Queen
Mary is supposed to have introduced the Petronella to Scotland, the
tallest man with the brownest knees told me; and Francis I brought
it from Spain to France. It is quite a Spanish sort of dance,
though Scotland has adopted it. I learned a lovely Highland
schottische, too; and after I had seen others dancing the reels
(ought I to say foursomes or eightsomes?) I tried those too, and
got on well, everybody said. But the reel is a dance you can dance
_only_ with your own hair. Mine, which I had pinned up very neatly,
came down. And one of the girls had a curl come _off_. Luckily she
didn't seem to care. She said that accidents would happen on the
best regulated heads.

I do so wonder, by the way, what a Highlander would do if he
happened to be born with legs so crooked that he couldn't wear the
kilt? I suppose he would have to emigrate when very young, or else
stop in bed all his life.

In the morning a dignified piper named Donal played us awake,
walking round and round the house. It delayed my dressing
dreadfully, pausing to gaze him out of sight every time he passed
under my window. I could have cried when he stopped; but he played
more while we had breakfast. I sat next to an Englishman, and would
you believe it, the loveliest lament got on his horrid nerves, and
he said in a low voice, 'Shall I be able to _live_ through it?' If
I had been engaged to him I should have broken it off at once.

The Chieftain has a friend who is a Princess--not a little
'pretend' princess like me, but a real one with a capital 'P'--and
he introduced us to her at a big garden party he was having at his
place on our day there. 'They are going on to Braemar to-morrow,'
he said; and she being as kind and hospitable as he, promptly
invited us to lunch with her at Braemar Castle. Mrs. Vanneck was
pale with joy!

We left from the Chieftain's early in the morning, and Donal
played us away, on the best run Blunderbore has given us yet,
through what I am sure is true Highland scenery. There are castles
dotted about everywhere; and I saw my first Highland
cattle--adorable little shaggy beasts with forelocks like sporans,
and innocent short faces. Their eyes were so wide apart it seemed
that they might be able to see round all the corners. A cherubic
b