ust as we have learned to pronounce their names; and the
sound of the scrubbing-brush is heard in the land. In corners where all
was clean and spotless before, Mrs. M'Collop is digging with the broom,
and the maiden Boots is following her with a damp cloth. The stair
carpets are hanging on lines in the back garden, and Susanna, with her
cap rakishly on one side, is always to be seen polishing the stair-rods.
Whenever we traverse the halls we are obliged to leap over pails of
suds, and Miss Diggity-Dalgety has given us two dinners which bore a
curious resemblance to washing-day repasts in suburban America.

"Is it spring house-cleaning?" I ask Mistress M'Collop.

"Na, na," she replies hurriedly; "it's the meenisters."

On the 19th of May we are a maiden castle no longer. Black coats and
hats ring at the bell, and pass in and out of the different apartments.
The hall table is sprinkled with letters, visiting-cards, and programmes
which seem to have had the alphabet shaken out upon them, for they bear
the names of professors, doctors, reverends, and very reverends, and
fairly bristle with A.M.'s, M.A.'s, A.B.'s, D.D.'s, and LL.D.'s. The
voice of family prayer is lifted up from the dining-room floor, and
paraphrases and hymns float down the stairs from above. Their Graces the
Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale will arrive
to-day at Holyrood Palace, there to reside during the sittings of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and to-morrow the Royal
Standard will be hoisted at Edinburgh Castle from reveille to retreat.
His Grace will hold a levee at eleven. Directly His Grace leaves
the palace after the levee, the guard of honour will proceed by the
Canongate to receive him on his arrival at St. Giles' Church, and will
then proceed to Assembly Hall to receive him on his arrival there. The
Sixth Inniskilling Dragoons and the First Battalion Royal Scots will
be in attendance, and there will be Unicorns, Carricks, pursuivants,
heralds, mace-bearers, ushers, and pages, together with the
Purse-bearer, and the Lyon King-of-Arms, and the national anthem, and
the royal salute; for the palace has awakened and is 'mimicking its
past.'

'Should the weather be wet, the troops will be cloaked at the discretion
of the commanding officer.' They print this instruction as a matter of
form, and of course every man has his macintosh ready. The only hope
lies in the fact that this is a national function, and '