commonplace, conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting.
Never fear, they will find you!"

This sounds harsh, but nobody minds Salemina, least of all
Francesca, who well knows that she is the apple of that spinster's
eye. But at this moment Susanna opens the door (timorously, as if
there might be a panther behind it) and announces the cab (in the
same tone in which she would announce the beast); we pick up our
draperies, and are whirled off by the lamiter to dine with the
Scottish nobility.



Chapter VI. Edinburgh society, past and present.



`Wha last beside his chair shall fa'
He is the king amang us three!'

It was the Princess Dashkoff who said, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, that of all the societies of men of talent she
had met with in her travels, Edinburgh's was the first in point of
abilities.

One might make the same remark to-day, perhaps, and not depart
widely from the truth. One does not find, however, as many noted
names as are associated with the annals of the Cape and Poker Clubs
or the Crochallan Fencibles, those famous groups of famous men who
met for relaxation (and intoxication, I should think) at the old