When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in
complete ignorance.--Least of all would she stoop to ask a humble
maidservant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she
replied affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always
prefer. I suppose it is covered?"

Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the
first letter and cards, that he had one club foot and one wooden
leg; it was then that the full significance of `lamiter' came to
her. He was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the
occurrence gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon
of learning. He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he
certainly did not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every
street in the court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in
the Old Town. On this our first meeting with him, he faltered only
when Francesca asked him last of all to drive to `Kildonan House,
Helmsdale'; supposing, not unnaturally, that it was as well known an
address as Morningside House, Tipperlinn, whence she had just come.
The lamiter had never heard of Kildonan House nor of Helmsdale, and
he had driven in the streets of Auld Reekie for thirty years. None
of the drivers whom he consulted could supply any information;
Susanna Crum cudna say that she had ever heard of it, nor could Mrs.
M'Collop, nor could Miss Diggity-Dalgety. It was reserved for Lady
Baird to explain that Helmsdale was two hundred and eighty miles
north, and that Kildonan House was ten miles from the Helmsdale
railway station, so that the poor lamiter would have had a weary
drive even had he known the way. The friends who had given us
letters to Mr. and Mrs. Jameson-Inglis (Jimmyson-Ingals) must have
expected us either to visit John o' Groats on the northern border,
and drop in on Kildonan House en route, or to send our note of