Penelopes Experiences in Scotland | Page 4

slightest blow--Francesca's heart. It is made of excellent stout, durable material, and I often tell her with the care she takes of it, and the moderate strain to which it is subjected, it ought to be as good as new a hundred years hence.
As for me, the scene of my own love-story is laid in America and England, and has nought to do with Edinburgh. It is far from finished; indeed, I hope it will be the longest serial on record, one of those charming tales that grow in interest as chapter after chapter unfolds, until at the end we feel as if we could never part with the delightful people.
I should be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American working-class, Unlimited; but first Mrs. Beresford's dangerous illness and then her death, have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner in Cannes, his heart sadly torn betwixt his love and duty to his mother and his desire to be with me. The separation is virtually over now, and we two, alas! have ne'er a mother or a father between us, so we shall not wait many months before beginning to comfort each other in good earnest.
Meantime Salemina and Francesca have persuaded me to join their forces, and Mr. Beresford will follow us to Scotland in a few short weeks, when we shall have established ourselves in the country.
We are overjoyed at being together again, we three women folk. As I said before, we know the worst of one another, and the future has no terrors. We have learned, for example, that--
Francesca does not like an early morning start. Salemina refuses to arrive late anywhere. Penelope prefers to stay behind and follow next day.
Francesca scorns to travel third class. So does Salemina, but she will if urged.
Penelope hates a four-wheeler. Salemina is nervous in a hansom. Francesca prefers a barouche or a landau.
Salemina likes a steady fire in the grate. Penelope opens a window and fans herself.
Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions. Francesca loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of these equally.
Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores poetry and detests facts.
Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight of food in the morning.
In the matter of breakfasts, when we have leisure to assert our individual tastes, Salemina prefers tea, Francesca cocoa, and I, coffee. We can never, therefore, be served with a large comfortable pot of anything, but are confronted instead with a caravan of silver jugs, china jugs, bowls of hard and soft sugar, hot milk, cold milk, hot water, and cream, while each in her secret heart wishes that the other two were less exigeante in the matter of diet and beverages.
This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in practice by the exercise of a little flexibility.
As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith's Private Hotel behind, and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we indulged in floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had tasted together in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of the new experiences awaiting us in the land of heather.
While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van, and in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which was, for a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heartrending when the difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day!--that is, be it understood, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first rainy day! for that is the way we always interpret the expression.
When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual, bewailing our extravagance.
Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, wresting the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed travelling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean hard-seated, ill- upholstered third-class carriage immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two babies, and man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five pieces of hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the tickets."
So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng