Chapter XIII. The spell of Scotland.
"I think I was never so completely under the spell of a country as I

am of Scotland." I made this acknowledgmentfreely, but I knew that
it would provokecomment 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. Now, there was Italy,

for example. After eight weeks in Venice, you were completely
Venetian, from your fan to the ridiculous little crepe shawl you

wore because an Italian prince had told you that centuries were
usually needed to teach a woman how to wear a shawl, but that you

had been born with the art, and the shoulders! Anything but a
watery street was repulsive to you. Cobblestones? `Ordinario,

duro, brutto! A gondola? Ah, bellissima! Let me float for ever
thus!' You bathed your spirit in sunshine and colour; I can hear

you murmur now, `O Venezia benedetta! non ti voglio lasciar!'"
"It was just the same when she spent a month in France with the

Baroness de Hautenoblesse," continued Salemina. "When she returned
to America, it is no flattery to say that in dress, attitude,

inflection, manner, she was a thorough Parisienne. There was an
elegant superficiality and a superficialelegance about her that I

can never forget, nor yet her extraordinary volubility in a foreign
language,--the fluency with which she expressed her inmost soul on

all topics without the aid of a single irregular verb, for these she
was never able to acquire; oh, it was wonderful, but there was no

affectation about it; she had simply been a kind of blotting-paper,
as Miss Monroe says, and France had written itself all over her."

"I don't wish to interfere with anybody's diagnosis," I interposed
at the first possible moment, "but perhaps after you've both

finished your psychologic investigation the subject may be allowed
to explain herself from the inside, so to speak. 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.

I am not enthralled by the past of Italy or France, for instance."
"Of course you are not at the present moment," said Francesca,

"because you are enthralled by the past of Scotland, and even you
cannot be the slave of two pasts at the same time."

"I never was particularly enthralled by Italy's past," I argued with
exemplary patience, "but the romance of Scotland has a flavour all

its own. I do not quite know the secret of it."
"It's the kilts and the pipes," said Francesca.

"No, the history." (This from Salemina.)
"Or Sir Walter and the literature," suggested Mr. Macdonald.

"Or the songs and ballads," ventured Jean Dalziel.
"There!" I exclaimed triumphantly" target="_blank" title="ad.胜利地；洋洋得意地">triumphantly, "you see for yourselves you have

named avenue after avenue along which one's mind is led in charmed
subjection. Where can you find battles that kindle your fancy like

Falkirk and Flodden and Culloden and Bannockburn? Where a sovereign
that attracts, baffles, repels, allures, like Mary Queen of Scots,--

and where, tell me where, is there a Pretender like Bonnie Prince
Charlie? Think of the spirit in those old Scottish matrons who

could sing--
`I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel,

My rippling-kame and spinning-wheel,
To buy my lad a tartan plaid,

A braidsword, durk and white cockade.'"
"Yes," chimed in Salemina when I had finished quoting, "or that

other verse that goes--
`I ance had sons, I now hae nane,

I bare them toiling sairlie;
But I would bear them a' again

To lose them a' for Charlie!'
Isn't the enthusiasm almost beyond belief at this distance of time?"

she went on; "and isn't it a curious fact, as Mr. Macdonald told me
a moment ago, that though the whole country was vocal with songs for

the lost cause and the fallen race, not one in favour of the victors
ever became popular?"

"Sympathy for the under dog, as Miss Monroe's countrywomen would say
picturesquely," remarked Mr. Macdonald.

"I don't see why all the vulgarisms in the dictionary should be
foisted on the American girl," retorted Francesca loftily, "unless,

indeed, it is a determined attempt to find spots upon the sun for
fear we shall worship it!"

"Quite so, quite so!" returned the Reverend Ronald, who has had
reason to know that this phrase reduces Miss Monroe to voiceless

rage.
"The Stuart charm and personal magnetism must have been a powerful

factor in all that movement," said Salemina, plunging hastily back
into the topic to avert any further recrimination. "I suppose we

feel it even now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably
have made myself ridiculous. `Old maiden ladies,' I read this

morning, `were the last leal Jacobites in Edinburgh; spinsterhood in
its loneliness remained ever true to Prince Charlie and the vanished

dreams of youth.'"
"Yes," continued the Dominie, "the story is told of the last of

those Jacobite ladies who never failed to close her Prayer-Book and
stand erect in silent protest when the prayer for `King George III.

and the reigning family' was read by the congregation."
"Do you remember the prayer of the Reverend Neil M'Vicar in St.

Cuthbert's?" asked Mr. Macdonald. "It was in 1745, after the
victory at Prestonpans, when a message was sent to the Edinburgh

ministers, in the name of `Charles, Prince Regent' desiring them to
open their churches next day as usual. M'Vicar preached to a large

congregation, many of whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed for
George II., and also for Charles Edward, in the following fashion:

`Bless the king! Thou knowest what king I mean. May the crown sit
long upon his head! As for that young man who has come among us to

seek an earthly crown, we beseech Thee to take him to Thyself, and
give him a crown of glory!'"

"Ah, what a pity the Bonnie Prince had not died after his meteor
victory at Falkirk!" exclaimed Jean Dalziel, when we had finished

laughing at Mr. Macdonald's story.
"Or at Culloden, `where, quenched in blood on the Muir of

Drummossie, the star of the Stuarts sank forever,'" quoted the
Dominie. "There is where his better self died; would that the young

Chevalier had died with it! By the way, doctor, we must not sit
here eating goodies and sipping tea until the dinner-hour, for these

ladies have doubtless much to do for their flitting" (a pretty Scots
word for `moving').

"We are quite ready for our flitting so far as packing is
concerned," Salemina assured him. "Would that we were as ready in

spirit! Miss Hamilton has even written her farewell poem, which I
am sure she will read for the asking."

"She will read it without that formality," murmured Francesca. "She
has lived and toiled only for this moment, and the poem is in her

pocket."
"Delightful!" said the doctor flatteringly. "Has she favoured you

already? Have you heard it, Miss Monroe?"
"Have we heard it!" ejaculated that young person. "We have heard

nothing else all the morning! What you will take for local colour