nged, mostly by telegraph, in six hours. The
Reverend Ronald and the Friar are to perform the ceremony; a dear old
painter friend of mine, a London R. A., will come to give me away;
Francesca will be my maid of honor; Elizabeth Ardmore and Jean
Dalziel, my bridemaidens; Robin Anstruther, the best man; while Jamie
and Ralph will be kilted pages-in-waiting, and Lady Ardmore will give
the breakfast at the castle.

Never was there such generosity, such hospitality, such wealth of
friendship! True, I have no wedding finery; but as I am perforce a
Scottish bride, I can be married in the white gown with the silver
thistles in which I went to Holyrood.

Mr. Anstruther took a night train to and from London, to choose the
bouquets and bridal souvenirs. Lady Baird has sent the veil, and a
wonderful diamond thistle to pin it on,--a jewel fit for a princess!
With the dear Dominie's note promising to be an usher came an antique
silver casket filled with white heather. And as for the bride-cake, it
is one of Salemina's gifts, chosen as much in a spirit of fun as
affection. It is surely appropriate for this American wedding
transplanted to Scottish soil, and what should it be but a model, in
fairy icing, of Sir Walter's beautiful monument in Princes Street! Of
course Francesca is full of nonsensical quips about it, and says that
the Edinburgh jail would have been just as fine architecturally (it
is, in truth, a building beautiful enough to tempt an aesthete to
crime), and a much more fitting symbol for a wedding-cake,--unless,
indeed, she adds, Salemina intends her gift to be a monument to my
folly.

Pettybaw kirk is trimmed with yellow broom from these dear Scottish
banks and braes; and waving their green fans and plumes up and down
the aisle where I shall walk a bride, are tall ferns and bracken from
Crummylowe Glen, where we played ballads.

As I look back upon it, the life here has been all a ballad from first
to last. Like the elfin Tam Lin,

"The queen o' fairies she caught me
In this green hill to dwell,"

and these hasty nuptials are a fittingly romantic ending to the
summer's poetry. I am in a mood, were it necessary, to be "ta'en by
the milk-white hand," lifted to a pillion on a coal-black charger, and
spirited "o'er the border an' awa'" by my dear Jock o' Hazledean.
Unhappily, all is quite regular and aboveboard; no "lord of Langley
dale" contests the prize with the bridegroom, but the marriage is at
least u