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Penelope's Progress
45

hensible; but there is always good stuff in stool-flingers; it's the sort of spirit one likes to inherit in diluted form. Now whom will you take?"

"I haven't even a peg on which to hang a Scottish ancestor," said Salemina disconsolately.

"Oh, nonsense! think harder. Anybody will do as a starting-point; only you must be honorable and really show relationship, as I did with Jenny and Tam."

"My aunt Mary-Emma married a Lindsay," ventured Salemina hesitatingly.

"That will do," I answered delightedly.


"'The Gordons gay in English blude
They wat their hose and shoon;
The Lindsays flew like fire aboot
Till a' the fray was dune.'

You can play that you are one of the famous 'licht Lindsays,' and you can look up the particular ancestor in your big book. Now, Francesca, it's your turn!"

"I am American to the backbone," she declared, with insufferable dignity. "I do not desire any foreign ancestors."

"Francesca!" I expostulated. "Do you mean to tell me that you can dine with a lineal descendant of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Baronet, of Duart and Morven, and not make any effort to trace your genealogy back further than your parents?"