She has
been giving us a few extracts from the communication, an unusual
proceeding, as Ronald, in his ordinary correspondence, is evidently
not a quotable person. We smiled over his account of a visit to his
old parish of Inchcaldy in Fifeshire. There is a certain large
orphanage in the vicinity, in which we had all taken an interest,
chiefly because our friends the Macraes of Pettybaw House were among
its guardians.
It seems that Lady Rowardennan of the Castle had promised the
orphans, en bloc, that those who passed through an entire year
without once falling into falsehood should have a treat or festival
of their own choosing. On the eventful day of decision, those
orphans, male and female, who had not for a twelve-month deviated
from the truth by a hair's-breadth, raised their little white hands
(emblematic of their pure hearts and lips), and were solemnly
counted. Then came the unhappy moment when a scattering of small
grimy paws was timidly put up, and their falsifying owners confessed
that they had fibbed more than once during the year. These tearful
fibbers were also counted, and sent from the room, while the non-
fibbers chose their reward, which was to sail around the Bass Rock
and the Isle of May in a steam tug.
On the festival day, the matron of the orphanage chanced on the
happy thought that it might have a moral effect on the said fibbers
to see the non-fibbers depart in a blaze of glory; so they were
taken to the beach to watch the tug start on its voyage.
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