I replied. "But for these play-acting postures, you
can go to others."

"O Davie!" she said. "Not if I was to beg you?"

I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say
a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or me
to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and the stain,
if there be any, rests with yourself." And at that I kneeled fairly
down.

"There!" she cried. "There is the proper station, there is where I have
been manoeuvring to bring you." And then, suddenly, "Kep,"[21] said she,
flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.

The billet had neither place nor date. "Dear Mr. David," it began, "I
get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a pleisand
hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk, but
necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long last
we may meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my loving
cousin, who loves us both. She bids me to send you this writing, and
oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her commands, and rest
your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-Drummond. _P.S._--Will you
not see my cousin, Allardyce?"

I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)
that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the
house by Dean. But the old lady was now entirely changed, and supple as
a glove. By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never
guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the
affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep. It was he,
indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return
to, her cousin's, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys--decent
people, quite at the Advocate's disposition, and in whom she might have
the more confidence because they were of her own clan and family. These
kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to attempt her
father's rescue, and after she was discharged from prison received her
again into the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained and used his
instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of his acquaintance
with the daughter of James More. There was some whispering, of course,
upon the escape of that discredited person; but the Government replied
by a show of rigour, one of the cell-porters was flogged, the