ed.

"All will be out," thought Jenny, "unless I can get him smuggled out of
the house the back way."

So saying, she sped up the bank in great tribulation and uncertainty.

"I had better hae said at ante there was a stranger there," was her next
natural reflection. "But then they wad hae been for asking him to
breakfast. Oh, safe us! what will I do?--And there's Gudyill walking in
the garden too!" she exclaimed internally on approaching the wicket; "and
I daurna gang in the back way till he's aff the coast. Oh, sirs! what
will become of us?"

In this state of perplexity she approached the cidevant butler, with the
purpose of decoying him out of the garden. But John Gudyill's temper was
not improved by his decline in rank and increase in years. Like many
peevish people, too, he seemed to have an intuitive perception as to what
was most likely to teaze those whom he conversed with; and, on the
present occasion, all Jenny's efforts to remove him from the garden
served only to root him in it as fast as if he had been one of the
shrubs.

Unluckily, also, he had commenced florist during his residence at Fairy
Knowe; and, leaving all other things to the charge of Lady Emily's
servant, his first care was dedicated to the flowers, which he had taken
under his special protection, and which he propped, dug, and watered,
prosing all the while upon their respective merits to poor Jenny, who
stood by him trembling and almost crying with anxiety, fear, and
impatience.

Fate seemed determined to win a match against Jenny this unfortunate
morning. As soon as the ladies entered the house, they observed that the
door of the little parlour--the very apartment out of which she was
desirous of excluding them on account of its contiguity to the room in
which Morton slept--was not only unlocked, but absolutely ajar. Miss
Bellenden was too much engaged with her own immediate subjects of
reflection to take much notice of the circumstance, but, desiring the
servant to open the window-shutters, walked into the room along with her
friend.

"He is not yet come," she said. "What can your brother possibly mean? Why
express so anxious a wish that we should meet him here? And why not come
to Castle Dinnan, as he proposed? I own, my dear Emily, that, even
engaged as we are to each other, and with the sanction of your presence,
I do not feel that I have done quite right in indulging him."

"Evandale was never capricious," answered his sister; "