'Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he no come back again.'
He did come back again to me that evening, and held a phantom levee behind the Marchioness of Heatherdale's shoulder. His 'ghaist' looked bonnie and rosy and confident, yet all the time the band was playing the requiem for his lost cause and buried hopes."
I looked towards the fire to hide the moisture that crept again into my eyes, and my glance fell upon Francesca sitting dreamily on a hassock in front of the cheerful blaze, her chin in the hollow of her palm, and the Reverend Ronald standing on the hearth-rug gazing at her, the poker in his hand, and his heart, I regret to say, in such an exposed position on his sleeve that even Salemina could have seen it had she turned her eyes that way.
Jean Dalziel broke the momentary silence: "I am sure I never hear the last two lines,—
'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no come back again?'
without a lump in my throat," and she hummed the lovely melody. "It is all as you say purely impersonal and poetic. My mother is an Englishwoman, but she sings 'Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw,' with the greatest fire and fury."
XIII
"I think I was never so completely under the spell of a country as I am of Scotland." I made this acknowledgment freely, but I knew that it would provoke comment from my compatriots.
"Oh yes, my dear, you have been just as spellbound before, only you don't remember it," replied Salemina promptly. "I have never seen a person more perilously appreciative or receptive than you."
"'Perilously' is just the word," chimed in Francesca delightedly; "when you care for a place you grow porous, as it were, until after a time you are precisely like blotting-paper. Now, there was Italy, for example. After eight weeks in Venice you were completely Venetian, from your fan to the ridiculous little crepe shawl you wore because an Italian prince had told you that centuries were usually needed to teach a woman how to wear a shawl, but that you had been born with the art, and the shoulders! Anything but a watery street was repulsive to you. Cobblestones? 'Ordinario, dúro, brútto! A gondola? Ah, bellissima! Let me float forever thus!' You bathed your spirit in sunshine and color; I can hear you murmur now, 'O Venezia benedetta! non ti voglio lasciar!'"