air, and threw them into the middle of it,
and then, leisurely taking anither pair off a silver salver which his ain
man presented, he pat them on for dessert. The M'Nab, who, although an
auld-fashioned carl, was aye fond of bringing something new hame to his
friends, remarked the Englisher's proceeding with great care, and the next
day he appeared at dinner wi' a huge pair of Hieland mittens, which he
wore, to the astonishment of all and the amusement of most, through the
whole three courses; and exactly as the Englishman changed his gloves, the
M'Nab produced a fresh pair of goats' wool, four times as large as the
first, which, drawing on with prodigious gravity, he threw the others into
the middle of the cloth, remarking, as he did so,--

"'Ye see, Captain, we are never ower auld to learn.'

"All propriety was now at an end, and a hearty burst of laughter from one
end of the table to the other convulsed the whole company,--the M'Nab and
the Englishman being the only persons who did not join in it, but sat
glowering at each other like twa tigers; and, indeed, it needed, a'
the Montrose's interference that they had na quarrelled upon it in the
morning."

"The M'Nab was a man after my own heart," said Maurice; "there was
something very Irish in the lesson he gave the Englishman."

"I'd rather ye'd told him that than me," said the doctor, dryly; "he would
na hae thanked ye for mistaking him for ane of your countrymen."

"Come, Doctor," said Dennis, "could not ye give us a stave? Have ye nothing
that smacks of the brown fern and the blue lakes in your memory?"

"I have na a sang in my mind just noo except 'Johnny Cope,' which may be
might na be ower pleasant for the Englishers to listen to."

"I never heard a Scotch song worth sixpence," quoth Maurice, who seemed
bent on provoking the doctor's ire. "They contain nothing save some
puling sentimentality about lasses with lint-white locks, or some absurd
laudations of the Barley Bree."

"Hear till him, hear till him!" said the doctor, reddening with impatience.

"Show me anything," said Maurice, "like the 'Cruiskeen Lawn' or the 'Jug
of Punch;' but who can blame them, after all? You can't expect much from a
people with an imagination as naked as their own knees."

"Maurice! Maurice!" cried O'Shaughnessy, reprovingly, who saw that he was
pushing the other's endurance beyond all bounds.

"I mind weel," said the Scotchman, "what happened to ane o' your countrymen
wh