stilling sentiment;
and that was the apprehension that Mary would be spoilt. This, for the
present, was the pendulum of their imaginations.

"I declare, Mary, my sisters and I could get no sleep last night for
thinking of you," said Miss Grizzy; _"we_ are all certain that Lady
Juliana especially, but indeed all your English relations, will think so
much of you--from not knowing you, you know--which will be quite
natural. I'm sure that my sisters and I have taken it into our
heads--but I hope it won't be the case, as you have a great deal of good
sense of your own--that they will quite turn your head."

"Mary's head is on her shoulders to little purpose," followed up Miss
Jacky, "if she can't stand being made of when she goes amongst
strangers; and she ought to know by this time that a mother's partiality
is no proof of a child's merit."

"You hear that, Mary," rejoined Miss Grizzy; "so I'm sure I hope you
won't mind a word that your mother says to you, I mean about yourself;
for of course you know she can't be such a good judge of you as us, who
have known you all your life. As to other things, I daresay she is very
well informed about the country, and politics, and these sort of
things--I'm certain Lady Juliana knows a great deal."

"And I hope, Mary, you will take care and not get into the daadlin'
handless ways of the English women," said Miss Nicky; "I wouldn't give a
pin for an Englishwoman."

"And I hope you will never look at an Englishman, Mary," said Miss
Grizzy, with equal earnestness; "take my word for it they are a very
dissipated, unprincipled set. They all drink, and game, and keep
race-horses; and many of them, I'm told, even keep play-actresses; so
you may think what it would be for all of us if you were to marry any of
them,"--and tears streamed from the good spinster's eyes at the bare
supposition of such a calamity.

"Don't be afraid, my dear aunt," said Mary, with a kind caress; "I
shall come back to you your own 'Highland Mary.' No Englishman with his
round face and trim meadows shall ever captivate me. Heath covered hills
and high cheek-bones are the charms that must win my heart."

"I'm delighted to hear you say so, my dear Mary," said the
literal-minded Grizzy. "Certainly nothing can be prettier than the
heather when it's in flower; and there is something very manly--nobody
can dispute that--in high cheek-bones; and besides, to tell you a
secret, Lady Maclaughlan has a husband in her eye