the place it rang."

_Rose the Red and White Lily_.

Tea at Rowardennan Castle is an impressive and a delightful
function. It is served by a ministerial-looking butler and a
just-ready-to-be-ordained footman. They both look as if they had
been nourished on the Thirty-Nine Articles, but they know their
business as well as if they had been trained in heathen
lands,--which is saying a good deal, for everybody knows that heathen
servants wait upon one with idolatrous solicitude. However, from the
quality of the cheering beverage itself down to the thickness of the
cream, the thinness of the china, the crispness of the toast, and the
plummyness of the cake, tea at Rowardennan Castle is perfect in every
detail.

The scones are of unusual lightness, also. I should think they would
scarcely weigh more than four, perhaps even five, to a pound; but I am
aware that the casual traveler, who eats only at hotels, and never has
the privilege of entering feudal castles, will be slow to believe this
estimate, particularly just after breakfast.

Salemina always describes a Scotch scone as an aspiring but
unsuccessful soda biscuit of the New England sort. Stevenson, in
writing of that dense black substance, inimical to life, called Scotch
bun, says that the patriotism that leads a Scotsman to eat it will
hardly desert him in any emergency. Salemina thinks that the scone
should be bracketed with the bun (in description, of course, never in
the human stomach), and says that, as a matter of fact, "th'
unconquer'd Scot" of old was not only clad in a shirt of mail, but
well fortified within when he went forth to warfare after a meal of
oatmeal and scones. She insists that the spear which would pierce the
shirt of mail would be turned aside and blunted by the ordinary scone
of commerce; but what signifies the opinion of a woman who eats sugar
on her porridge?

Considering the air of liberal hospitality that hangs about the castle
tea-table, I wonder that our friends do not oftener avail themselves
of its privileges and allow us to do so; but on all dark, foggy, or
inclement days, or whenever they tire of the sands, everybody persists
in taking tea at Bide-a-Wee Cottage.

We buy our tea of the Pettybaw grocer, some of our cups are cracked,
the teapot is of earthenware, Miss Grieve disapproves of all social
tea-fuddles and shows it plainly when she brings in the tray, and the
room is so small that some of us overflow in