At their places in the procession Mrs. Wainwright and
Marjory were animatedly talking to Nora and the old lady on
the little pony. They had at first suffered great amazement at the
voluntary presence of the old lady, but she was there really
because she knew no better. Her colossal ignorance took the
form, mainly, of a most obstreperous patriotism, and indeed she
always acted in a foreign country as if she were the
special commissioner of the President, or perhaps as a
special commissioner could not act at all. She was
very aggressive, and when any of the travelling
arrangements in Europe did not suit her ideas she was
won't to shrilly exclaim: " Well ! New York is good
enough for me." Nora, morbidly afraid that her ex-
pense bill to the Daylight would not be large enough,
had dragged her bodily off to Greece as her companion,
friend and protection. At Arta they had heard of the
grand success of the Greek army. The Turks had not
stood for a moment before that gallant and terrible
advance; no; they had scampered howling with fear
into the north. Jannina would fall-well, Jannina
would fall as soon as the Greeks arrived. There was
no doubt of it. The correspondent and her friend,
deluded and hurried by the light-hearted confidence
of the Greeks in Arta, had hastened out then on a
regular tourist's excursion to see Jannina after its
capture. Nora concealed from her friend the fact
that the editor of the Daylight particularly wished
her to see a battle so that she might write an article
on actual warfare from a woman's point of view.
With her name as a queen of comic opera, such an
article from her pen would be a burning, sensation.
Coleman had been the first to point out to Nora that instead
of going on a picnic to Jannina, she had better run back to
Arta. When the old lady heard that they had not been entirely
safe, she was furious with Nora. "The idea!" she exclaimed to
Mrs. Wainwright. "They might have caught us! They might have
caught us ! "
" Well," said Mrs. Wainwright. " I verily believe they would
have caught us if it had not been for Mr. Coleman."
" Is he the gentleman on the fine horse?"
" Yes; that's him. Oh, he has been sim-plee splendid. I
confess I was a little bit-er-surprised. He was in college under
my husband. I don't know that we thought very great things of
him, but if ever a man won golden opinions he has done so from
us."
" Oh, that must be the Coleman who is such a great friend of
Nora's."
"Yes?" said Mrs. Wainwright insidiously. "Is he? I didn't
know. Of course he knows so many people." Her mind had been
suddenly illumined by the old lady and she thought
extravagantly of the arrival of Nora upon the scene. She
remained all sweetness to the old lady. "Did you know he was
here? Did you expect to meet him? I seemed such a delightful
coincidence." In truth she was being subterraneously clever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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