But I did look at him; and what is worse, he looked at me; and what
is worse yet, he curled himself so tightly round my heart that if he

takes himself away, I shall be cold the rest of my life!"
"Then you are really sure of your love this time, and you have never

advised him to wed somebody more worthy than yourself?" I asked.
"Not I!" she replied. "I wouldn't put such an idea into his head

for worlds! He might adopt it!"
Chapter XXV. A treaty between nations.

`Pale and wan was she when Glenlogie gaed ben,
But red rosy grew she whene'er he sat doun.

Glenlogie.
Just here the front door banged, and a manly step sounded on the

stair. 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 privilegedvisitor 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.
He dropped on one knee beside Francesca, and took her two hands in

his without removing his gaze from her speaking face. She burned,
but did not flinch under the ordeal. The colour leaped into her

cheeks. Love swam in her tears, but was not drowned there; it was
too strong.

"Did you mean it?" he asked.
She looked at him, trembling, as she said, "I meant every word, and

far, far more. I meant all that a girl can say to a man when she
loves him, and wants to be everything she is capable of being to

him, to his work, to his people, and to his--country."
Even this brief colloquy had been embarrassing, but I knew that

worse was still to come and could not be delayed much longer, so I
left the room hastily and with no attempt at apology--not that they

minded my presence in the least, or observed my exit, though I was
obliged to leap over Mr. Macdonald's feet in passing.

I found Mr. Beresford sitting on the stairs, in the lower hall.
"Willie, you angel, you idol, where did you find him?" I exclaimed.

"When I went into the post-office, an hour ago," he replied, "I met
Francesca. She asked me for Macdonald's Edinburgh address, saying

she had something that belonged to him and wished to send it after
him. I offered to address the package and see that it reached him

as expeditiously as possible. `That is what I wish," she said, with
elaborate formality. `This is something I have just discovered,

something he needs very much, something he does not know he has left
behind.' I did not think it best to tell her at the moment that

Macdonald had not yet deserted Inchcaldy."
"Willie, you have the quickest intelligence and the most exquisite

insight of any man I ever met!"
"But the fact was that I had been to see him off, and found him

detained by the sudden illness of one of his elders. I rode over
again to take him the little parcel. Of course I don't know what it

contained; by its size and shape I should judge it might be a
thimble, or a collar-button, or a sixpence; but, at all events, he

must have needed the thing, for he certainly did not let the grass
grow under his feet after he received it! Let us go into the

sitting-room until they come down,--as they will have to, poor
wretches, sooner or later; I know that I am always being brought

down against my will. Salemina wants your advice about the number
of her Majesty's portraits to be hung on the front of the cottage,

and the number of candles to be placed in each window."
It was a half-hour later when Mr. Macdonald came into the room, and,

walking directly up to Salemina, kissed her hand respectfully.
"Miss Salemina," he said, with evidentemotion, "I want to borrow

one of your national jewels for my Queen's crown."
"And what will our President say to lose a jewel from his crown?"

"Good republican rulers do not wear coronets, as a matter of
principle," he argued; "but in truth I fear I am not thinking of her

Majesty--God bless her! This gem is not entirely for state
occasions.

`"I would wear it in my bosom,
Lest my jewel I should tine."'

It is the crowning of my own life rather than that of the British
Empire that engages my present thought. Will you intercede for me

with Francesca's father?"
"And this is the end of all your international bickering?" Salemina

asked teasingly.
"Yes," he answered; "we have buried the hatchet, signed articles of

agreement, made treaties of international comity. Francesca stays
over here as a kind of missionary to Scotland, so she says, or as a

feminine diplomat; she wishes to be on hand to enforce the Monroe
Doctrine properly, in case her government's accredited ambassadors

relax in the performance of their duty."
"Salemina!" called a laughing voice outside the door. "I am

won'erful lifted up. You will be a prood woman the day, for I am
now Estaiblished!" and Francesca, clad in Miss Grieve's Sunday

bonnet, shawl, and black cotton gloves, entered, and curtsied
demurely to the floor. She held, as corroborative detail, a life of

John Knox in her hand, and anything more incongruous than her
sparkling eyes and mutinous mouth under the melancholy head-gear can

hardly be imagined.
"I am now Estaiblished," she repeated. "Div ye ken the new

asseestant frae Inchcawdy pairish? I'm the mon' (a second deep
curtsy here). "I trust, leddies, that ye'll mak' the maist o' your

releegious preevileges, an' that ye'll be constant at the kurruk.--
Have you given papa's consent, Salemina? And isn't it dreadful that

he is Scotch?"
"Isn't it dreadful that she is not?" asked Mr. Macdonald. "Yet to

my mind no woman in Scotland is half as lovable as she!"
"And no man in America begins to compare with him," Francesca

confessed sadly. "Isn't it pitiful that out of the millions of our
own countrypeople we couldn't have found somebody that would do?

What do you think now, Lord Ronald Macdonald, of these dangerous
international alliances?"

"You never understood that speech of mine," he replied, with prompt
mendacity. "When I said that international marriages presented more

difficulties to the imagination than others, I was thinking of your
marriage and mine, and that, I knew from the first moment I saw you,

would be extremely difficult to arrange!"
Chapter XXVI. `Scotland's burning! Look out!'

`And soon a score of fires, I ween,
From height, and hill, and cliff were seen;

. . . . . . .
Each after each they glanced to sight,

As stars arise upon the night,
They gleamed on many a dusky tarn,

Haunted by the lonely earn;
On many a cairn's grey pyramid,

Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid.'
The Lay of the Last Minstrel.

The rain continued at intervals throughout the day, but as the
afternoon wore on the skies looked a trifle more hopeful. It would

be `saft,' no doubt, climbing the Law, but the bonfire must be
lighted. Would Pettybaw be behind London? Would Pettybaw desert

the Queen in her hour of need? Not though the rain were bursting
the well-heads on Cawda; not though the swollen mountain burns

drowned us to the knee! So off we started as the short midsummer
night descended.

We were to climb the Law, wait for the signal from Cawda's lonely
height, and then fire Pettybaw's torch of loyalty to the little lady