draper wasna certain that so licht a shoo'r could richtly be called

rain. The village weans were yearning for the hour to arrive when
they might sit on the wet golf-course and have tea; manifestly,

therefore, it could not be a bad day for Scotland; but if it should
grow worse, what would become of our mammothsubscription bonfire on

Pettybaw Law--the bonfire that Brenda Macrae was to light, as the
lady of the manor?

There were no deputations to request the honour of Miss Macrae's
distinguished services on this occasion; that is not the way the

self-respecting villager comports himself in Fifeshire. The
chairman of the local committee, a respectablegardener, called upon

Miss Macrae at Pettybaw House, and said, "I'm sent to tell ye ye're
to have the pleasure an' the honour of lichtin' the bonfire the

nicht! Ay, it's a grand chance ye're havin', miss, ye'll remember
it as long as ye live, I'm thinkin'!"

When I complimented this rugged soul on his decoration of the
triumphal arch under which the school-children were to pass, I said,

"I think if her Majesty could see it, she would be pleased with our
village to-day, James."

"Ay, ye're richt, miss," he replied complacently. "She'd see that
Inchcawdy canna compeer wi' us; we've patronised her weel in

Pettybaw!"
Truly, as Stevenson says, `he who goes fishing among the Scots

peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an empty basket by
evening.'

At eleven o'clock a boy arrived at Bide-a-Wee with an interesting-
looking package, which I promptly opened. That dear foolish lover

of mine (whose foolishness is one of the most adorable things about
him) makes me only two visits a day, and is therefore constrained to

send me some reminder of himself in the intervening hours, or
minutes--a book, a flower, or a note. Uncovering the pretty box, I

found a long, slender--something--of sparkling silver.
"What is it?" I exclaimed, holding it up. "It is too long and not

wide enough for a paper-knife, although it would be famous for
cutting magazines. Is it a baton? Where did Willie find it, and

what can it be? There is something engraved on one side, something
that looks like birds on a twig,--yes, three little birds; and see

the lovely cairngorm set in the end! Oh, it has words cut in it:
`To Jean: From Hynde Horn'--Goodness me! I've opened Miss Dalziel's

package!"
Francesca made a sudden swooping motion, and caught box, cover, and

contents in her arms.
"It is mine! I know it is mine!" she cried. "You really ought not

to claim everything that is sent to the house, Penelope--as if
nobody had any friends or presents but you!" and she rushed upstairs

like a whirlwind.
I examined the outside wrapper, lying on the floor, and found, to my

chagrin, that it did bear Miss Monroe's name, somewhat blotted by
the rain; but if the box were addressed to her, why was the silver

thing inscribed to Miss Dalziel? Well, Francesca would explain the
mystery within the hour, unless she had become a changed being.

Fifteen minutes passed. Salemina was making Jubilee sandwiches at
Pettybaw House, Miss Dalziel was asleep in her room, I was being

devoured slowly by curiosity, when Francesca came down without a
word, walked out of the front door, went up to the main street, and

entered the village post-office without so much as a backward
glance. She was a changed being, then! I might as well be living

in a Gaboriau novel, I thought, and went up into my little painting
and writing room to address a programme of the Pettybaw celebration

to Lady Baird, watch for the glimpse of Willie coming down the
loaning, and see if I could discover where Francesca went from the

post-office.
Sitting down by my desk, I could find neither my wax nor my silver

candlestick, my scissors nor my ball of twine. Plainly Francesca
had been on one of her borrowing tours; and she had left an

additional trace of herself--if one were needed--in a book of old
Scottish ballads, open at `Hynde Horn.' I glanced at it idly while

I was waiting for her to return. I was not familiar with the
opening verses, and these were the first lines that met my eye:-

`Oh, he gave to his love a silver wand,
Her sceptre of rule over fair Scotland;

With three singing laverocks set thereon
For to mind her of him when he was gone.

And his love gave to him a gay gold ring
With three shining diamonds set therein;

Oh, his love gave to him this gay gold ring,
Of virtue and value above all thing.'

A light dawned upon me! The silver mystery, then, was intended for
a wand--and a very pretty way of making love to an American girl,

too, to call it a `sceptre of rule over fair Scotland'; and the
three birds were three singing laverocks `to mind her of him when he

was gone'!
But the real Hynde Horn in the dear old ballad had a truelove who

was not captious and capricious and cold like Francesca. His love
gave him a gay gold ring--

`Of virtue and value above all thing.'
Yet stay: behind the ballad book flung heedlessly on my desk was--

what should it be but the little morocco case, empty now, in which
our Francesca keeps her dead mother's engagement ring--the mother

who died when she was a wee child. Truly a very pretty modern
ballad to be sung in these unromantic, degenerate days!

Francesca came in at the door behind me, saw her secret reflected in
my tell-tale face, saw the sympatheticmoisture in my eyes, and,

flinging herself into my willing arms, burst into tears.
"O Pen, dear, dear Pen, I am so miserable and so happy; so afraid

that he won't come back, so frightened for fear that he will! I
sent him away because there were so many lions in the path, and I

didn't know how to slay them. I thought of my f-father; I thought
of my c-c-country. I didn't want to live with him in Scotland, I

knew that I couldn't live without him in America, and there I was!
I didn't think I was s-suited to a minister, and I am not; but oh!

this p-particular minister is so s-suited to me!" and she threw
herself on the sofa and buried her head in the cushions.

She was so absurd even in her grief that I had hard work to keep
from smiling.

"Let us talk about the lions," I said soothingly. "But when did the
trouble begin? When did he speak to you?"

"After the tableau last night; but of course there had been other--
other--times--and things."

"Of course. Well?"
"He had told me a week before that he should go away for a while,

that it made him too wretched to stay here just now; and I suppose
that was when he got the silver wand ready for me. It was meant for

the Jean of the poem, you know. Of course he would not put my own
name on a gift like that."

"You don't think he had it made for Jean Dalziel in the first
place?"--I asked this, thinking she needed some sort of tonic in her

relaxed condition.
"You know him better than that, Penelope! I am ashamed of you! We

had read Hynde Horn together ages before Jean Dalziel came; but I
imagine, when we came to acting the lines, he thought it would be

better to have some other king's daughter; that is, that it would be
less personal. And I never, never would have been in the tableau,

if I had dared refuse Lady Ardmore, or could have explained; but I
had no time to think. And then, naturally, he thought by me being

there as the king's daughter that--that--the lions were slain, you
know; instead of which they were roaring so that I could hardly hear