ng Francesca the
hardest bed,--as she is the youngest, and wasn't here to choose,--me the
next hardest, and Salemina the best; Francesca the largest looking-glass
and wardrobe, me the best view, and Salemina the largest bath. We bought
housekeeping stores, distributing our patronage equally between the two
grocers; we purchased aprons and dust-cloths from the rival drapers,
engaged bread and rolls from the baker, milk and cream from the plumber
(who keeps three cows), interviewed the flesher about chops; in fact, no
young couple facing love in a cottage ever had a busier or happier time
than we; and at sundown, when Francesca arrived, we were in the pink of
order, standing under our own lintel, ready to welcome her to Pettybaw.
As to being strangers in a strange land, we had a bowing acquaintance
with everybody on the main street of the tiny village, and were on terms
of considerable intimacy with half a dozen families, including dogs and
babies.

Francesca was delighted with everything, from the station (Pettybaw
Sands, two miles away) to Jane Grieve's name, which she thought
as perfect, in its way, as Susanna Crum's. She had purchased a
'tirling-pin,' that old-time precursor of knockers and bells, at an
antique shop in Oban, and we fastened it on the front door at once,
taking turns at risping it until our own nerves were shattered, and
the draper's wife ran down the loaning to see if we were in need of
anything. The twisted bar of iron stands out from the door and the ring
is drawn up and down over a series of nicks, making a rasping noise. The
lovers and ghaists in the old ballads always 'tirled at the pin,' you
remember; that is, touched it gently.

Francesca brought us letters from Edinburgh, and what was my joy,
in opening Willie's, to learn that he begged us to find a place in
Fifeshire, and as near St. Rules or Strathdee as convenient; for in that
case he could accept an invitation he had just received to visit his
friend Robin Anstruther, at Rowardennan Castle.

"It is not the visit at the castle I wish so much, you may be sure," he
wrote, "as the fact that Lady Ardmore will make everything pleasant for
you. You will like my friend Robin Anstruther, who is Lady Ardmore's
youngest brother, and who is going to her to be nursed and coddled after
a baddish accident in the hunting-field. He is very sweet-tempered, and
will get on well with Francesca--"

"I don't see the connection," rudely interrupted that spir