ress, saying she
had something that belonged to him and wished to send it after him.
I offered to address the package and see that it reached him as
expeditiously as possible. 'That is what I wish," she said, with
elaborate formality. 'This is something I have just discovered,
something he needs very much, something he does not know he has
left behind.' I did not think it best to tell her at the moment that
Macdonald had not yet deserted Inchcaldy."

"Willie, you have the quickest intelligence and the most exquisite
insight of any man I ever met!"

"But the fact was that I had been to see him off, and found him detained
by the sudden illness of one of his elders. I rode over again to take
him the little parcel. Of course I don't know what it contained; by its
size and shape I should judge it might be a thimble, or a collar-button,
or a sixpence; but, at all events, he must have needed the thing, for
he certainly did not let the grass grow under his feet after he received
it! Let us go into the sitting-room until they come down,--as they will
have to, poor wretches, sooner or later; I know that I am always being
brought down against my will. Salemina wants your advice about the
number of her Majesty's portraits to be hung on the front of the
cottage, and the number of candles to be placed in each window."

It was a half-hour later when Mr. Macdonald came into the room, and,
walking directly up to Salemina, kissed her hand respectfully.

"Miss Salemina," he said, with evident emotion, "I want to borrow one of
your national jewels for my Queen's crown."

"And what will our President say to lose a jewel from his crown?"

"Good republican rulers do not wear coronets, as a matter of principle,"
he argued; "but in truth I fear I am not thinking of her Majesty--God
bless her! This gem is not entirely for state occasions.

'"I would wear it in my bosom,
Lest my jewel I should tine."'

It is the crowning of my own life rather than that of the British
Empire that engages my present thought. Will you intercede for me with
Francesca's father?"

"And this is the end of all your international bickering?" Salemina
asked teasingly.

"Yes," he answered; "we have buried the hatchet, signed articles of
agreement, made treaties of international comity. Francesca stays over
here as a kind of missionary to Scotland, so she says, or as a feminine
diplomat; she wishes to be on hand to enforce the Monroe Doctrine
properly, in