swered her, however, that Donal
could speak very good English if he chose, but that the affected
tone and would-be-fine pronunciation of Fergus Duff had given him
the notion that to speak anything but his mother-tongue would be
unmanly and false. As to his dress, Donal was poor, Gibbie said,
and could not give up wearing any clothes so long as there was any
wear in them. "If you had seen me once!" he added, with a merry
laugh to finish for his fingers.

Mrs. Sclater spoke to her husband, who said to Gibbie that, if he
chose to provide Donal with suitable garments, he would advance him
the money:--that was the way he took credit for every little sum he
handed his ward, but in his accounts was correct to a farthing.

Gibbie would thereupon have dragged Donal at once to the tailor; but
Donal was obstinate.

"Na, na," he said; "the claes is guid eneuch for him 'at weirs them.
Ye dee eneuch for me, Sir Gilbert, a'ready; an' though I wad be
obleeged to you as I wad to my mither hersel', to cleed me gien I
warna dacent, I winna tak your siller nor naebody ither's to gang
fine. Na, na; I'll weir the claes oot, an' we s' dee better wi' the
neist. An' for that bonnie wuman, Mistress Scletter, ye can tell
her, 'at by the time I hae onything to say to the warl', it winna be
my claes 'at'll haud fowk ohn hearkent; an' gien she considers them
'at I hae noo, ower sair a disgrace till her gran' rooms, she maun
jist no inveet me, an' I'll no come; for I canna presently help
them. But the neist session, whan I hae better, for I'm sure to get
wark eneuch in atween, I'll come an' shaw mysel', an' syne she can
dee as she likes."

This high tone of liberty, so free from offence either given or
taken, was thoroughly appreciated by both Mr. and Mrs. Sclater, and
they did not cease to invite him. A little talk with the latter
soon convinced him that there was neither assumption nor lack of
patriotism in speaking the language of the people among whom he
found himself; and as he made her his model in the pursuit of the
accomplishment, he very soon spoke a good deal better English than
Mr. Sclater. But with Gibbie, and even with the dainty Ginevra, he
could not yet bring himself to talk anything but his mother-tongue.

"I cannot mak my moo'," he would say, "to speyk onything but the
nat'ral tongue o' poetry till sic a bonnie cratur as Miss Galbraith;
an' for yersel', Gibbie--man! I wad be ill willin' to bigg a stane
wa' atween me a