Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/60

46 "If you goad me to desperation," she answered, "I will wear an American flag in my hair, declare that my father is a Red Indian, or a pork-packer, and talk about the superiority of our checking system and hotels all the evening. I don't want to go, anyway. It is sure to be stiff and ceremonious, and the man who takes me in will ask me the population of Chicago and the amount of wheat we exported last year,—he always does." "I can't see why he should," said I. "I am sure you don't look as if you knew."

"My looks have thus far proved no protection," she replied sadly. "Salemina is so flexible, and you are so dramatic, that you enter into all these experiences with zest. You already more than half believe in that Tam o' the Cowgate story. But there'll be nothing for me in Edinburgh society; it will be all clergymen"—

"Ministers," interjected Salemina.

—"all ministers and professors. My Redfern gown will be unappreciated, and my Worth evening frocks worse than wasted!"

"There are a few thousand medical students," I said encouragingly, "and all the young advocates, and a sprinkling of military men,—they know Worth frocks."

"And," continued Salemina bitingly, "there will always be, even in an intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape all