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 when she
left Edinburgh, "I hardly know," she replied pensively. "I am
waiting for the shade of Montrose to direct me, as the Viscount
Dundee said to your Duke of Gordon." The entranced Scotsman little
knew that she had perfected this style of conversation by long
experience with the Q.C.'s of England. Talk about my being as deep
as the Currie Brig (whatever it may be); Salemina is deeper than the
Atlantic Ocean! I shall take pains to inform her Writer to the