ekness, for there are Jock o' Meg, Willie
o' Janet, Jem o' Tibby, and a dozen others. These primitive
fishing-villages are the places where all the advanced women ought
to congregate, for the wife is head of the house; the accountant, the
treasurer, the auditor, the chancellor of the exchequer; and though
her husband does catch the fish for her to sell, that is accounted
apparently as a detail too trivial for notice.

When we passed Mary's cottage on our way to the sands next day, Burns's
head had been accidentally broken off by the children, and we felt as
though we had lost a friend; but Scotch thrift, and loyalty to the
dear Ploughman Poet, came to the rescue, and when we returned, Robert's
plaster head had been glued to his body. He smiled at us again from
between the two scarlet geraniums, and a tendril of ivy had been gently
curled about his neck to hide the cruel wound.

After such long, lovely mornings as this, there is a late luncheon under
the shadow of a rock with Salemina and Francesca, an idle chat, or the
chapter of a book, and presently Lady Ardmore and her daughter Elizabeth
drive down to the sands. They are followed by Robin Anstruther, Jamie,
and Ralph on bicycles, and before long the stalwart figure of Ronald
Macdonald appears in the distance, just in time for a cup of tea, which
we brew in Lady Ardmore's bath-house on the beach.

Chapter XIX. Fowk o' Fife.

'To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways.'

The Cotter's Saturday Night.

We have lived in Pettybaw a very short time, but I see that we have
already made an impression upon all grades of society. This was not our
intention. We gave Edinburgh as our last place of residence, with the
view of concealing our nationality, until such time as we should choose
to declare it; that is, when public excitement with regard to our
rental of the house in the loaning should have lapsed into a state of
indifference. And yet, modest, economical, and commonplace as has been
the administration of our affairs, our method of life has evidently
been thought unusual, and our conduct not precisely the conduct of other
summer visitors. Even our daily purchases, in manner, in number, and in
character, seem to be looked upon as eccentric, for whenever we leave a
shop, the relatives of the greengrocer, flesher, draper, whoever it may
be, bound downstairs, su