Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

[277] raiders came down, valleys where they hid the cattle they had lifted; he showed me where their fastnesses were, and where “Tintock tap” was, on which a lassie might doubtless still be wooed if she had siller enough. By degrees we came to literature in general, and my companion proved to be the late Principal Shairp, professor of poetry at Oxford, and author of books well known in America.

I encountered still another instance of the curious social enigma then afforded by the American in England, when I was asked, soon after my arrival, to breakfast with Mr. Froude, the historian. As I approached the house I saw a lady speaking to some children at the door, and she went in before I reached it. Being admitted, I saw another lady glance at me from the region of the breakfast parlor, and was also dimly aware of a man who looked over the stairway. After I had been cordially received and was seated at the breakfast-table, it gradually came out that the first lady was Mrs. Froude's sister, the second was Mrs. Froude herself, while it was her husband who had looked over the stairs; and I learned furthermore that they had severally decided that, whoever I was, I could not be the American gentleman who was expected at breakfast. What was their conception of an American,--what