The thought of the Setons' drawing-room at tea-time was very alluring. He hoped there would be no other callers and that he would get the big chair, where he could best look at the picture of Elizabeth's mother above the fireplace. It was so wonderfully painted, and the eyes were the eyes of Elizabeth.
He was not quite sure that he approved of Elizabeth. His little mother, with her admiring "Ay, that's it, Pa," to all her husband's truisms, had given him an ideal of meek womanhood which Elizabeth was far from attaining to. She showed no deference to people, unless they were poor or very old. She laughed at most things, and he was afraid she was shallow. He distrusted, too, her power of charming. That she should be greatly interested in his work and ambitions was not surprising, but that her grey eyes should be just as shining and eager over the small success of a youth in the church was merely absurd. It was her way, he told himself, to make each person she spoke to feel he was the one person who mattered. It was her job to be charming. For himself, he preferred more sincerity, and yet—what a lass to go gipsying through the world with!
When he was shown into the drawing-room a cosy scene met his eyes. The fire was at its best, the tea-table drawn up before it; Mr. Seton was laughing and shaking his head over some remark made by Elizabeth, who was pouring out tea; his particular big chair stood as if waiting for him. Everything was just as he had wished it to be, except that, leaning against the mantelpiece, stood a tall man in a grey tweed suit, a man so obviously at home that Mr. Stevenson disliked him on the spot.
"Mr. Townshend," said Elizabeth, introducing him. "Sit here, Mr. Stevenson. This is very nice. You will help me to teach Mr. Townshend something of Scots manners and customs. His ignorance is intense."
"Is that so?" said Mr. Stevenson, accepting a cup of tea and eyeing the serpent in his Eden (he had not known it was his Eden until he realized the presence of the serpent) with disfavour.
The serpent's smile, however, as he handed him some scones was very disarming, and he seemed to see no reason why he should not be popular with the new-comer. "My great desire," he confided to him over the table, "is to know what a 'U.P.' is?"
"Dear sir," said Elizabeth, "'tis a foolish ambition. Unless you are born knowing what a U.P. is you can never hope to learn. Besides, there aren't any U.P.'s now."
"Extinct?" asked Arthur.
"Well—merged," said Elizabeth.
"It's very obscure," complained Arthur. "But it is absurd to pretend that I know nothing of Scotland. I once stayed nearly three weeks in Skye."
"And," put in Mr. Seton, "the man who knows his Scott knows much of Scotland. I only wish Elizabeth knew him as you do. I believe that girl has never read one novel of Sir Walter's to the end."
"Dear Father," said Elizabeth, "I adore Sir Walter, but he shouldn't have written in such small print. Besides, thanks to you, I know heaps of quotations, so I can always make quite a fair show of knowledge."
Mr. Seton groaned.
"You're a frivolous creature," he said, "and extraordinarily ignorant."
"Yes," said his daughter, "I'm just, as someone said, 'a little brightly-lit stall in Vanity Fair'—all my goods in the shop-window. I suppose," turning to Mr. Stevenson, "you have read all Scott?"
"Not quite all, perhaps, but a lot," said that gentleman.
"Yes, I had no real hope that you hadn't. But I maintain that the knowledge you gain about people from books is a very queer knowledge. In books and in plays about Scotland you get the idea that we 'pech' and we 'hoast,' and talk constantly about ministers, and hoard our pennies. Now we are not hard as a nation——"
"Pardon me," broke in Arthur, "the one Scots story known to all Englishmen seems to point to a certain carefulness——"
"You mean," cried Elizabeth, interrupting in her turn, "that stupid tale, 'Bang gaed sixpence'? But you know the end of the tale? I thought not. 'Bang gaed sixpence, maistly on wines and cigars.' The honest fellow was treating his friends."
Arthur shouted with laughter, but presently returned to the charge. "But you can't deny your fondness for ministers, or at least for theological discussion, Elizabeth?"
"Lizbeth!" said her father, "fond of ministers? This is surely a sign of grace."
"Father," said Elizabeth earnestly, "I'm not. You know I'm not. Ministers! I know all kinds of them, and I don't know which I like least. There are the smug complacent ones with sermons like prize essays, and the jovial, back-slapping ones who talk slang and hope thus to win the young men. Then there is a genteel kind with long, thin fingers and literary leanings who read the Revised Version and talk about 'a Larger Hope'; and the kind who have damp hands and theological doubts—the two always seem to go together, and——"
"That will do, Lizbeth," broke in Mr. Seton. "It's a deplorable thing to hear a person so far from perfect dealing out criticism so freely."
"Oh," said his daughter, "I am only talking about young ministers. Old, wise padres, full of sincerity and simplicity and all the crystal virtues, I adore."
"Have you any more tea?" asked Mr. Seton. "I don't think I've had more than three cups."
"Four, I'm afraid," said Elizabeth; "but there's lots here."
"These are very small cups," said Mr. Seton, as he handed his to be filled again. "You will have to add that to your list of the faults of the clergy—a feminine fondness for tea."
The conversation drifted back, led by Mr. Stevenson, to the great and radical differences between England and Scotland. To emphasize these differences seemed to give him much satisfaction. He reminded them that Robert Louis Stevenson had said that never had he felt himself so much in a foreign country as on his first visit to England.
"It's quite true," he added. "I know myself I'm far more at home in France. And I don't mind my French being laughed at, I know it's bad, but it's galling to be told that my English is full of Scotticisms. They laughed at me in London when I talked about 'snibbing' the windows."
"They would," said Elizabeth, and she laughed too. "They 'fasten' their windows, or do something feeble like that. We're being very rude, Arthur; stand up for your country."
"I only wish to remark that you Scots settle down very comfortably among us alien English. Perhaps getting all the best jobs consoles you for your absence from Scotland."
"Not a bit of it," Elizabeth assured him. "We're home-sick all the time: 'My feet they traivel England, but I'm deein' for the North.' But I'm afraid Mr. Stevenson will look on me coldly when I confess to a great affection for England. Leafy Warwick lanes, lush meadowlands, the lilied reaches of the Cherwell: I love the mellow beauty of it all. It's not my land, not my wet moorlands and wind-swept hills, but I'm bound to admit that it is a good land."
"Yes," said Mr. Stevenson, "England's a beautiful rich country, but——"
"But," Elizabeth finished for him, "it's just the 'wearifu' South' to you?"
"That's so."
"You see," said Elizabeth, nodding at Arthur Townshend; "we're hopeless."
"Do you know what you remind me of?" he asked.
"Something disgusting, I can guess by your face."
"You remind me of a St. Andrew's Day dinner somewhere in the Colonies.... By the way, where's Buff?"
"Having tea alone in the nursery, at his own request."
"Oh! the poor old chap," said Arthur. "May I go and talk to him?"
Buff, it must be explained, was in disgrace—he said unjustly. The fault was not his, he contended. It was first