Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

“ A village in Scotland is the only place I can fancy where housekeeping becomes an enthralling occupation. All drudgery disappears in a rosy glow of unexpected, unique, and stimulating conditions. I would rather superintend Miss Grieve and cause the light of amazement to gleam ten times daily in her humid eye, than lead a cotillion with Willie Beresford. I would rather do the marketing for our humble breakfasts and teas, or talk over the day's luncheons and dinners with Mistress Brodie of the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, than go to the opera. ”

“ We have traveled 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 coast 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. ”

“ Hélène, help me 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, Hélène,—she has too much color 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, Hélène, fetch the silver cup and the cake—no, they are on the stage; take her train, Hélène. Miss Hamilton, run and open the doors ahead of them, please. I won't go down for this tableau. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Look at the bust of Sir Walter in the hall, and the chromo of Melrose Abbey by moonlight! Look at the lintel over the front door, with a ship, moon, stars, and 1602 carved in the stone! What is food to all this?"
Salemina agreed that it was hardly worth considering; and in truth so many landladies had refused to receive her as a tenant that day, that her spirits were rather low, and she was uncommonly flexible.
"It is the lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose," remarked the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot reproduce. ”

“ We buy our tea of the Pettybaw grocer, some of our cups are cracked, the teapot is of earthenware, Miss Grieve disapproves of all social tea-fuddles and shows it plainly when she brings in the tray, and the room is so small that some of us overflow into the hall or the garden; it matters not; there is some fatal charm in our humble hospitality. At four o'clock one of us is obliged to be, like Sister Anne, on the housetop; and if company approaches, she must descend and speed to the plumber's for sixpenny worth extra of cream. ”

“ Is she a princess or only an American?"
I glanced at the Reverend Ronald. I imagined he looked pale; at any rate, he was biting his under lip nervously and I believe he was in fancy laying his serious, Scottish, allopathic, Presbyterian heart at Francesca's gay, American, homoeopathic, Swedenborgian feet.
"It is a pity Miss Monroe is such an ardent republican," he said, with unconcealed bitterness; "otherwise she ought to be a duchess. I never saw a head that better suited a coronet, nor, if you will pardon me, one that contained more caprices." ”

“ 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 fishtail 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. ”

“ Who will keep warm our national and local pride by judicious enthusiasm?"
"I think the national and local pride may be counted on to exist without any artificial stimulants," dryly observed Francesca, whose spirit is not in the least quenched by approaching departure.
"Perhaps," answered the Reverend Ronald; "but at any rate, you, Miss Monroe, will always be able to reflect that you have never been responsible even for its momentary inflation!"
"Isn't it strange that she cannot get on better with that charming fellow?" murmured Salemina, as she passed me the sugar for my second cup. ”

“ At dusk especially, small processions of children and young people walked by our cottage and gave shy glances at the windows.
Finding Miss Grieve in an unusually amiable mood, I inquired the probable cause of this phenomenon. She would not go so far as to give any judicial opinion, but offered a few conjectures.
It might be the tirling-pin; it might be the white satin ribbons on the curtains; it might be the guitars and banjos; it might be the bicycle crate; it might be the profusion of plants; it might be the continual feasting and revelry; it might be the blazing fires in a Pettybaw summer. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Macdonald made himself and us very much at home by stirring the fire; whereupon Francesca embarrassed him by begging him not to touch it unless he could do it properly, which, she added, seemed quite unlikely, from the way in which he handled the poker.
"What will Edinburgh do without you?" he asked, turning towards us with flattering sadness in his tone. "Who will hear our Scotch stories, never suspecting their hoary old age? Who will ask us questions to which we somehow always know the answers? Who will make us study and reverence anew our own landmarks? ”

“ XIII "I think I was never so completely under the spell of a country as I am of Scotland." I made this acknowledgment freely, but I knew that it would provoke comment from my compatriots.
"Oh yes, my dear, you have been just as spellbound before, only you don't remember it," replied Salemina promptly. "I have never seen a person more perilously appreciative or receptive than you."
"'Perilously' is just the word," chimed in Francesca delightedly; "when you care for a place you grow porous, as it were, until after a time you are precisely like blotting-paper. ”

“ Under this appalling fire of inspection, some of the victims waddle, some hurry; some look up and down nervously, others glance over the shoulder as if dreading to be apprehended; some turn red, others pale, according to complexion and temperament; some swing their arms, others trip on their gowns; some twitch the buttons of a glove, or tweak a flower or a jewel. Francesca rose superior to all these weaknesses, and I doubt if the Gallery of the Kings ever served as a background for anything lovelier or more high-bred than that untitled slip of a girl from "the States." ”

“ Francesca is a homoeopathist.
"He is serious; Francesca is gay.
"I think, under all the circumstances, their acquaintance will bear watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists."
"Nonsense!" returned Salemina brusquely. "You think because you are under the spell of the tender passion yourself that other people are in constant danger. Francesca detests him." ”

“ It is marvelous how one's history comes back to one!"
"Quite marvelous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in which it comes back is marvelous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died a hundred years before the Anne I mean,—the last of the Stuarts, you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the Georges." ”

“ I suppose he has a manse and three or four hundred pounds a year."
"That sum would do nicely for cabs."
"Penelope, you are flippant!"
"I don't mean it, dear; it's only for fun; and it would be so absurd if we should leave Francesca over here as the presiding genius of an Inchcaldy parsonage,—I mean a manse!"
"It isn't as if she were penniless," continued Salemina; "she has fortune enough to assure her own independence, and not enough to threaten his,—the ideal amount. ”

“ There is not a man in the house; even the Boots is a girl, so that 22, Breadalbane Terrace is as truly a castra puellarum as was ever the Castle of Edinburgh with its maiden princesses in the olden time.
We talked with Miss Diggity-Dalgety on the evening of our first day at Mrs. M'Collop's, when she came up to know our commands. As Francesca and Salemina were both in the room, I determined to be as Scotch as possible, for it is Salemina's proud boast that she is taken for a native of every country she visits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As you are extremely pretty, you may possibly succeed; man is human, and I dare say in a month you will be advising him to love somebody more worthy than yourself. (He could easily do it!) Now don't kiss me again, for I am displeased with you; I hate international bickering!"
"So do I," agreed Francesca virtuously, as she plaited her hair, "and there is no spectacle so abhorrent to every sense as a narrow-minded man who cannot see anything outside of his own country. ”

“ Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and she can come through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally you don't want to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of course I can lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I can throw out umbrellas. Would you like your golf-cape, Pen? 'Won'erful blest in weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad as it might be," she added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's toilette should last longer than usual, your wedding need not be indefinitely postponed, for Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this window." ”

“ Many times each day she is wont to sink into one low chair, and, extending her feet in another, close her eyes and murmur undistinguishable plaints which come to us in a kind of rhythmic way. She has such a shaking right hand we have been obliged to give up coffee and have tea, as the former beverage became too unsettled on its journey from the kitchen to the breakfast-table. ”

“ 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 vulgarizing 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. ”