e Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th October
1712. All that desire... let them repair to the Coach and Horses at the
head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black Swan in Holborn every
other Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a coach
which performs the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppage
(if God permits) having eighty able horses. Each passenger paying 4
pounds, 10 shillings for the whole journey, allowing each 20 lbs. weight
and all above to pay 6 pence per lb. The coach sets off at six in the
morning' (you could never have caught it, Francesca!), 'and is performed
by Henry Harrison.' And here is a 'modern improvement,' forty-two years
later. In July 1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach
drawn by six horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a 'new,
genteel, two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light
and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers
to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant,
Hosea Eastgate. CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO THEIR
VALUE.'"

"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I contemplatively;
"but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in 1712 instead of a
century and three-quarters later."

"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca politely,
but with no real desire to know.

"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina
intelligently.

"Which Union?"

"Whose Union?"

Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on
our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such
complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the brighter.

"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.

"What Anne?"

"I know all about Anne!" exclaimed Francesca. "She came from the
Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and had
something to do with Jingling Geordie in The Fortunes of Nigel. It is
marvellous how one's history comes back to one!"

"Quite marvellous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in which
it comes back is marvellous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you
know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds,
girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged.
Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland,
who was James I