"Quite marvellous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in
which it comes back is marvellous. I am not a stickler for dates,
as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in
your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so
shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife
of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died
a hundred years before the Anne I mean,--the last of the Stuarts,
you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the
Georges."

"Which William and Mary?"

"What Georges?"

But this was too much even for Salemina's equanimity, and she
retired behind her book in dignified displeasure, while Francesca
and I meekly looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried
to decide whether `b.1665' meant born or beheaded.



Chapter II. Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat.



The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland
was of the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate
queen, when,

`After a youth by woes o'ercast,