She returned, therefore, to her lodgings in high spirits, despatching Jim to the greengrocer’s in the next street, and then followed Hannah and her basket into Mrs. Waddel’s kitchen. “Marcy me! what ha’ ye got, the noo?” said Mistress Waddel, lifting the napkin from the basket: “meat enough, I declare, to last the hale week. The weather’s owr hot, I’m thinkin’, for a’ they to keep sweet sae lang.” “Mrs. Waddel, I expect two gentlemen to dinner, particular friends of Mr. Lyndsay; and I want you to cook these things for me as well as you can,” said Flora coaxingly. “Twa’ gentlemen, did ye say?—There’s ten times mair in yon basket than twa gentlemen can eat!” “Of course there is; but we cannot stint our guests.” “Whist, woman!” cried Mrs. Waddel, “it makes my heid ache only to think about a’ that roast an’ boil, an’ boil an’ roast!” “Pray, how did you contrive to cook for Lady Weyms?” asked Flora, rather indignantly. “Gudeness gracious! Do ye think, that my Leddy Weyms cared for the cooking o’ the like o’ me? When his late majestie, God bless him, honoured our auld toon wi’ his preesence, folk were glad to get a deecent place to cover their heids, an’ war in no wise owr particlar, sae they could get lodged ava.” “So I should think, when a titled lady put up with such as these; where the mistress engages to cook for her lodgers, and has not a whole pot in her culinary establishment.” “My Leddy brought her ain cook, an’ she had my twa best rooms jest aff the passage, whar’ Captain Macpherson bides the noo.” “And how do you manage to cook for him?” asked Flora, very sullenly. “He keeps a man. An auld soger, whar’ does the cooking himsel.” However, the dinner went off better than could have been expected, though little praise could be conscientiously given to the cooking. The fish was done _too much_, the ham _too little_, and the baked fowls looked hard and dry. The pastry was the only thing at table about which no fault could be found. After the cloth was removed, Flora gave the poet and his friend the history of the dinner, which so amused Mr. M., that he declared it was worth twenty dinners hearing her relate the misadventures of the morning. Flora forgot the disasters of the day while enjoying the conversation of Mr. M. and his friend,—men who had won by their genius no common literary reputation in the world; and the short hour “ayont the twal” had been tolled some time from all the steeples in Edinburgh before the little party separated, mutually pleased with each other, never to meet in this world of change again. CHAPTER XXVI. FEARS OF THE CHOLERA—DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.