ony of expectation, like a pea (to use a vulgar simile
which her profession renders appropriate) upon one of her own tobacco
pipes. With the third morning came the expected coach, with four servants
clustered behind on the footboard, in dark brown and yellow liveries; the
Duke in person, with laced coat, gold-headed cane, star and garter, all,
as the story-book says, very grand.

He inquired for his little countrywoman of Mrs. Glass, but without
requesting to see her, probably because he was unwilling to give an
appearance of personal intercourse betwixt them, which scandal might have
misinterpreted. "The Queen," he said to Mrs. Glass, "had taken the case
of her kinswoman into her gracious consideration, and being specially
moved by the affectionate and resolute character of the elder sister, had
condescended to use her powerful intercession with his Majesty, in
consequence of which a pardon had been despatched to Scotland to Effie
Deans, on condition of her banishing herself forth of Scotland for
fourteen years. The King's Advocate had insisted," he said, "upon this
qualification of the pardon, having pointed out to his Majesty's
ministers, that, within the course of only seven years, twenty-one
instances of child-murder had occurred in Scotland.

"Weary on him!" said Mrs. Glass, "what for needed he to have telled that
of his ain country, and to the English folk abune a'? I used aye to think
the Advocate a douce decent man, but it is an ill bird*--begging your
Grace's pardon for speaking of such a coorse by-word.

* [It's an ill bird that fouls its own pest.]

And then what is the poor lassie to do in a foreign land?--Why, wae's me,
it's just sending her to play the same pranks ower again, out of sight or
guidance of her friends."

"Pooh! pooh!" said the Duke, "that need not be anticipated. Why, she may
come up to London, or she may go over to America, and marry well for all
that is come and gone."

"In troth, and so she may, as your Grace is pleased to intimate," replied
Mrs. Glass; "and now I think upon it, there is my old correspondent in
Virginia, Ephraim Buckskin, that has supplied the Thistle this forty
years with tobacco, and it is not a little that serves our turn, and he
has been writing to me this ten years to send him out a wife. The carle
is not above sixty, and hale and hearty, and well to pass in the world,
and a line from my hand would settle the matter, and Effie Deans's
misfortune (forby that the