or Kirsty, Ross.

If Allan were fascinated by Kirsty's rare beauty and piquant
_espieglerie_, by her sweet imperiousness and the subtle charm of her
refined femininity, exercised on a nature whose previous experience of
the sex had been limited to the bare-legged Amazons of Leadhills or the
rosy-cheeked ministering Hebes, whom the high wages of domestic service
attracted to town; she, in turn, was no less captivated by the manly,
self-possessed demeanour, and the ingratiating qualities, both social
and intellectual, of her father's guest. If he had mingled too little
with society for his manners to be tinged with the polish of the
_debonnair_ gallant, his natural good-breeding and ready tact, united,
it must be confessed, to a not inconsiderable spice of vanity, doubtless
prevented any lapse into those nervous _gaucheries_ wherewith a youth's
first appearance in good society is often accompanied.

Allan has drawn with truth and graphic power his own portrait as he
appeared at this time--

'_Imprimis_--then for tallness I
Am five feet and four inches high;
A black-a-vic'd, snod, dapper fellow,
Nor lean, nor overlaid wi' tallow;
With phiz of a Morocco cut,
Resembling a late man of wit,
Auld-gabbet Spec, who was so cunning
To be a dummie ten years running.

Then for the fabric of my mind,
'Tis more to mirth than grief inclined;
I rather choose to laugh at folly
Than show dislike by melancholy:
Well judging a sour heavy face
Is not the truest mark of grace.'

Existing portraits, including the one most valued for its fidelity
to the original, that by his son, Allan Ramsay, the artist
(Portrait-painter in Ordinary to King George III.), show him to have
possessed features that were delicate and sharply chiselled, keen dark
eyes, a mobile, sensitive mouth, a complexion dark almost to
swarthiness, and a high rounded forehead. To these items may be added
those others coming as side-lights, thrown on a man's character and
individuality by the passing references of contemporaries. From such
sources we learn that his face was one whereon were writ large,
contentment with himself and with the world, as well as a certain pawky
shrewdness and unaffected _bonhomie_. This expression was largely
induced by the twinkling of his beadlike eyes, and the lines of his
mouth, which curved upwards at the corners; almost imperceptibly, it is
true, yet sufficiently to flash into h