"Here was the Black Turnpike, Miss Hamilton!" he cried; "and from here Mary went to Loch Leven, where you Hamiltons and the Setons came gallantly to her help. Don't you remember the 'far ride to the Solway sands'?"
I looked with interest, though I was in such a state of delicious excitement that I could scarce keep my seat.
"Only a few minutes more, Salemina," I sighed, "and we shall be in the palace courtyard; then a probable half-hour in crowded dressing-rooms, with another half-hour in line, and then, then we shall be making our best republican bow in the Gallery of the Kings! How I wish Mr. Beresford and Francesca were with us! What do you suppose was her real reason for staying away? Some petty disagreement with our young minister, I am sure. Do you think the dampness is taking the curl out of our hair? Do you suppose our gowns will be torn to ribbons before the Marchioness sees them? Do you believe we shall look as well as anybody? Privately, I think we must look better than anybody; but I always think that on my way to a party, never after I arrive."
Mrs. M'Collop had asserted that I was "bonnie eneuch for ony court," and I could not help wishing that "mine ain dear Somebody" might see me in my French frock embroidered with silver thistles, and my "shower bouquet" of Scottish bluebells tied loosely together. Salemina wore pinky-purple velvet; a real heather color it was, though the Lord High Commissioner would probably never note the fact.
When we had presented our cards of invitation at the palace doors, we joined the throng and patiently made our way up the splendid staircases, past powdered lackeys without number, and, divested of our wraps, joined another throng on our way to the throne-room, Salemina and I pressing those cards with our names "legibly written on them" close to our palpitating breasts.
At last the moment came when, Lady Baird having preceded me, I handed my bit of pasteboard to the usher; and hearing "Miss Hamilton" called in stentorian accents, I went forward in my turn, and executed a graceful and elegant but not too profound curtsy, carefully arranged to suit the semi-royal, semi-ecclesiastical occasion. I had not divulged the fact even to Salemina, but I had worn Mrs. M'Collop's carpet quite threadbare in front of the long mirror, and had curtsied to myself so many times in its crystal surface that I had developed a sort of fictitious reverence for my reflected image. I had only begun my well-practiced obeisance when Her Grace the Marchioness, to my mingled surprise and embarrassment, extended a gracious hand and murmured my name in a particularly kind voice. She is fond of Lady Baird, and perhaps chose this method of showing her friendship; or it may be that she noticed my silver thistles and Salemina's heather-colored velvet,—they certainly deserved special recognition; or it may be that I was too beautiful to pass over in silence,—in my state of exaltation I was quite equal to the belief.
The presentation over, we wandered through the spacious apartments, leaning from the open windows to hear the music of the band playing in the courtyard below, looking at the royal portraits, and chatting with groups of friends who appeared and reappeared in the throng. Finally Lady Baird sent for us to join her in a knot of personages more and less distinguished, who had dined at the palace, and who were standing behind the receiving party in a sort of sacred group. This indeed was a ground of vantage, and one could have stood there for hours, watching all sorts and conditions of men and women bowing before the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness, who, with her Cleopatra-like beauty and scarlet gown, looked like a gorgeous cardinal-flower.
Salemina and I watched the curtsying narrowly, with the view at first of improving our own obeisances for Buckingham Palace; but truth to say we got no added light, and plainly most of the people had not worn threadbare the carpets in front of their dressing-mirrors.
Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, "Lord Colquhoun," a distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom we often met at dinners; then "Miss Rowena Colquhoun;" and then, in the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door—"Miss Francesca Van Buren Monroe." I involuntarily touched the Reverend Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her tortoiseshell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge.
After presentation, each person has fifteen or twenty feet of awful space to traverse in solitary and defenseless majesty; scanned meanwhile by the maids of honor (who, if they were truly honorable, would turn their eyes another way), ladies-in-waiting, the sacred group in the rear, and the Purse-Bearer himself. I had supposed that this functionary would keep the purse in his upper bureau drawer at home, when he was not paying bills, but it seems that when on processional duty he carries a bag of red velvet quite a yard long over his arm, where it looks not unlike a lady's opera-cloak. It would hold the sum total of the moneys disbursed, even if they were reduced to the standard of vulgar copper.