_Rob Roy_. The occupants of Bide-a-Wee Cottage awoke in anything but a Jubilee humor, next day. Willie had intended to come at nine, but of course did not appear. Francesca took her breakfast in bed, and came listlessly into the sitting-room at ten o'clock, looking like a ghost. Jean's ankle was much better,--the sprain proved to be not even a strain,--but her wrist was painful. It was drizzling, too, and we had promised Miss Ardmore and Miss Macrae to aid with the last Jubilee decorations, the distribution of medals at the church, and the children's games and tea on the links in the afternoon. We had determined not to desert our beloved Pettybaw for the metropolis on this great day, but to celebrate it with the dear fowk o' Fife who had grown to be a part of our lives. Bide-a-Wee Cottage does not occupy an imposing position in the landscape, and the choice of art fabrics at the Pettybaw draper's is small, but the moment it should stop raining we were intending to carry out a dazzling scheme of decoration that would proclaim our affectionate respect for the "little lady in black" on her Diamond Jubilee. But would it stop raining?--that was the question. The draper wasna certain that so licht a shoo'r could richtly be called rain. The village weans were yearning for the hour to arrive when they might sit on the wet golf-course and have tea; manifestly, therefore, it could not be a bad day for Scotland; but if it should grow worse, what would become of our mammoth subscription bonfire on Pettybaw Law,--the bonfire that Brenda Macrae was to light, as the lady of the manor? There were no deputations to request the honor of Miss Macrae's distinguished services on this occasion; that is not the way the self-respecting villager comports himself in Fifeshire. The chairman of the local committee, a respectable gardener, called upon Miss Macrae at Pettybaw House, and said, "I'm sent to tell ye ye're to have the pleesure an' the honor of lightin' the bonfire the nicht! Ay, it's a grand chance ye're havin', miss; ye'll remember it as long as ye live, I'm thinkin'!" When I complimented this rugged soul on his decoration of the triumphal arch under which the schoolchildren were to pass, I said, "I think if her Majesty could see it, she would be pleased with our village to-day, James." "Ay, ye're richt, miss," he replied complacently. "She'd see that Inchcawdy canna compeer wi' us; we've patronized her weel in Pettybaw!" Truly, as Stevenson says, "he who goes fishing among the Scots peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an empty basket by evening."