ness arrangements and discussions had lasted well into the evening.
"What he will want is a lodging where he can have frequent sight and
speech of you. How I dread him! How I resent his sharing of you with us!
I don't know why I use the word 'sharing,' forsooth! There is nothing
half so fair and just in his majesty's greedy mind. Well, it's the way
of the world; only it is odd, with the universe of women to choose from,
that he must needs take you. Strathdee seems the most desirable place
for him, if he has a macintosh and rubber boots. Inchcaldy is another
town near here that we didn't see at all--that might do; the draper's
wife says that we can send fine linen to the laundry there."

"Inchcaldy? Oh yes, I think we heard of it in Edinburgh--at least I have
some association with the name: it has a fine golf-course, I believe,
and very likely we ought to have looked at it, although for my part I
have no regrets. Nothing can equal Pettybaw; and I am so pleased to be a
Scottish householder! Aren't we just like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray?

'They were twa bonnie lassies;
They biggit a bower on yon burnbrae,
An' theekit it ower wi' rashes.'

Think of our stone-floored kitchen, Salemina! Think of the real box-bed
in the wall for little Jane Grieve! She will have red-gold hair, blue
eyes, and a pink cotton gown. Think of our own cat! Think how Francesca
will admire the 1602 lintel! Think of our back garden, with our own
'neeps' and vegetable marrows growing in it! Think how they will envy
us at home when they learn that we have settled down into Scottish
yeowomen!

'It's oh, for a patch of land!
It's oh, for a patch of land!
Of all the blessings tongue can name,
There's nane like a patch of land!'

Think of Willie coming to step on the floor and look at the bed and
stroke the cat and covet the lintel and walk in the garden and weed the
turnips and pluck the marrows that grow by our ain wee theekit hoosie!"

"Penelope, you appear slightly intoxicated! Do close the window and come
to bed."

"I am intoxicated with the caller air of Pettybaw," I rejoined, leaning
on the window-sill and looking at the stars, while I thought: "Edinburgh
was beautiful; it is the most beautiful grey city in the world; it
lacked one thing only to make it perfect, and Pettybaw will have that
before many moons:--

'Oh, Willie's rare an' Willie's fair
An' Willie's wondrous bonny;
An' Willie's hecht to marry me