s a window and
fans herself.

Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions. Francesca
loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of these
equally.

Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores
poetry and detests facts.

Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight of
food in the morning.

In the matter of breakfasts, when we have leisure to assert our
individual tastes, Salemina prefers tea, Francesca cocoa, and I,
coffee. We can never, therefore, be served with a large comfortable
pot of anything, but are confronted instead with a caravan of silver
jugs, china jugs, bowls of hard and soft sugar, hot milk, cold milk,
hot water, and cream, while each in her secret heart wishes that the
other two were less _exigeante_ in the matter of diet.

This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in practice
by the exercise of a little flexibility.

As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith's Private Hotel
behind, and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we
indulged in floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had
tasted together in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of
the new experiences awaiting us in the land of heather.

While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I
superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van, and
in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which was, for
a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with
the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it
differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number
of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heart-rending when the
difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars.
What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day; that is, you
understand, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first
rainy day; for that is the way we always interpret the expression.

When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual,
bewailing our extravagance.

Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, snatching the tickets
from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and
I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of
Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last
year we discussed traveling third class and continued to travel first.
G