"And done by her own hand," said the owner of the shoe, with a certain
proprietary pride.

Again the laughter broke out. "Do your princesses engage in shoemaking?"
asked a third gamester as he pushed into the ring. "Sure it must be a
rare land. Prithee, what doth the king in handicraft? Doth he take to
saddlery, or, perhaps, smithing?"

"Have done thy jests, Wilson," cried Pembroke. "Mayhap there is somewhat
to be learned here of this New World and of our dear cousins, the
French. Go on, tell us, Monsieur du Mesne--as I think you call yourself,
sir?--tell us more of your new country of ice and snow, of princesses
and little shoes."

The original speaker went a bit sullen, what with his wine and the jests
of his companions. "I'll tell ye naught," said he. "Go see for
yourselves, by leave of Louis."

"Come now," said Pembroke, conciliatingly. "We'll all admit our
ignorance. 'Tis little we know of our own province of Virginia, save
that Virginia is a land of poverty and tobacco. Wealth--faith, if ye
have wealth in your end of the continent, 'tis time we English fought ye
for it."

"Methinks you English are having enough to do here close at home,"
sneered Du Mesne. "I have heard somewhat of Steinkirk, and how ye ran
from the half-dressed gentlemen of France."

Dark looks followed this bold speech, which cut but too closely to the
quick of English pride. Pembroke quelled the incipient outcry with
calmer speech.

"Peace, friends," said he. "'Tis not arms we argue here, after all. We
are but students at the feet of Monsieur du Mesne, who hath returned
from foreign parts. Prithee, sir, tell us more."

"Tell ye more--and if I did, would ye believe it? What if I tell ye of
great rivers far to the west of the Ottawa; of races as strange to my
princess's people as we are to them; of streams whose sands run in gold,
where diamonds and sapphires are to be picked up as ye like? If I told
ye, would ye believe?"

The martial hearts and adventurous souls of the circle about him began
to show in the heightened color and closer crowding of the young men to
the table. Silence fell upon the group.

"Ye know nothing, in this old rotten world, of what there is yet to be
found in America," cried Du Mesne. "For myself, I have been no farther
than the great falls of the Ontoneagrea--a mere trifle of a cataract,
gentlemen, into which ye might pitch your tallest English cathedral and
sink it beyond its pinnacle with ease. Yet I have sp