? she says, rising and looking at
me hard and pitiful. _Ay, it was true he said, you are bonny, at all
events_.--_The way God made me, my dear_, I said, _but I would be geyan
obliged if ye could tell me what brought you here at such a time of the
night_.--_Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk, we are both come of the
blood of the sons of Alpin_.--_My dear_, I replied, _I think no more of
Alpin or his sons than what I do of a kale-stock. You have a better
argument in these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was so
weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do dearly,
and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it was weak-minded of
me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it was the wisest
stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature, but I
think she has been little used with tenderness; and at that caress
(though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her heart went out
to me. I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will
never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb, because it is the
same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine lass! She is as
clean as hill well-water."

"She is e'en 't!" I cried.

"Well, then, she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in what
a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about yourself,
with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had found herself
after you was gone away. _And then I minded at long last_, says she,
_that we were kinswomen, and that Mr. David should have given you the
name of the bonniest of the bonny, and I was thinking to myself, 'If she
is so bonny she will be good, at all events'; and I took up my
foot-soles out of that_. That was when I forgave yourself, Mr. Davie.
When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron: by all marks, if
ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I
and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from;
and now it appeared you had given me some notice in the bygoing, and
was so kind as to comment on my attractions! From that hour you may date
our friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the Latin
grammar."

"You will have many hours to rally me in," said I; "and I think besides
you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your heart in
my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of
her friend."

"I would not like to