“It means friendship,” cried Susie, with a burning blush. “I know--I know it does! I mean Davie has such lots of friends--and Fred has none; or at least none that would be of any use if we were to have a ball.” “But we are not going to have a ball,” said the mother; “it is a great deal too much trouble. Ask the Scrymgeours what they think a week hence. The whole house will be turned upside down, and the servants put out of the way, and everybody made wretched. No, Susie, there will be no ball.” “Then am I never to come out at all?” said Susie in a voice from which consternation had driven all the lighter tones. This was too solemn a thought to be expressed except with the gravity of fate. “You should present her, mother,” said Fred; “that’s the right thing for a girl.” “Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “that’s a great trouble too! The gowns alone would cost about a hundred pounds; and your father, you know, never stays a day longer in London than he can help--and what would Susie and me do, two women by ourselves in that great big place? Besides, to make it worth the while we would need to know a number of people and get invitations. I’ve often heard of country people, very well thought of in their own place, that have just been humiliated to the very dust in London, with nobody to ask them out, or to call on them or anything. She’ll have to be content with something nearer home.” “That is all because things are so conventionary and nothing natural,” said Susie; “that is what they say in all the books. But if papa would go up with us in his Deputy Lieutenant’s uniform, and knowing such quantities and quantities of people--and perhaps if you were to tell Mrs. Wauchope she might speak to the Duchess, and the Duchess would say just a little word to one of the Princesses--and then perhaps the Queen----” “Are you out of your senses, Susie? What do you expect that the Queen would do?” “Well! they might say we belonged to D’yell of Yalton that saved the life of James the Fourth, who is the Queen’s great, great, great (I don’t know how many greats) grandfather. And if she was passing this way, you know, mamma, my father would have to come out and offer her a drink of milk upon his knees. And it is a real old rule for thousands of years, a feudacious tenor, or something of that kind----” “Where did you find all that, Susie? Is it true, mother? Do we hold Yalton like that?” cried Fred in great delight. “I never knew we were such distinguished people before.” “I don’t see any distinction about it,” said Mrs. Dalyell: “I never paid much attention to such old stories. Oh, if you believe all the Dalyell stories---- By the way, Susie, I wish you to pronounce the name as I do--as everybody is doing now. ’D’yell’ is so common--it is what the ploughmen say.”