“What good fortune!” she said. “What pleasure to meet with Americans in such a nest of—such a nest of——” She looked helplessly at us, seemingly at a loss.

Thinking to test her sympathies, I suggested “Lobster-backs,” an epithet New Englanders had applied to the English for many years.

She seemed prettily shocked, and looked at me roguishly. “Such a word!” Then she accepted it. “In such a nest of lobster-backs: yes! I feared when we came here a few days since, that I would be the only American in the entire country. My uncle, you see, is Canadian: Mr. Leonard.”

Mr. Leonard bowed to us and smiled. Already we had come to take his silence for granted, just as did his niece, who was quick to supply the words he seemed to find such difficulty in saying.

She nodded brightly at him, explaining him to us as she might have explained a bit of jewelry, unable to speak for itself. “A true Canadian, disgusted with the actions of these terrible English.”

Her own name, she added, was more formidable than her uncle’s. “It’s French, and you may find it troublesome. Marie de Sabrevois. You must say it, please.” I did so, and found nothing difficult about it.

“But,” she told us, “I’m not at all French, in spite of my name. I’m entirely American—entirely. When you read a portion of your letter through the ham—and that was droll—I heard your home is in the Province of Maine.”

“Arundel,” I said.

“Yes: I do not know that place.” She mispronounced it prettily. “You know Albany, perhaps? Or Poughkeepsie and New York?”

We shook our heads.

“That’s where I have lived,” she told us. “In all those places. Also a very little in Quebec, with my father. He was a fur merchant, my father was. A great fur merchant.” She sighed. “He is dead: killed by the English. That’s why I am here in England—to settle his affairs.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table to me, an appealing picture. “I’m sure it’s the same with you as with me. You’re eager to go home and be away from these terrible people—these terrible English!”

“Yes,” I said.

Nathaniel coughed delicately behind his hand, an affectation he had acquired at Harvard. “You’ll find worse places to be than here; worse people, too.” He made it plain he thought I had received enough of the lady’s attention, and wished some for himself. “We can’t go home, anyway. We sold our ship.”

Marie de Sabrevois looked at him curiously. “Your ship? You own a ship?”