LITMIR.BIZ

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passing through, as it were; they may not be familiar with our customs, and we do want our party to be a smart one.’

      “‘Wait until you see them, mamma, and you will probably feel like hiding your diminished head! It is my belief that if an American lady takes a half-hour journey in a tram she carries full evening dress and a diamond necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am not in the least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they will not be too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious and informal, I always feel as if I were being taken by the throat!’”

      “A picturesque, though rather vigorous expression; however, it does no harm to be perfectly dressed,” said Salemina consciously, putting a steel embroidered slipper on the fender and settling the holly in the silver folds of her gown; “then when they discover that we are all well bred, and that one of us is intelligent, it will be the more credit to the country that gave us birth.”

      “Of course it is impossible to tell what country did give YOU birth,” retorted Francesca, “but that will only be to your advantage—away from home!”

      Francesca is inflexibly, almost aggressively American, but Salemina is a citizen of the world. If the United States should be involved in a war, I am confident that Salemina would be in front with the other Gatling guns, for in that case a principle would be at stake; but in all lesser matters she is extremely unprejudiced. She prefers German music, Italian climate, French dressmakers, English tailors, Japanese manners, and American—American something—I have forgotten just what; it is either the ice-cream soda or the form of government,—I can’t remember which.

      “I wonder why they named it ‘Fotheringay’ Crescent,” mused Francesca. “Some association with Mary Stuart, of course. Poor, poor, pretty lady! A free queen only six years, and think of the number of beds she slept in, and the number of trees she planted; we have already seen, I am afraid to say how many. When did she govern, when did she scheme, above all when did she flirt, with all this racing and chasing over the country? Mrs. M’Collop calls Anne of Denmark a ‘sad scattercash’ and Mary an ‘awfu’ gadabout,’ and I am inclined to agree with her. By the way, when she was making my bed this morning, she told me that her mother claimed descent from the Stewarts of Appin, whoever they may be. She apologised for Queen Mary’s defects as if she were a distant family connection. If so, then the famous Stuart charm has been lost somewhere, for Mrs M’Collop certainly possesses no alluring curves of temperament.”

      “I am going to select some distinguished ancestors this very minute, before I go to my first Edinburgh dinner,” said I decidedly. “It seems hard that ancestors should have everything to do with settling our nationality and our position in life, and we not have a word to say. How nice it would be to select one’s own after one had arrived at years of discretion, or to adopt different ones according to the country one chanced to be visiting! I am going to do it; it is unusual, but there must be a pioneer in every good movement. Let me think: do help me, Salemina! I am a Hamilton to begin with; I might be descended from the logical Sir William himself, and thus become the idol of the university set!”

      “He died only about thirty years ago, and you would have to be his daughter: that would never do,” said Salemina. “Why don’t you take Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Melrose and Haddington? He was Secretary of State, King’s Advocate, Lord President of the Court of Session, and all sorts of fine things. He was the one King James used to call ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’!”

      “Perfectly delightful! I don’t care so much about his other titles, but ‘Tam o’ the Cowgate’ is irresistible. I will take him. He was my—what was he?”

      “He was at least your great-great-great-great-grandfather; that is a safe distance. Then there’s that famous Jenny Geddes, who flung her fauld-stule at the Dean in St. Giles’,—she was a Hamilton too, if you fancy her!”

      “Yes, I’ll take her with pleasure,” I responded thankfully. “Of course I don’t know why she flung the stool,—it may have been very reprehensible; but there is always good stuff in stool-flingers; it’s the sort of spirit one likes to inherit in diluted form. Now, whom will you take?”

      “I haven’t even a peg on which to hang a Scottish ancestor,” said Salemina disconsolately.

      “Oh, nonsense! think harder. Anybody will do as a starting-point; only you must be honourable and really show relationship, as I did with Jenny and Tam.”

      “My aunt Mary-Emma married a Lindsay,” ventured Salemina hesitatingly.

      “That will do,” I answered delightedly.

        “‘The Gordons gay in English blude

           They wat their hose and shoon;

          The Lindsays flew like fire aboot

           Till a’ the fray was dune.’

      “You can play that you are one of the famous ‘licht Lindsays,’ and you can look up the particular ancestor in your big book. Now, Francesca, it’s your turn!”

      “I am American to the backbone,” she declared, with insufferable dignity. “I do not desire any foreign ancestors.”

      “Francesca!” I expostulated. “Do you mean to tell me that you can dine with a lineal descendant of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Baronet, of Duart and Morven, and not make any effort to trace your genealogy back further than your parents?”

      “If you goad me to desperation,” she answered, “I will wear an American flag in my hair, declare that my father is a Red Indian, or a pork-packer, and talk about the superiority of our checking system and hotels all the evening. I don’t want to go, any way. It is sure to be stiff and ceremonious, and the man who takes me in will ask me the population of Chicago and the amount of wheat we exported last year,—he always does.”

      “I can’t see why he should,” said I. “I am sure you don’t look as if you knew.”

      “My looks have thus far proved no protection,” she replied sadly. “Salemina is so flexible, and you are so dramatic, that you enter into all these experiences with zest. You already more than half believe in that Tam o’ the Cowgate story. But there’ll be nothing for me in Edinburgh society; it will be all clergymen—”

      “Ministers” interjected Salemina,—“all ministers and professors. My Redfern gowns will be unappreciated, and my Worth evening frocks worse than wasted!”

      “There are a few thousand medical students,” I said encouragingly, “and all the young advocates, and a sprinkling of military men—they know Worth frocks.”

      “And,” continued Salemina bitingly, “there will always be, even in an intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape all the developing influences about them, and remain commonplace, conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting. Never fear, they will find you!”

      This sounds harsh, but nobody minds Salemina, least of all Francesca, who well knows that she is the apple of that spinster’s eye. But at this moment Susanna opens the door (timorously, as if there might be a panther behind it) and announces the cab (in the same tone in which she would announce the beast); we pick up our draperies, and are whirled off by the lamiter to dine with the Scottish nobility.

      Chapter VI. Edinburgh society, past and present

        ‘Wha last beside his chair shall fa’

         He is the king amang us three!’

      It was the Princess Dashkoff who said, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, that of all the societies of men of talent she had met with in her travels, Edinburgh’s was the first in point of abilities.

      One might make the same remark to-day, perhaps, and not depart widely from the truth. One does not find, however, as many noted names as are associated with the annals of the Cape and Poker Clubs or the Crochallan Fencibles, those famous groups of famous men who met for relaxation (and intoxication, I should think) at the old Isle of Man Arms or in Dawney’s Tavern in the Anchor Close. These

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