He said “Bur-r-r-r” several times, and flew off to the dining-room with me tucked under his arm, murmuring it gave no cook a chance to keep the dinner waiting! So I expected something wonderful in the way of food, but it is not half so good as our _chef_ gave us at Branches. And the footmen are not all the same height, and their liveries don’t fit like Mrs. Carruthers always insisted that ours should do. Malcolm _is_ a tittsy-pootsy man! Not as tall as I am, and thin as a rail, with a look of his knees being too near together. He must be awful in a kilt, and I am sure he shivers when the wind blows, he has that air. I don’t like kilts, unless men are big, strong, bronzed creatures who don’t seem ashamed of their bare bits. I saw some splendid specimens marching once in Edinburgh, and they swung their skirts just like the beautiful ladies in the Bois, when Mademoiselle and I went out of the Allée Mrs. Carruthers told us to try always to walk in. Lady Katherine talked a great deal at dinner about politics, and her different charities, and the four girls were so respectful and interested, but Mr. Montgomerie contradicted her whenever he could. I was glad when we went into the drawing-room. That first evening was the worst of all, because we were all so strange; one seems to get acclimatized to whatever it is after a while. Lady Katherine asked me if I had not some fancy work to do. Kirstie had begun her ties, and Jean the altar-cloth again. “Do let Maggie run to your room and fetch it for you,” she said. I was obliged to tell her I never did any. “But I--I can trim hats,” I said. It really seemed so awful not to be able to do anything like them, I felt I must say this as a kind of defence for myself. However, she seemed to think that hardly a lady’s employment. “How clever of you!” Kirstie exclaimed. “I wish I could; but don’t you find that intermittent? You can’t trim them all the time. Don’t you feel the want of a constant employment?” I was obliged to say I had not felt like that yet, but I could not tell them I particularly loved sitting perfectly still, doing nothing. Jessie and Maggie played Patience at two tables which folded up, and which they brought out, and sat down to with a deliberate accustomed look, which made me know at once they did this every night, and that I should see those tables planted exactly on those two spots of carpet each evening during my whole stay. I suppose it is because they cannot bring the poker work and the bookbinding into the drawing-room. “Won’t you play us something?” Lady Katherine asked, plaintively. Evidently it was not permitted to do nothing, so I got up and went to the piano. Fortunately I know heaps of things by heart, and I love them, and would have gone on, and on, so as to fill up the time, but they all said “thank you” in a chorus after each bit, and it rather put me off.