propriety, but he drew his black eyebrows together, and that made her
instantly quite sure he must be right. When she'd agreed to my having
the dress on those terms, she couldn't--as he said--stick at a mere hat,
so he bought me a lovely one to wear with the creamy cloth. He suggested
that I should keep it in the "tire box" while motoring--a huge round
thing on the top of the car.

"It is just like having a kind uncle, isn't it, my dear?" asked Mrs.
James. But I didn't feel that Mr. Somerled was the sort of man I could
_ever_ think of as a kind uncle, and I said so before I'd stopped to
wonder if it sounded rude. Luckily he didn't seem offended.

I am writing this in the curate's sitting-room upstairs in Mrs. James's
house. It is night, and we are to start to-morrow morning very early,
because I happened to mention that I'd never seen the inside of Carlisle
Castle, or put my nose into the Cathedral. Grandma does not approve of
cathedrals, and their being historic makes no difference. Mr. Somerled
said that we could visit both, and then "slip over the border." Oh, that
border! How I have thought of it, as if it were the door of Romance; and
so it is, because it is the door of Scotland. I am afraid it must be a
dream that I shall cross at last, to see the glories on the other side,
and find the lovely lady who to me is Queen of all Romance--my mother.
Still, I've pinched myself several times, and instead of waking up in my
old room at Hillard House each time I've found myself with my eyes
staring wide open, in the curate's room, which has a lot of books in it
and a smell of tobacco smoke, and on the mantelpiece Mrs. James's
wedding wreath as an ornament under a glass case.

Mr. Somerled has gone to a hotel; but he stayed to supper with us, and
Mrs. James brought out all her nicest things. It was much pleasanter
than supper last night at Moorhill Farm, though Mrs. West had lovely
things to eat. I am glad I shall never see Moore again! But I should
like to see Mr. Norman. I could feel toward him as if he were a brother.
But I don't know what to say about my feeling toward Mr. Somerled. I
think of him as of a knight, come to the rescue of a forlorn damsel in
an enchanted forest. After delivering the damsel from one
dragon--Grandma--he is going to take her away with another quite
different sort of a dragon; a well-trained, winged dragon, which people
who don't know any better believe to be only a motor-car.

II