invite Miss Hamilton to a Garden Party
at the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 27th of May. _Weather
permitting_."

"The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland admits Miss
Hamilton to any gallery on any day."

"The Marchioness of Heatherdale is At Home on the 26th of May from a
quarter past nine in the evening. Palace of Holyrood House."

"The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland
is At Home in the Library of the New College on Saturday, the 22d May,
from eight to ten in the evening."

"The Moderator asks the pleasure of Miss Hamilton's presence at a
Breakfast to be given on the morning of the 25th of May at Dunedin
Hotel."

We determined to go to all these functions impartially, tracking thus
the Presbyterian lion to his very lair, and observing his home as well
as his company manners. In everything that related to the
distinctively religious side of the proceedings we sought advice from
Mrs. M'Collop, while we went to Lady Baird for definite information on
secular matters. We also found an unexpected ally in the person of our
own ex-Moderator's niece, Miss Jean Dalziel (Deeyell). She has been
educated in Paris, but she must always have been a delightfully breezy
person, quite too irrepressible to be affected by Scottish _haar_ or
theology. "Go to the Assemblies, by all means," she said, "and be sure
and get places for the heresy case. These are no longer what they once
were,--we are getting lamentably weak and gelatinous in our
beliefs,--but there is an unusually nice one this year; the heretic is
very young and handsome, and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail
to be presented at the Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a
capital preparation for the ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham
Palace. 'Nothing fit to wear'? You have never seen the people who go,
or you wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the
breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as
you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,--whichever
one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow as a
Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a
stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic
explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table of honor"--

"The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honor; unless she
is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its
centre," inte