ncy and early youth. You have seen him on
annual visits to your home, and watched him as he performed the usual
parental functions for your younger brothers and sisters. I therefore
repeat, is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?"

"I wouldna say he's no, my lord."

"This is really beyond credence! What do you conceive to be the idea
involved in the word 'father,' Susanna Crum?"

"It depends, my lord."

And this, a few hundred years earlier, would have been the natural and
effective moment for the thumb-screws.

I do not wish to be understood as defending these uncomfortable
appliances. They would never have been needed to elicit information
from me, for I should have spent my nights inventing matter to confess
in the daytime. I feel sure that I should have poured out such floods
of confessions and retractations that if all Scotland had been one
listening ear it could not have heard my tale. I am only wondering if,
in the extracting of testimony from the common mind, the thumb-screw
might not have been more necessary with some nations than with
others.

V

Invitations had been pouring in upon us since the delivery of our
letters of introduction, and it was now the evening of our debut in
Edinburgh society. Francesca had volunteered to perform the task of
leaving cards, ordering a private victoria for the purpose, and
arraying herself in purple and fine linen.

"Much depends upon the first impression," she had said. "Miss
Hamilton's 'party' may not be gifted, but it is well dressed. My hope
is that some of our future hostesses will be looking from the
second-story front windows. If they are, I can assure them in advance
that I shall be a national advertisement."

It is needless to remark that as it began to rain heavily as she was
leaving the house, she was obliged to send back the open carriage, and
order, to save time, one of the public cabs from the stand in the
Terrace.

"Would you mind having the lamiter, being first in line?" asked
Susanna of Salemina, who had transmitted the command.

When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in
complete ignorance,--least of all would she stoop to ask a humble maid
servant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she replied
affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always prefer. I
suppose it is covered?"

Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the
first letter and cards, that he had one club