.

Francesca meets th' unconquer'd Scot.
Francesca's experiences were not so fortunate; indeed, I have never seen her more out of sorts than she was during our long chat over the fire, after our return to Breadalbane Terrace.
"How did you get on with your delightful minister ?" inquired Salemina of the young lady, as she flung her unoffending wrap over the back of a chair.

"He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he ?" "He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable, condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!" "Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed.

"Lady Baird speaks of him as her favourite nephew, and says he is full of charm." "He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening.
He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one punctured him with a hat-pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!" "Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings ?" observed Salemina.
"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.
"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate ?" "Oh, I alluded to it; but only when he said that our hot summers must be insufferable." "I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain ?" "Yes, I did!" she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that American girls generally looked bloodless and frail.

He asked if it were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils.