usual professors and doctors and ministers who are wont to walk up
and down the Edinburgh streets, with a sprinkling of lairds and

leddies of high degree and a few Americans looking at the shop
windows to choose their clan tartans; but for me they did not exist.

In their places stalked the ghosts of kings and queens and knights
and nobles; Columba, Abbot of Iona; Queen Margaret and Malcolm--she

the sweetest saint in all the throng; King David riding towards
Drumsheugh forest on Holy Rood day, with his horns and hounds and

huntsmen following close behind; Anne of Denmark and Jingling
Geordie; Mary Stuart in all her girlish beauty, with the four Maries

in her train; and lurking behind, Bothwell, `that ower sune
stepfaither,' and the murdered Rizzio and Darnley; John Knox, in his

black Geneva cloak; Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald;
lovely Annabella Drummond; Robert the Bruce; George Heriot with a

banner bearing on it the words `I distribute chearfully'; James I.
carrying The King's Quair; Oliver Cromwell; and a long line of

heroes, martyrs, humble saints, and princely knaves.
Behind them, regardless of precedence, came the Ploughman Poet and

the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr.Johnson, Dr.John Brown and
Thomas Carlyle, Lady Nairne and Drummond of Hawthornden, Allan

Ramsay and Sir Walter; and is it not a proof of the Wizard's magic
art, that side by side with the wraiths of these real people walked,

or seemed to walk, the Fair Maid of Perth, Jeanie Deans, Meg
Merrilies, Guy Mannering, Ellen, Marmion, and a host of others so

sweetly familiar and so humanly dear that the very street-laddies
could have named and greeted them as they passed by?

Chapter IV. Susanna Crum cudna say.
Life at Mrs. M'Collop's apartments in 22 Breadalbane Terrace is

about as simple, comfortable, dignified, and delightful as it well
can be.

Mrs. M'Collop herself is neat, thrifty, precise, tolerably genial,
and `verra releegious.'

Her partner, who is also the cook, is a person introduced to us as
Miss Diggity. We afterwards learned that this is spelled Dalgety,

but it is not considered good form, in Scotland, to pronounce the
names of persons and places as they are written. When, therefore, I

allude to the cook, which will be as seldom as possible, I shall
speak of her as Miss Diggity-Dalgety, so that I shall be presenting

her correctly both to the eye and to the ear, and giving her at the
same time a hyphenated name, a thing which is a secret object of

aspiration in Great Britain.
In selecting our own letters and parcels from the common stock on

the hall table, I perceive that most of our fellow-lodgers are
hyphenated ladies, whose visiting-cards diffuse the intelligence

that in their single persons two ancient families and fortunes are
united. On the ground floor are the Misses Hepburn-Sciennes

(pronounced Hebburn-Sheens); on the floor above us are Miss
Colquhoun (Cohoon) and her cousin Miss Cockburn-Sinclair (Coburn-

Sinkler). As soon as the Hepburn-Sciennes depart, Mrs. M'Collop
expects Mrs. Menzies of Kilconquhar, of whom we shall speak as Mrs.

Mingess of Kinyuchar. There is not a man in the house; even the
Boots is a girl, so that 22 Breadalbane Terrace is as truly a castra

puellarum as was ever the Castle of Edinburgh with its maiden
princesses in the olden time.

We talked with Miss Diggity-Dalgety on the evening of our first day
at Mrs. M'Collop's, when she came up to know our commands. As

Francesca and Salemina were both in the room, I determined to be as
Scotch as possible, for it is Salemina's proud boast that she is

taken for a native of every country she visits.
"We shall not be entertaining at present, Miss Diggity," I said, "so

you can give us just the ordinary dishes,--no doubt you are
accustomed to them: scones, baps or bannocks with marmalade,

finnan-haddie or kippered herring for breakfast; tea,--of course we
never touch coffee in the morning" (here Francesca started with

surprise); "porridge, and we like them well boiled, please" (I hope
she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina did, and blanched with envy);

"minced collops for luncheon, or a nice little black-faced chop;
Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup at dinner, and haggis

now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. That is about the sort
of thing we are accustomed to,--just plain Scotch living."

I was impressing Miss Diggity-Dalgety,--I could see that clearly;
but Francesca spoiled the effect by inquiring, maliciously, if we

could sometimes have a howtowdy wi' drappit eggs, or her favourite
dish, wee grumphie wi' neeps.

Here Salemina was obliged to poke the fire in order to conceal her
smiles, and the cook probably suspected that Francesca found

howtowdy in the Scotch glossary; but we amused each other vastly,
and that is our principal object in life.

Miss Diggity-Dalgety's forebears must have been exposed to foreign
influences, for she interlards her culinary conversation with French

terms, and we have discovered that this is quite common. A `jigget'
of mutton is of course a gigot, and we have identified an `ashet' as

an assiette. The `petticoat tails' she requested me to buy at the
confectioner's were somewhat more puzzling, but when they were

finally purchased by Susanna Crum they appeared to be ordinary
little cakes; perhaps, therefore, petits gastels, since gastel is an

old form of gateau, as was bel for beau. Susanna, on her part,
speaks of the wardrobe in my bedroom as an `awmry.' It certainly

contains no weapons, so cannot be an armoury, and we conjecture that
her word must be a corruption of armoire.

"That was a remarkable touch about the black-faced chop," laughed
Salemina, when Miss Diggity-Dalgety had retired; "not that I believe

they ever say it."
"I am sure they must," I asserted stoutly, "for I passed a flesher's

on my way home, and saw a sign with `Prime Black-Faced Mutton'
printed on it. I also saw `Fed Veal,' but I forgot to ask the cook

for it."
"We ought really to have kept house in Edinburgh," observed

Francesca, looking up from the Scotsman. "One can get a `self-
contained residential flat' for twenty pounds a month. We are such

an enthusiastic trio that a self-contained flat would be everything
to us; and if it were not fully furnished, here is a firm that

wishes to sell a `composite bed' for six pounds, and a `gent's
stuffed easy' for five. Added to these inducements there is

somebody who advertises that parties who intend `displenishing' at
the Whit Term would do well to consult him, as he makes a specialty

of second-handed furniture and `cyclealities.' What are
`cyclealities,' Susanna?" (She had just come in with coals.)

"I cudna say, mam."
"Thank you; no, you need not ask Mrs. M'Collop; it is of no

consequence."
Susanna Crum is a most estimable young woman, clean, respectful,

willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she
is painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems

to be a treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being
thus clad and panoplied in virtue, why should she be so timid and

self-distrustful?
She wears an expression which can mean only one of two things:

either she has heard of the national tomahawk and is afraid of
violence on our part, or else her mother was frightened before she

was born. This applies in general to her walk and voice and manner,
but is it fear that prompts her eternal `I cudna say,' or is it

perchance Scotch caution and prudence? Is she afraid of projecting
her personality too indecently far? Is it the indirect effect of

heresy trials on her imagination? Does she remember the thumbscrew
of former generations? At all events, she will neither affirm nor

deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of tests, hoping to discover
finally whether she is an accident, an exaggeration, or a type.

Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course
she means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have

tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can
scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own