"Surely it is no disgrace to represent either England or America.

They are not at war.
Why should we be ?" We gazed steadily at each other.
The old servant had disappeared when at length her mistress chose to pick up my unregarded document.

Deliberately she broke the seal and read.

An instant later, her anger gone, she was laughing gaily.
"See," said she, bubbling over with her mirth; "I pick up a stranger, who should say good-by at my curb; my apartments are forced; and this is what this stranger asks: that I shall go with him, to-night, alone, and otherwise unattended, to see a man, perhaps high in your government, but a stranger to me, at his own rooms-alone! Oh, la! la! Surely these Americans hold me high!" "Assuredly we do, Madam," I answered.

"Will it please you to go in your own carriage, or shall I return with one for you ?" She put her hands behind her back, holding in them the opened message from my chief.