Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/272

258 It is the crowning of my own life rather than that of the British Empire that engages my present thought. Will you intercede for me with Francesca's father?"

"And this is the end of all your international bickering?" Salemina asked teasingly.

"Yes," he answered; "we have buried the hatchet, signed articles of agreement, made treaties of international comity. Francesca stays over here as a kind of missionary to Scotland, so she says, or as a feminine diplomat; she wishes to be on hand to enforce the Monroe Doctrine properly, in case her government's accredited ambassadors relax in the performance of their duty."

"Salemina!" called a laughing voice outside the door. "I am won'erful lifted up. You will be a prood woman the day, for I am now Estaiblished!" and Francesca, clad in Miss Grieve's Sunday bonnet, shawl, and black cotton gloves, entered and curtsied demurely to the floor. She held, as corroborative detail, a life of John Knox in her hand, and anything more incongruous than her sparkling eyes and mutinous mouth under the melancholy head-gear can hardly be imagined.

"I am now Estaiblished," she repeated. "Div ye ken the new asseestant frae Inchcawdy pairish? I'm the mon" (a second deep curtsy here). "I trust, leddies, that ye'll mak' the maist o' your releegious preevileges, an' that ye'll