ch the Lady of Inverleith came down and touched the
earth.'
My right-hand neighbour at Lady Baird's dinner was surprised at
my quoting Lord Cockburn. One's attendant squires here always seem
surprised when one knows anything; but they are always delighted, too,
so that the amazement is less trying. True, I had read the Memorials
only the week before, and had never heard of them previous to that time;
but that detail, according to my theories, makes no real difference. The
woman who knows how and when to 'read up,' who reads because she wants
to be in sympathy with a new environment; the woman who has wit and
perspective enough to be stimulated by novel conditions and kindled by
fresh influences, who is susceptible to the vibrations of other people's
history, is safe to be fairly intelligent and extremely agreeable,
if only she is sufficiently modest. I think my neighbour found me
thoroughly delightful after he discovered my point of view. He was an
earl; and it always takes an earl a certain length of time to understand
me. I scarcely know why, for I certainly should not think it courteous
to interpose any real barriers between the nobility and that portion of
the 'masses' represented in my humble person.
It seemed to me at first that the earl did not apply himself to the
study of my national peculiarities with much assiduity, but wasted
considerable time in gazing at Francesca, who was opposite. She is
certainly very handsome, and I never saw her lovelier than at that
dinner; her eyes were like stars, and her cheeks and lips a splendid
crimson, for she was quarrelling with her attendant cavalier about the
relative merits of Scotland and America, and they apparently ceased to
speak to each other after the salad.
When the earl had sufficiently piqued me by his devotion to his dinner
and his glances at Francesca, I began a systematic attempt to achieve
his (transient) subjugation. Of course I am ardently attached to Willie
Beresford and prefer him to any earl in Britain, but one's self-respect
demands something in the way of food. I could see Salemina at the far
end of the table radiant with success, the W.S. at her side bending ever
and anon to catch the (artificial) pearls of thought that dropped from
her lips. "Miss Hamilton appears simple" (I thought I heard her say);
"but in reality she is as deep as the Currie Brig!" Now where did she
get that allusion? And again, when the W.S. asked her whither she was
going
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