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.