if there
is anything puzzling in the world, it is these architectural plans and
diagrams. I am going to pin it to the wall and ask the Reverend Ronald
which way it goes."

"Do you mean that he will call upon us?" we cried in concert.

"He asked if he might come and continue our 'stimulating' conversation,
and as Lady Baird was standing by I could hardly say no. I am sure of
one thing: that before I finish with him I will widen his horizon so
that he will be able to see something beside Scotland and his little
insignificant Fifeshire parish! I told him our country parishes in
America were ten times as large as his. He said he had heard that they
covered a good deal of territory, and that the ministers' salaries were
sometimes paid in pork and potatoes. That shows you the style of his
retorts!"

"I really cannot decide which of you was the more disagreeable," said
Salemina; "if he calls, I shall not remain in the room."

"I wouldn't gratify him by staying out," retorted Francesca. "He is
extremely good for the circulation; I think I was never so warm in my
life as when I talked with him; as physical exercise he is equal to
bicycling. The bridge man is coming to call, too. I made him a diagram
of Breadalbane Terrace, and a plan of the hall and staircase, on my
dinner-card. He was distinctly ungrateful; in fact, he remarked that he
had been born in this very house, but would not trust himself to find
his way upstairs with my plan as a guide. He also said the American
vocabulary was vastly amusing, so picturesque, unstudied, and fresh."

"That was nice, surely," I interpolated.

"You know perfectly well that it was an insult."

"Francesca is very like that young man," laughed Salemina, "who,
whenever he engaged in controversy, seemed to take off his flesh and sit
in his nerves."

"I'm not supersensitive," replied Francesca, "but when one's vocabulary
is called picturesque by a Britisher, one always knows he is thinking of
cowboys and broncos. However, I shifted the weight into the other scale
by answering 'Thank you. And your phraseology is just as unusual to
us.' 'Indeed?' he said with some surprise. 'I supposed our method of
expression very sedate and uneventful.' 'Not at all,' I returned, 'when
you say, as you did a moment ago, that you never eat potato to your
fish.' 'But I do not,' he urged obtusely. 'Very likely,' I argued, 'but
the fact is not of so much importance as the preposition. Now I eat
potato WITH m