“No, thank you; no study for me.  It is to be all play now.  Why tire my wits with that Scotch stuff when Mrs. Homer is here to do it for me?” and lazy Ethel turned to the papers on the table for amusement more to her taste.

“But we shouldn’t think only of our own pleasure, you know.  It is so sweet to be able to teach, amuse, or help others in any way.  I’m glad to learn this new accomplishment, so that I may be to some one by-and-by what dear Mrs. Homer is to us now, if I ever can.  Didn’t you see how charmed those English people were at Holyrood when she was reciting those fine lines to us?  The old gentleman bowed and thanked her, and the handsome lady called her ’a book of elegant extracts.’  I thought it was such a pretty and pleasant thing that I described it all to mother and the girls.”

“So it was; but did you know that the party was Lord Cumberland and his family?  The guide told me afterward.  I never guessed they were anybody, in such plain tweed gowns and thick boots; did you?”

“I knew they were ladies and gentlemen by their manners and conversation; did you expect they would travel in coronets and ermine mantles?” laughed Jenny.

“I’m not such a goose!  But I’m glad we met them, because I can tell the Sibleys of it.  They think so much of titles, and brag about Lady Watts Barclay, whose husband is only a brewer knighted.  I shall buy a plaid like the one the lord’s daughter wore, and wave it in the faces of those girls; they do put on such airs because they have been in Europe before.”

Jenny was soon absorbed in her books; so Ethel curled herself up in the window-seat with an illustrated London paper full of some royal event, and silence reigned for an hour.  Neither had seen the Professor’s glasses rise like two full moons above his paper now and then to peep at them as they chatted at the other end of the room; neither saw him smile as he made a memorandum in his note-book, nor guessed how pleased he was at Jenny’s girlish admiration of his plain but accomplished and excellent wife.  It was one of the trifles which went to form his opinion of the two lasses, and in time to suggest a plan which ended in great joy for one of them.

“Now the real fun begins, and I shall be perfectly contented,” cried Ethel as they rolled through the London streets towards the dingy Langham Hotel, where Americans love to congregate.

Jenny’s eyes were sparkling also, and she looked as if quite ready for the new scenes and excitements which the famous old city promised them, though she had private doubts as to whether anything could be more delightful than Scotland.

The Sibleys were at the hotel; and the ladies of both parties at once began a round of shopping and sightseeing, while the gentlemen went about their more important affairs.  Joe was detailed for escort duty; and a fine time the poor lad had of it, trailing about with seven ladies by day and packing them into two cabs at night for the theatres and concerts they insisted on trying to enjoy in spite of heat and weariness.