st heart never feel
distress!' 'May the hand of charity wipe the eye of sorrow!'"

"I can never do it in the world!" I ejaculated. "Oh, one ought never,
never to leave one's own country! A light-minded and cynical English
gentleman told me that I should frequently be called upon to read
hymns and recite verses of Scripture at family dinners in Edinburgh
and I hope I am always prepared to do that; but nobody warned me that
I should have to evolve epigrammatic sentiments on the spur of the
moment."

My confusion was so evident that the good dean relented and confessed
that he was imposing upon my ignorance. He made me laugh heartily at
the story of a poor dominie at Arndilly. He was called upon in his
turn, at a large party, and having nothing to aid him in an exercise
to which he was new save the example of his predecessors, lifted his
glass after much writhing and groaning and gave, "The reflection of
the moon in the cawm bosom of the lake!"

At this moment Lady Baird glanced at me, and we all rose to go into
the drawing-room; but on the way from my chair to the door, whither
the earl escorted me, he said gallantly, "I suppose the men in your
country do not take champagne at dinner? I cannot fancy their craving
it when dining beside an American woman!"

That was charming, though he did pay my country a compliment at my
expense. One likes, of course, to have the type recognized as fine; at
the same time his remark would have been more flattering if it had
been less sweeping.

When I remember that he offered me his ancestors, asked me to drive
two hundred and eighty miles, and likened me to champagne, I feel
that, with my heart already occupied and my hand promised, I could
hardly have accomplished more in the course of a single dinner-hour.

VII

Francesca's experiences were not so fortunate; indeed, I have never
seen her more out of sorts than she was during our long chat over the
fire, after our return to Breadalbane Terrace.

"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina
of the young lady, as she flung her unoffending wrap over the back of
a chair. "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"

"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable,
condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"

"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her
favorite nephew, and says he is full of charm."

"He is just as full of charm as he was when I