this," said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at
random when the train started.

"'The Edinburgh and London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th
October 1712. All that desire ... let them repair to the Coach and

Horses at the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black
Swan in Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may

be received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen
days without any stoppage (if God permits) having eighty able

horses. Each passenger paying 4 pounds, 10 shillings for the whole
journey, allowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6 pence

per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning' (you could never
have caught it, Francesca!), `and is performed by Henry Harrison.'

And here is a `modern improvement,' forty-two years later. In July
1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stage-coach drawn by six

horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a `new, genteel,
two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and

easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers
to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful

servant, Hosea Eastgate. CARE IS TAKEN OF SMALL PARCELS ACCORDING TO
THEIR VALUE.'"

"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I
contemplatively; "but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in

1712 instead of a century and three-quarters later."
"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca

politely, but with no real desire to know.
"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina

intelligently.
"Which Union?"

"Whose Union?"
Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy

on our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of
such complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the

brighter.
"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.

"What Anne?"
"I know all about Anne!" exclaimed Francesca. "She came from the

Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and
had something to do with Jingling Geordie in The Fortunes of Nigel.

It is marvellous how one's history comes back to one!"
"Quite marvellous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in

which it comes back is marvellous. 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."

"Which William and Mary?"
"What Georges?"

But this was too much even for Salemina's equanimity, and she
retired behind her book in dignifieddispleasure, while Francesca

and I meekly looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried
to decide whether `b.1665' meant born or beheaded.

Chapter II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat.
The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland

was of the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate
queen, when,

`After a youth by woes o'ercast,
After a thousand sorrows past,

The lovely Mary once again
Set foot upon her native plain.'

John Knox records of those memorable days: `The very face of heaven
did manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with

hir--to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety--for in the
memorie of man never was seen a more dolorous face of the heavens

than was seen at her arryvall . . . the myst was so thick that
skairse micht onie man espy another; and the sun was not seyn to

shyne two days befoir nor two days after.'
We could not see Edina's famous palaces and towers because of the

haar, that damp, chilling, drizzling, dripping fog or mist which the
east wind summons from the sea; but we knew that they were there,

shrouded in the heart of that opaque, mysterious greyness, and that
before many hours our eyes would feast upon their beauty.

Perhaps it was the weather, but I could think of nothing but poor
Queen Mary! She had drifted into my imagination with the haar, so

that I could fancy her homesick gaze across the water as she
murmured, `Adieu, ma chere France! Je ne vous verray jamais plus!'-

-could fancy her saying as in Allan Cunningham's verse:-
`The sun rises bright in France,

And fair sets he;
But he hath tint the blithe blink he had

In my ain countree.'
And then I recalled Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that

`serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks'; that
singing, `in bad accord,' of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd

beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot
flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby

for poor Mary, half Frenchwoman and all Papist!
It is but just to remember the `indefatigable and undissuadable'

John Knox's statement, `the melody lyked her weill, and she willed
the same to be continewed some nightis after.' For my part,

however, I distrust John Knox's musical feeling, and incline
sympathetically to the Sieur de Brantome's account, with its `vile

fiddles' and `discordant psalms,' although his judgment was
doubtless a good deal depressed by what he called the si grand

brouillard that so dampened the spirits of Mary's French retinue.
Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy

myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but
nineteen; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young

husband as one who could not be comforted; and that she must soon
have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another

of the sour comments of the time is, `Our Queen weareth the dule
[weeds], but she can dance daily, dule and all!'

These were my thoughts as we drove through visible" target="_blank" title="a.看不见的；无形的">invisible streets in the
Edinburgh haar, turned into what proved next day to be a Crescent,

and drew up to an visible" target="_blank" title="a.看不见的；无形的">invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming
over a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We

alighted, and though we could scarcely see the driver's outstretched
hand, he was quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three

shillings.
The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M'Collop to the door,--good

(or at least pretty good) Mrs. M'Collop, to whose apartments we had
been commended by English friends who had never occupied them.

Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within-doors, and a
cheery (one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private

drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that,
notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small

tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs,--not forgetting a dainty five-
o'clock tea equipage,--we might have given a party in the remaining

space.
"If this is a typical Scotch lodging, I like it; and if it is Scotch

hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked
for, then I call it simply Arabian in character!" and Salemina drew

off her damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze.
"And isn't it delightful that the bill doesn't come in for a whole

week?" asked Francesca. "We have only our English experiences on