"Isn't it strange that she cannot get on better with that charming
fellow?" murmured Salemina, as she passed me the sugar for my second
cup.

"If your present symptoms of blindness continue, Salemina," I said,
searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a
plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If
you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca is
getting on with Mr. Macdonald, you would now be Mrs.--Somebody."

"Do you know, doctor," asked the Dominie, "that Miss Hamilton shed
real tears at Holyrood the other night, when the band played 'Bonnie
Charlie's noo awa'?'"

"They were real," I confessed, "in the sense that they certainly were
not crocodile tears; but I am somewhat at a loss to explain them from
a sensible, American standpoint. Of course my Jacobitism is purely
impersonal, though scarcely more so than yours, at this late day; at
least it is merely a poetic sentiment, for which Caroline, Baroness
Nairne, is mainly responsible. My romantic tears came from a vision of
the Bonnie Prince as he entered Holyrood, dressed in his short tartan
coat, his scarlet breeches and military boots, the star of St. Andrew on
his breast, a blue ribbon over his shoulder, and the famous blue velvet
bonnet and white cockade. He must have looked so brave and handsome and
hopeful at that moment, and the moment was so sadly brief, that when the
band played the plaintive air I kept hearing the words--

'Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he no come back again.'

He did come back again to me that evening, and held a phantom levee
behind the Marchioness of Heatherdale's shoulder. His 'ghaist' looked
bonnie and rosy and confident, yet all the time the band was playing the
requiem for his lost cause and buried hopes."

I looked towards the fire to hide the moisture that crept again into my
eyes, and my glance fell upon Francesca sitting dreamily on a hassock in
front of the cheerful blaze, her chin in the hollow of her palm, and the
Reverend Ronald standing on the hearth-rug gazing at her, the poker in
his hand, and his heart, I regret to say, in such an exposed position on
his sleeve that even Salemina could have seen it had she turned her eyes
that way.

Jean Dalziel broke the momentary silence: "I am sure I never hear the
last two lines--

'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no' come back again?'

without a lump in my throat," and she hummed