t heart never feel distress!' 'May the hand of
charity wipe the eye of sorrow!'"

"I can never do it in the world!" I ejaculated. "Oh, one ought never,
never to leave one's own country! A light-minded and cynical English
gentleman told me that I should frequently be called upon to read hymns
and recite verses of Scripture at family dinners in Edinburgh, and I
hope I am always prepared to do that; but nobody warned me that I should
have to evolve epigrammatic sentiments on the spur of the moment."

My confusion was so evident that the good dean relented and confessed
that he was imposing upon my ignorance. He made me laugh heartily at the
story of a poor dominie at Arndilly. He was called upon in his turn, at
a large party, and having nothing to aid him in an exercise to which
he was new save the example of his predecessors, lifted his glass after
much writhing and groaning and gave, "The reflection of the moon in the
cawm bosom of the lake!"

At this moment Lady Baird glanced at me, and we all rose to go into the
drawing-room; but on the way from my chair to the door, whither the earl
escorted me, he said gallantly, "I suppose the men in your country
do not take champagne at dinner? I cannot fancy their craving it when
dining beside an American woman!"

That was charming, though he did pay my country a compliment at my
expense. One likes, of course, to have the type recognised as fine; at
the same time his remark would have been more flattering if it had been
less sweeping.

When I remember that he offered me his ancestors, asked me to drive two
hundred and eighty miles, and likened me to champagne, I feel that,
with my heart already occupied and my hand promised, I could hardly have
accomplished more in the course of a single dinner-hour.

Chapter VII. Francesca meets th' unconquer'd Scot.

Francesca's experiences were not so fortunate; indeed, I have never seen
her more out of sorts than she was during our long chat over the fire,
after our return to Breadalbane Terrace.

"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina
of the young lady, as she flung her unoffending wrap over the back of a
chair. "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"

"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable,
condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"

"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her
favourite nephew, and says he is full of charm."