Edinburgh is so interesting that already Edwin and I are planning to revisit it in his next Sabbatical year. That is a long way off but we are so happy those seven years will pass quickly, I know. I almost fell over the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle trying to see the exact spot where Robert Louis Stevenson's hero, St. Ives, went down on the rope to the rocks below. As I craned my neck, Edwin whispered hoarsely in my ear: "Past yin o'cloak, and a dark, haary moarnin."
Edwin says I take fiction much more seriously than I do history. He does, too, unless the history happens to be Mary Queen of Scots or something that by rights should have been fiction. Greyfriars Bobby, for instance, is a true tale but affects us both as though it were fiction. We gave a whole afternoon to that dear little doggy, following in his footsteps as nearly as we could through the streets of Edinburgh, and out into the country by the road he took to the farm, and then back to Greyfriars Churchyard where the old shepherd, his master, was buried.
Of course we did the Burns country thoroughly. Edwin seemed as at home there as I am in the beech woods at Chatsworth. Burns has never been one of my poets, but he is now. I have adopted him for life since I realize what he means to Edwin.
We are in London now and could spend a year here and not see all we want to see. We play a splendid game which maybe you will think is silly, but you don't know how much fun it is. We pretend for a whole day to be some characters in fiction, Dickens, Thackeray, Barrie, anyone we happen to think of, and then we do the things those persons might have done. For instance, when we were slumming, I was the Marchioness and Edwin was Dick Swiveller. That was perhaps the best day of all. When we went down to the Thames embankment, Edwin suddenly turned into Rogue Riderhood and I was Lizzie Hexam.
Edwin did not think much of me as Becky Sharp when we went to the Opera nor did I think his Rawdon Crawley very convincing. His Peter Pan was splendid the afternoon we spent in Kensington Gardens, and he thought my Wendy was so perfect he tried to make me give him a "thimble" right there before all the nurse maids.
We are going home in a few days now. We are to meet Mother at Liverpool and sail from there. I do wish Mother could have done the things we have done. She would have enjoyed it so much. She laughed until she cried when I proposed her going with us. She said she loved Edwin too much and felt that he loved her too much to put his affection to such a test.
One of the very best things about being Mrs. Edwin Green is that Mother so highly approves of Edwin.
In a few weeks now we will be settled in our little Orchard Home. I hate to leave London but I long for the little home. I am a born homemaker and I am eager to get to housekeeping in the bungalow.
Edwin expects to be very busy working on a text-book on American Literature that he feels there is a need of. He does not have to go back to Wellington until January and that will give us time for lots of things in Kentucky.
When we get to Wellington, you are the first person we want to have visit us, and I want to engage you right now.