“Katerin!” she said, coming into the kitchen with a handful of paper cuttings, and, hearing her, the maid’s face blenched.

“I declare I never broke an article the day!” she cried protestingly, well accustomed to that formal address when there had been an accident among her crockery.

“I wasn’t charging you,” said her mistress. “Dear me! it must be an awful thing a guilty conscience! I was thinking to give you—and maybe Lennox, if she would not mind—a lesson or two in cookery. It’s a needful thing in a house with anything of a family. You know what men are!”

“Fine that!” said Kate. “They’re always thinking what they’ll put in their intervals, the greedy deevils! beg your pardon, but it’s not a swear in the Gaelic.”

“There’s only one Devil in any language, Kate,” said Miss Bell. “‘How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!’ And I am glad to think he is oftener on our foolish tongues than in our hearts. I have always been going to give you a cookery-book—”

“A cookery-book!” cried the maid. “Many a time I saw one out in Colonsay: for the minister’s wife had one they called Meg Dods, that was borrowed for every wedding. But it was never much use to us, for it started everything with ‘Take a clean dish,’ or ‘Mince a remains of chicken,’ and neither of them was very handy out in the isle of Colonsay.”

Miss Bell laid out her cuttings on the dresser—a mighty pile of recipes for soups and stews, puddings and cakes, sweetmeats, and cordial wines that could be made deliciously from elder and mulberry, if hereabouts we had such fruits to make them with. She had been gathering these scraps for many years, for the household column was her favourite part of the paper after she was done with the bits that showed how Scotsmen up in London were at the head of everything, or did some doughty deed on the field of war. She hoarded her cuttings as a miser hoards his notes, but never could find the rich sultana cake that took nine eggs, when it was wanted, but only the plain one costing about one-and-six. Sometimes Ailie would, in mischief, offer to look through the packet for recipes rich and rare that had been mentioned; they were certainly there (for Bell had read them gloatingly aloud when she cut them out), but Bell would never let her do it, always saying, “Tuts! never mind; Dan likes this one better, and the other may be very nice in print but it’s too rich to be wholesome, and it costs a bonny penny. You can read in the papers any day there’s nothing better for the health than simple dieting.” So it was that Mr Dyce had some monotony in his meals, but luckily was a man who never minded that, liking simple old friends best in his bill-of-fare as in his boots and coats and personal acquaintances. Sometimes he would quiz her about her favourite literature, pretending a gourmet’s interest for her first attempt at something beyond the ordinary, but never relished any the less her unvarying famous kale and simple entremets, keeping his highest praise for her remarkable breakfasts. “I don’t know whether you’re improving or whether I am getting used to it,” he would say, “but that’s fish! if you please, Miss Bell.”

“Try another scone, Dan,” she would urge, to hide the confusion that his praise created. “I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“No, not hungry,” would he reply, “but, thank Providence, I’m greedy—pass the plate.”Bell was busy at her cookery lesson, making her cuttings fill the part of the book that was still to buy, doing all she could to make Bud see how noble was a proper crimpy paste, though her lesson was cunningly designed to look like one for Kate alone. Her sleeves were rolled up, and the flour was flying, when a rat-tat came to the door. They looked up from their entrancing occupation, and there, in front, was the castle carriage!

Miss Bell made moan. “Mercy on us! That’ll be Lady Anne, and Ailie out, and I cannot go to speak to anybody, for I’m such a ticket. Run to the door, dear, and take her into the parlour, and keep her there till I am ready. Don’t forget to say ‘My Lady,’—No, don’t say ‘My Lady,’ for the Dyces are of old, and as good as their neighbours, but say ‘Your Ladyship’; not too often, but only now and then, to let her see you know it.”

Bud went to the door and let in Lady Anne, leading her composedly to the parlour.

“Aunt Ailie’s out,” she said, “and Aunt Bell is such a ticket. But she’s coming in a minute, your—your—your—” Bud paused for a second, a little put about. “I forget which it was I was to say. It was either ‘Your Ladyship’ or ‘My Lady.’ You’re not my lady, really, and you’re not your own, hardly, seeing you’re promised to Colonel George. Please tell me which is right, Lady Anne.”

“Who told you it was Colonel George, my dear?” asked Lady Anne, sitting down on the proffered chair and putting her arms around the child.

“Oh, it’s just the clash of the parish,” said my little Scot who once was Yankee. “And everybody’s so glad.”

“Are they, indeed?” said Lady Anne, blushing in her pleasure. “That is exceedingly kind of them. I always thought our own people the nicest and kindest in the world.”

“That’s just it!” said Bud cheerfully. “Everybody everywhere is just what one is oneself,—so Aunt Ailie says; and I s’pose it’s because you’re— Oh! I was going to say something about you, but I’ll let you guess. What lovely weather! I hope your papa is well? And Mr Jones?”

“Thank you; papa is very well indeed,” said Lady Anne. “And Mr Jones—” She hung upon the name with some dubiety.

“The coachman, you know,” said Bud placidly. “He’s a perfectly lovely man: so fat and smiley. He smiles so much his face is all in gathers. So kind to his horses too, and waves his whip at me every time he passes. Once he gave me a ride on the dickey: it was gorgeous. Do you often get a ride on the dickey, Lady Anne?”

“Never!” said Lady Anne, with a clever little sigh. “Many a time I have wished I could get one, but they always kept me inside the carriage. I don’t seem to have had much luck all my life till—till—till lately.”

“Did Mr Jones never take you on his knee and tell you the story of the Welsh giants?”

“No,” said Lady Anne, solemnly shaking her head.

“Then you’re too big now. What a pity! Seems to me there isn’t such a much in being a big L Lady after all. I thought you’d have everything of the very best. You have no idea what funny ideas we had in America about dukes and lords and ladies in the old country. Why, I expected I’d be bound to hate them when I got here, because they’d be so proud and haughty and tyrannical. But I don’t hate them one little bit; they don’t do anybody any harm more’n if they were knockabout artistes. I suppose the Queen herself ’d not crowd a body off the sidewalk if you met her there. She’d be just as apt to say ‘What ho! little girl. Pip! pip!’ and smile, for Auntie Bell is always reading in the newspapers snappy little pars. about the nice things the Royal family do, just the same as if they weren’t royal a bit.”

“Yes, I sometimes see those touching domestic incidents,” said her ladyship. “You mean such things as the Prince helping the cripple boy to find his crutch? They make me almost cry.”

“I wouldn’t wet a lash, if I were you,” said Bud. “That’s just the Press: like as not there’s nothing behind it but the agent in advance.”

“Agent in advance?” said Lady Anne, perplexed.

“Yes. He’s bound to boom the show somehow: so Jim Molyneux said, and he knew most things, did Jim.”

“You wicked Republican!” cried her ladyship, hugging the child the closer to her.

“I’m not a Republican,” protested Bud. “I’m truly Scotch, same as father was, and Auntie Bell is—that’s good enough for me. I’d just love to be a My Lady myself, it must be so nice and—and fairy. Why! it’s about the only fairy thing left anywhere, I guess. There’s nothing really to it; it’s not being richer nor powerfuller nor more tyrannical than anybody else, but it’s—it’s—it’s— I dunno ’zactly what it is, but it’s something—it—it’s romantic, that’s what it is, to be a King, or a Duke, or a My Lady. The fun of it is all inside you, like poetry. I hope, My Lady Anne, you ’preciate your privileges! You must ’preciate your privileges always, Auntie Bell says, and praise the Lord without ceasing, and have a thankful heart.”

“I assure you I do,” replied her ladyship.

“That’s right,” said Bud encouragingly. “It’s simply splendid to be a really Lady with a big L without having to play it to yourself. I’ve been one as Winifred Wallace quite often; with Auntie Ailie’s fur jacket and picture-hat on I’d sit and sit, and feel so composed and grand in the rocker, and let on it was Mr Jones’s carriage, and bow sweetly to Footles who’d be a poor man passing to his work, and mighty proud to have me notice him. I’d be sort of haughty, but not ’bominable haughty, ’cause Auntie Bell says there’s nothing beats a humble and a contrite heart. But then you see something would happen to spoil everything; Kate would laugh, or Auntie Bell would pop in and cry ‘Mercy on me, child, play-acting again! Put away that jacket instantly.’ Then I’d know I was only letting on to be a really Lady; but with you it’s different—all the time you’re It. Auntie Bell says so, and she knows everything.”

“It really looks as if she did,” said her ladyship, “for I’ve called to see her to-day about a sailor.”

“A sailor!” Bud exclaimed, with wild surmise.

“Yes. He wants to be captain of my yacht, and he refers me to Miss Dyce, for all the world as if he were a housemaid.”

“I’m so glad,” cried Bud. “For it was I who advised him to, and I’m—I’m the referee.”

“You!”

“Yes; it was Kate’s letter, and she—and we—and I said there was a rumour you wanted a captain, and he should apply, saying if you wanted to know just what a clean, good, brave sailor he was you should ask Kate MacNeill or Miss Dyce, and I’m the Miss Dyce this time, and you’re—why, you’re really visiting me!”

Lady Anne laughed. “Really, Miss Lennox,” she said, “you’re a wonderful diplomatist. I must get the Earl to put you in the service. I believe there’s a pretty decent salary goes to our representative in the United States.”

“But don’t laugh at me, Lady Anne,” pleaded Bud earnestly. “I’m dre’ffle set on having Charles off the cargo boats, where he’s thrown away. You don’t know how Kate loves him, and she hasn’t seen him—not for years and years. You know yourself what it is to be so far away from anybody you love. He’d just fit your yacht like a glove—he’s so educated, having been on the yachts and with the gentry round the world. He’s got everything nice about him you’d look for in a sailor—big brown eyes so beautiful there’s only Gaelic words I don’t know, but that sound like somebody breaking glass, to describe how sweet they are. And the whitest teeth! When he walks, he walks so straight and hits the ground so hard you’d think he owned the land.”

“It seems to me,” said Lady Anne, “that you couldn’t be more enthusiastic about your protÉgÉ if you loved him yourself.”

“So I do,” said Bud, with the utmost frankness. “But there’s really nothing between us. He’s meant for Kate. She’s got heaps of beaux, but he’s her steady. I gave him up to her for good on Hallowe’en, and she’s so happy.”

Bell had thrown off her cooking-apron and cleaned her hands, and ran up the stairs to see that her hair was trim, for though she loved a Lady for the sake of Scotland’s history, she someway felt in the presence of Lady Anne the awe she had as a child for Barbara Mushet. That Ailie in such company should be, on the other hand, so composed, and sometimes even comical, was a marvel she never could get over. “I never feared the face of earl or man,” she would say, “but I’m scared for a titled lady.”

When she came down to the parlour the visitor was rising to go.

“Oh, Miss Dyce,” said she, “I’m so glad to see you, though my visit this time’s really to Miss Lennox. I wished to consult her about a captain for my little yacht.”

“Miss Lennox!” exclaimed Miss Bell, shaking hands, and with a look of apprehension at her amazing niece.

“Yes,” said Lady Anne; “she has recommended a man who seems in all respects quite suitable, if he happens to know a little about sailing; and I’m going to write to him to come and see me.”

At that, I must confess it, Lennox for once forgot her manners and darted from the parlour to tell Kate the glorious news.

“Kate, you randy!” she cried, bursting into the kitchen—

“‘I sent a letter to my love and by the way I dropped it,
I dropped it, I dropped it; I dree—I dree—I dropped it’—

“I’ve fixed it up for Charles; he’s to be the captain.” The servant danced on the floor in a speechless transport, and Bud danced too.