“There!” I exclaimed triumphantly, “you see for yourselves you have named avenue after avenue along which one's mind is led in charmed subjection. Where can you find battles that kindle your fancy like Falkirk and Flodden and Culloden and Bannockburn? Where a sovereign that attracts, baffles, repels, allures, like Mary Queen of Scots,--and where, tell me where, is there a Pretender like Bonnie Prince Charlie? Think of the spirit in those old Scottish matrons who could sing-- 'I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel, My rippling-kame and spinning-wheel, To buy my lad a tartan plaid, A braidsword, durk and white cockade.'” “Yes,” chimed in Salemina when I had finished quoting, “or that other verse that goes-- 'I ance had sons, I now hae nane, I bare them toiling sairlie; But I would bear them a' again To lose them a' for Charlie!' Isn't the enthusiasm almost beyond belief at this distance of time?” she went on; “and isn't it a curious fact, as Mr. Macdonald told me a moment ago, that though the whole country was vocal with songs for the lost cause and the fallen race, not one in favour of the victors ever became popular?” “Sympathy for the under dog, as Miss Monroe's countrywomen would say picturesquely,” remarked Mr. Macdonald. “I don't see why all the vulgarisms in the dictionary should be foisted on the American girl,” retorted Francesca loftily, “unless, indeed, it is a determined attempt to find spots upon the sun for fear we shall worship it!” “Quite so, quite so!” returned the Reverend Ronald, who has had reason to know that this phrase reduces Miss Monroe to voiceless rage. “The Stuart charm and personal magnetism must have been a powerful factor in all that movement,” said Salemina, plunging hastily back into the topic to avert any further recrimination. “I suppose we feel it even now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably have made myself ridiculous. 'Old maiden ladies,' I read this morning, 'were the last leal Jacobites in Edinburgh; spinsterhood in its loneliness remained ever true to Prince Charlie and the vanished dreams of youth.'” “Yes,” continued the Dominie, “the story is told of the last of those Jacobite ladies who never failed to close her Prayer-Book and stand erect in silent protest when the prayer for 'King George III. and the reigning family' was read by the congregation.”