as well as his company manners. In everything that related to the

distinctively religious side of the proceedings we sought advice
from Mrs. M'Collop, while we went to Lady Baird for definite

information on secular matters. We also found an unexpected ally in
the person of our own ex-Moderator's niece, Miss Jean Dalziel

(Deeyell). She has been educated in Paris, but she must always have
been a delightfully breezy person, quite too irrepressible to be

affected by Scottish haar or theology. "Go to the Assemblies, by
all means," she said, "and be sure and get places for the heresy

case. These are no longer what they once were,--we are getting
lamentably weak and gelatinous in our beliefs,--but there is an

unusually nice one this year; the heretic is very young and
handsome, and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail to be

presented at the Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a
capital preparation for the ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham

Palace. `Nothing fit to wear'? You have never seen the people who
go or you wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the

breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanentinjury so long
as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,--

whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I
avow, as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that

to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic
explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table of honour--"

"The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honour; unless
she is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks

to its centre," interpolated Francesca impertinently.
"It is true," continued Miss Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a

minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid
appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be,

and flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your
soul!"

"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who
was present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistakes she makes

in her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them
as conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal

meetings together of people who wish to be better acquainted."
"Hot bacon and eggs would be no harm to friendship," answered Miss

Dalziel, with an affectionate moue.
"Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-

Moderator, "and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young
ladies who have been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts."

It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical
church matters, although we seldom agree with her `opeenions' after

we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on
a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does

she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but
roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,--

often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly
indigestible `stane.'

She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she
is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large

and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the
`meenistry' creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's

sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now
see that she is truth itself.

"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop,
spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear

the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been
there for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--AFF AN'

ON!' with an emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the
times when he is `aff' outnumber those when he is `on' . . . "Ye

havena heard auld Dr. B yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet
tidily at the foot.) "He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B,

forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when
he's that wearisome a body canna heed him wi'oot takin' peppermints

to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seeventy-sax, a better mon than
the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee-bit,

finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole
him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an' expoundin' the gude

Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler,
but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' ower, nae bit-

pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no
soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clishmaclavers! . . . Mr. C?"

(Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first
blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind aince he prayed for oor

Free Assembly, an' then he turned roon' an' prayed for the
Estaiblished, maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon

is Mr. C! . . . Mr. D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though
he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he

reads his sermon frae the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', `If a
meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoorse, nae mair can the

congregation be expectit to mind it.' . . . Mr. E? He's my ain
meenister." (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is

shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip
at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks).

"Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond `oo [wool] wi'
a guid twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna

kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit." (To `gang
forrit' is to take the communion). "Dr. F? I ca' him the greetin'

doctor! He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an'
greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecially o' his ain

congregation. He's waur sin his last wife sickened an' slippit
awa'. `Twas a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat

nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the thurd Mistress F!
E'nboro could `a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm

thinkin'."
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, according to His good

will and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the
bolster and laid it in place.

"Ou ay," responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane
over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike,--"ou ay, but

whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!"
Chapter XI. Holyrood awakens.

We were to make our bow to the Lord High Commissioner and the
Marchioness of Heatherdale in the evening, and we were in a state of

republican excitement at 22 Breadalbane Terrace.
Francesca had surprised us by refusing to be presented at this semi-

royal Scottish court. "Not I," she said. "The Marchioness
represents the Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has

raised the standards of admission, and requires us to `back out' of
the throne-room. I don't propose to do that without London

training. Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own
President's receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don't

feel like coping with the Reverend Ronald to-night!" (Lady Baird
was to take us under her wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir

Robert being in Inveraray).
"Sally, my dear," I said, as Francesca left the room with a bottle

of smelling-salts somewhat ostentatiously in evidence, "methinks the
damsel doth protest too much. In other words, she devotes a good

deal of time and discussion to a gentleman whom she heartily
dislikes. As she is under your care, I will direct your attention

to the following points:-
"Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of

international alliances.
"He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian.

"His father was a famous old-school doctor; Francesca is a
homoeopathist.