all through from beginnin'

to end. When he had done it he looked down at me, and then he went back up stairs a-follered by the flunk, which last pretty soon came down ag'in an' told me I was to go up. I don't think I ever felt so much like a wringed-out dish-cloth as I did when I went up them palatial stairs. But I tried to think of things that would prop me up. P'r'aps, I thought, my ancient ancestors came to this land with his'n; who knows? An' I might 'a' been switched off on some female line, an' so lost the name an' estates. At any rate, be brave! With such thoughts as these I tried to stiffen my legs, figgeratively speakin'. We went through two or three rooms (I hadn't time to count 'em) an' then I was showed into the lofty presence of the earl. He was standin' by the fire-place, an' the minnit my eyes lit upon him I knowed it was him.”

”Why, how was that?” cried Euphemia and myself almost in the same breath.

”I knowed him by his wax figger,” continued Pomona, ”which Jone and I see at Madame Tussaud's wax-works. They've got all the head people of these days there now, as well as the old kings and the pizeners. The clothes wasn't exactly the same, though very good on each, an' there was more of an air of shortenin' of the spine in the wax figger than in the other one. But the likeness was awful strikin'.

”'Well, my good woman,' says he, a-holdin' my open letter in his hand, 'so you want to see a lord, do you?'”

”What on earth did you write to him?” exclaimed Euphemia. ”You mustn't go on a bit further until you have told what was in your letter.”

”Well,” said Pomona, ”as near as I can remember, it was like this: '_William, Lord Cobden, Earl of Sorsets.h.i.+re an' Derry. Dear Sir. Bein'

brought up under Republican inst.i.tutions, in the land of the free--'_ I left out '_the home of the brave_' because there wasn't no use crowin'

about that jus' then--'_I haven't had no oppertunity of meetin' with a individual of lordly blood. Ever since I was a small girl takin' books from the circulatin' libery, an' obliged to read out loud with divided sillerbles, I've drank in every word of the tales of lords and other n.o.bles of high degree, that the little shops where I gen'rally got my books, an' some with the pages out at the most excitin' parts, contained. An' so I asks you now, Sir Lord--_' I did put _humbly_, but I scratched that out, bein' an American woman--'_to do me the favor of a short audience. Then, when I reads about n.o.ble earls an' dukes in their brilliant lit halls an' castles, or mounted on their champin'

chargers, a-leadin' their trusty hordes to victory amid the glittering minarets of fame, I'll know what they looks like._' An' then I signed my name.

”'Yes, sir,' says I, in answer to his earls.h.i.+p's question,” said Pomona, taking up her story, ”'I did want to see one, upon my word.'

”'An' now that you have seen him,' says he, 'what do you think of him?'

”Now, I had made up my mind before I entered this ducal pile, or put my foot on one ancestral stone, that I'd be square and honest through the whole business, and not try no counterfeit presentiments with the earl.