Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

“ Well, these gods walked, if you can call the inspired gait a walk! If there is a single spinster left in Scotland, it is because none of these ever asked her to marry him. Ah, how grateful I ought to be that I am free to say ‘yes’, if a kilt ever asks me to be his! Poor Penelope, yoked to your commonplace trousered Beresford! (I wish the tram would go faster!) You must capture one of them, by fair means or foul, Penelope, and Salemina and I will hold him down while you paint him,—there they are, they are there somewhere, don’t you hear them? ”

“ There is something else which, like Susanna Crum’s name, is absolutely and ideally right! Stevenson calls it one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. It dominates the whole countryside from water and land. The men who would have the courage to build such a castle in such a spot are all dead; all dead, and the world is infinitely more comfortable without them. ”

“ Beresford’s manners have not been improved by his residence in Paris,” observed Francesca, with resentment in her tone and delight in her eye.
“Mr. Beresford’s manners are always perfect,” said Salemina loyally, “and I have no doubt that this visit to Lady Ardmore will be extremely pleasant for him, though very embarrassing to us. If we are thrown into forced intimacy with a castle” (Salemina spoke of it as if it had fangs and a lashing tail) , “what shall we do in this draper’s hut?”
“Salemina!” I expostulated, “bears will devour you as they did the ungrateful child in the fairy-tale. ”

“ We have travelled together before, Salemina, Francesca, and I, and we know the very worst there is to know about one another. After this point has been reached, it is as if a triangular marriage had taken place, and, with the honeymoon comfortably over, we slip along in thoroughly friendly fashion. I use no warmer word than’friendly’ because, in the first place, the highest tides of feeling do not visit the coasts of triangular alliances; and because, in the second place, ‘friendly’ is a word capable of putting to the blush many a more passionate and endearing one. ”

“ Grand!” cried Sir Patrick, as he stretched himself fifty fathoms below the imaginary surface of the water, and gave explicit ante-mortem directions to the other Scots lords to spread themselves out in like manner.
‘Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, ‘Tis fifty fathoms deep, And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.’
“Oh, it is grand!” he repeated jubilantly. “If I could only be the king and see it all from Dunfermline tower! Could you be Sir Patrick once, do you think, now that I have shown you how?” he asked Francesca. ”

“ It is a pretty spot when the sun shines, a trifle domestic in its air, perhaps, but restful: Miss Grieve’s dish-towels and aprons drying on the currant bushes, the cat playing with a mutton-bone or a fish-tail on the grass, and the little birds perching on the rims of our wash-boiler and water-buckets. It can be reached only by way of the kitchen, which somewhat lessens its value as a pleasure-ground or a rustic retreat, but Willie and I retire there now and then for a quiet chat. ”

“ I said it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, Boston without its twang!”
“Incredible!” cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. “He never could have said ‘twang’ unless you had tried him beyond measure!”
“I dare say I did; he is easily tried,” returned Francesca. ”

“ I murmured slyly.
“To one who has ever eaten a doughnut, the subject is of transcendent interest; and as for one who has not—well, he should be made to feel his limitations,” replied Francesca, with a yawn. “Come, let us forget our troubles in sleep; it is after midnight.”
About half an hour later she came to my bedside, her dark hair hanging over her white gown, her eyes still bright.
“Penelope,” she said softly, “I did not dare tell Salemina, and I should not confess it to you save that I am afraid Lady Baird will complain of me; but I was dreadfully rude to the Reverend Ronald! ”

“ Macdonald has been interested in Francesca from the outset, partly because her beauty and vivacity attracted him, partly because he could keep her in order only by putting his whole mind upon her. On his side, he has succeeded in piquing her into thinking of him continually, though solely, as she fancies, for the purpose of crossing swords with him. If they ever drop their weapons for an instant, and allow the din of warfare to subside so that they can listen to their own heart-beats, they will discover that they love each other to distraction. ”

“ Francesca sat up straight in a big chair, and dried her eyes hastily with her poor little wet ball of a handkerchief; for she knows that Willie is a privileged visitor in my studio. The door opened (it was ajar) and Ronald Macdonald strode into the room. I hope I may never have the same sense of nothingness again! To be young, pleasing, gifted, and to be regarded no more than a fly upon the wall, is death to one’s self-respect. ”

“ It was half-past nine in the evening when Salemina and I drove to Holyrood, our humble cab-horse jogging faithfully behind Lady Baird’s brougham, and it was the new experience of seeing Auld Reekie by lamplight that called up these gay visions of other days,—visions and days so thoroughly our mental property that we could not help resenting the fact that women were hanging washing from the Countess of Eglinton’s former windows, and popping their unkempt heads out of the Duchess of Gordon’s old doorway. ”

“ If one had ever lived in Pittsburg, Fall River, or Kansas City, I should think it would be almost impossible to maintain self-respect in a place like Edinburgh, where the citizens ‘are released from the vulgarising dominion of the hour.’ Whenever one of Auld Reekie’s great men took this tone with me, I always felt as though I were the germ in a half-hatched egg, and he were an aged and lordly cock gazing at me pityingly through my shell. ”

“ Helene, come and dress Miss Monroe; put on her slippers while I lace her gown; run and fetch more jewels,—more still,—she can carry off any number; not any rouge, Helene—she has too much colour now; pull the frock more off the shoulders—it’s a pity to cover an inch of them; pile her hair higher—here, take my diamond tiara, child; hurry, Helene, fetch the silver cup and the cake—no, they are on the stage; take her train, Helene. Miss Hamilton, run and open the doors ahead of them, please. I won’t go down for this tableau. ”

“ Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, ‘Lord Colquhoun,’ a distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom we often met at dinners; then ‘Miss Rowena Colquhoun’; and then in the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door—‘Miss Francesca Van Buren Monroe.’ I involuntarily touched the Reverend Ronald’s shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her tortoise-shell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge.
After presentation, each person has fifteen or twenty feet of awful space to traverse in solitary and defenceless majesty ”

“ Does she remember the thumbscrew of former generations? At all events, she will neither affirm nor deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of tests, hoping to discover finally whether she is an accident, an exaggeration, or a type.
Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she means Francesca’s and mine, for she has none; although we have tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna’s own accent, she comes from the heart of Aberdeenshire, and her intonation is beyond my power to reproduce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I won’t deny the spell of Italy, but I think the spell that Scotland casts over one is quite a different thing, more spiritual, more difficult to break. Italy’s charm has something physical in it; it is born of blue sky, sunlit waves, soft atmosphere, orange sails, and yellow moons, and appeals more to the senses. In Scotland the climate certainly has nought to do with it, but the imagination is somehow made captive. ”

“ It was a simple inquiry, but as I look back upon it from the safe ground of subsequent knowledge I perceive that it had a certain amount of influence upon Francesca’s history. The suggestion would have carried no weight with me for two reasons. In the first place, Salemina is far-sighted. If objects are located at some distance from her, she sees them clearly; but if they are under her very nose she overlooks them altogether, unless they are sufficiently fragrant or audible to address other senses. This physical peculiarity she carries over into her mental processes. ”