e that she cannot get on better with that charming
fellow?" murmured Salemina, as she passed me the sugar for my second
cup.

"If your present symptoms of blindness continue, Salemina," I said,
searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a
plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If
you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca
is getting on with Mr. Macdonald, you would now be Mrs.--Somebody."

"Do you know, doctor," asked the Dominie, "that Miss Hamilton shed
real tears at Holyrood, the other night, when the band played 'Bonnie
Charlie's now awa'?"

"They were real," I confessed, "in the sense that they certainly were
not crocodile tears; but I am somewhat at a loss to explain them from
a sensible, American standpoint. Of course my Jacobitism is purely
impersonal, though scarcely more so than yours, at this late day; at
least it is merely a poetic sentiment, for which Caroline, Baroness
Nairne is mainly responsible. My romantic tears came from a vision of
the Bonnie Prince as he entered Holyrood, dressed in his short tartan
coat, his scarlet breeches and military boots, the star of St. Andrew
on his breast, a blue ribbon over his shoulder, and the famous blue
velvet bonnet and white cockade. He must have looked so brave and
handsome and hopeful at that moment, and the moment was so sadly
brief, that when the band played the plaintive air I kept hearing the
words,--

'Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he no come back again.'

He did come back again to me that evening, and held a phantom levee
behind the Marchioness of Heatherdale's shoulder. His 'ghaist' looked
bonnie and rosy and confident, yet all the time the band was playing
the requiem for his lost cause and buried hopes."

I looked towards the fire to hide the moisture that crept again into
my eyes, and my glance fell upon Francesca sitting dreamily on a
hassock in front of the cheerful blaze, her chin in the hollow of her
palm, and the Reverend Ronald standing on the hearth-rug gazing at
her, the poker in his hand, and his heart, I regret to say, in such an
exposed position on his sleeve that even Salemina could have seen it
had she turned her eyes that way.

Jean Dalziel broke the momentary silence: "I am sure I never hear the
last two lines,--

'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?'

without a lump in my throat," and she hummed the lovely