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Finding but one of the three American Graces at home, I stayed a few moments only, and am now returning to Inchcaldy by way of Crummylowe." Here he plucked the gown off the hedge and folded it carefully. "Can't we keep it for a sail, Mr. Macdonald?" pleaded Jamie. "Mistress Ogilvie said it wasn't any more good."
She has been giving us a few extracts from the communication, an unusual proceeding, as Ronald, in his ordinary correspondence, is evidently not a quotable person. We smiled over his account of a visit to his old parish of Inchcaldy in Fifeshire.
Very well, then, I tell you plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the rest of my life, drink tea and eat scones for breakfast, and and buy my hats of the Inchcaldy milliner, I should still glory in the possibility of being Ronald Macdonald's wife a possibility hourly growing more uncertain, I am sorry to say!"
I suppose he has a manse and three or four hundred pounds a year." "That sum would do nicely for cabs." "Penelope, you are flippant!" "I don't mean it, dear; it's only for fun; and it would be so absurd if we should leave Francesca over here as the presiding genius of an Inchcaldy parsonage I mean a manse!"
"Think of the rent we pay and keep your head high. Remember that the draper's wife says there is nothing half so comfortable in Inchcaldy, although that is twice as large a town." "INCHCALDY!" ejaculated Francesca, sitting down heavily upon the sofa and staring at me.
"Well," she exclaimed bitterly, "of course Scotland is a small, insignificant country; but, tiny as it is, it presents some liberty of choice, and why you need have pitched upon Pettybaw, and brought me here, when it is only five miles from Inchcaldy, and a lovely road besides, is more than I can understand!" "In what way has Inchcaldy been so unhappy as to offend you?" I asked.
Besides, we did not choose Pettybaw; we discovered it by chance as we were driving from Strathdee to St. Rules. How were we to know that it was near this fatal Inchcaldy? If you think it best, we will hold no communication with the place, and Mr. Macdonald need never know you are here." I thought Francesca looked rather startled at this proposition.
"It has not offended me, save that it chances to be Ronald Macdonald's parish that is all." "Ronald Macdonald's parish!" we repeated automatically. "Certainly you must have heard him mention Inchcaldy; and how queer he will think it that I have come to Pettybaw, under all the circumstances!"
"Inchcaldy, my dear, spelled CALDY, but pronounced CAWDY; the town where you are to take your nonsensical little fripperies to be laundered." "Where is Inchcaldy? How far away?" "About five miles, I believe, but a lovely road."
"He has never denied Francesca anything in her life; why should he draw the line at a Scotsman? I am much more concerned about Mr. Macdonald's congregation." "I am not anxious about that," said Salemina loyally. "Francesca would be the life of an Inchcaldy parish." "I dare say," I observed, "but she might be the death of the pastor."
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