he is awfully good-looking,--I will say that for him: and if you
don't explain me to Lady Baird, I will write to Mr. Beresford about
the earl. There was no bickering there; it was looking at you two
that made us think of international marriages."

"It must have suggested to you that speech about filling the coffers
of the British nobility," I replied sarcastically, "inasmuch as the
earl has twenty thousand pounds a year, probably, and I could barely
buy two gold hairpins to pin on the coronet. There, do go away and
leave me in peace!"

"Good night again, then," she said, as she rose reluctantly from the
foot of the bed. "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity
it is that such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced,
insular, bigoted person should be so handsome! And who wants to
marry him any way, that he should be so distressed about
international alliances? One would think that all female America
was sighing to lead him to the altar!"



Chapter VIII. `What made th' Assembly shine?'



Two or three days ago we noted an unusual though subdued air of
excitement at 22 Breadalbane Terrace, where for a week we had been
the sole lodgers. Mrs. Menzies, whom we call Mingess, has returned
to Kilconquhar, which she calls Kinyuchar; Miss Cockburn-Sinclair
has purchased her wedding outfit and gone back to Inverness, where