“Run over to the inn, Francesca” she said, “and order bacon and eggs at eight-thirty to-morrow morning. Miss Grieve thinks we had better not breakfast at home until she becomes accustomed to the surroundings.” “Shall we allow her to become accustomed to them?” I questioned. “She came up from Glasgow to Edinburgh for the day, and went to see Mrs. M'Collop just as our telegram arrived. She was living with an 'extremely nice family' in Glasgow, and only broke her engagement in order to try Fifeshire air for the summer; so she will remain with us as long as she is benefited by the climate.” “Can't you pay her for a month and send her away?” “How can we? She is Mrs. M'Collop's sister's husband's niece, and we intend returning to Mrs. M'Collop. She has a nice ladylike appearance, but when she takes her bonnet off she looks seventy years old.” “She ought always to keep it off, then,” returned Francesca, “for she looked eighty with it on. We shall have to soothe her last moments, of course, and pay her funeral expenses. Did you offer her a cup of tea and show her the box-bed?” “Yes; she said she was muckle obleeged to me, but the coals were so poor and hard she couldna batter them up to start a fire the nicht, and she would try the box-bed to see if she could sleep in it. I am glad to remember that it was you who telegraphed for her, Penelope.” “Let there be no recriminations,” I responded; “let us stand shoulder to shoulder in this calamity,--isn't there a story called Calamity Jane? We might live at the inn, and give her the cottage for a summer residence, but I utterly refuse to be parted from our cat and the 1602 lintel.” After I have once described Miss Grieve I shall not suffer her to begloom these pages as she did our young lives. She is so exactly like her kind in America she cannot be looked upon as a national type. Everywhere we go we see fresh, fair-haired, sonsie lasses; why should we have been visited by this affliction, we who have no courage in a foreign land to rid ourselves of it? She appears at the door of the kitchen with some complaint, and stands there talking to herself in a depressing murmur until she arrives at the next grievance. Whenever we hear this, which is whenever we are in the sitting-room, we amuse ourselves by chanting lines of melancholy poetry which correspond to the sentiments she seems to be uttering. It is the only way the infliction can be endured, for the sitting-room is so small that we cannot keep the door closed habitually. The effect of this plan is something like the following:-- She. “The range has sic a bad draft I canna mak' the fire draw!” We. 'But I'm ower auld for the tears to start, An' sae the sighs maun blaw!' She. “The clock i' the hall doesna strike. I have to get oot o' my bed to see the time.” We. 'The broken hairt it kens Nae second spring again!' She. “There's no' eneuch jugs i' the hoose.”