The fog lifted. The
morning was new-born and clean, and they fairly sang as they
clattered up to an old coaching inn and demanded breakfast of an
amazed rustic pottering about the inn yard in a smock. He did
not know that to a "thrilling" Mr. Wrenn he--or perhaps it was his
smock--was the hero in an English melodrama. Nor, doubtless,
did the English crisp bacon and eggs which a sleepy housemaid
prepared know that they were theater properties. Why, they were
English eggs, served at dawn in an English inn--a stone-floored
raftered room with a starling hanging in a little cage of withes
outside the latticed window. And there were no trippers to
bother them! (Mr. Wrenn really used the word "trippers" in his
cogitations; he had it from Istra.)
When he informed her of this occult fact she laughed, "You know
mighty well, Mouse, that you have a sneaking wish there were one
Yankee stranger here to see our glory."
"I guess that's right."
"But maybe I'm just as bad."
For once their tones had not been those of teacher and pupil,
but of comrades.
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