d for a great while to spend more; and, by way of a set-off, I
left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little
braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for
me.

By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door
with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read
myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my
bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her
peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was
constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear
to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced
and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I began
to think of it myself as very hazarded. I bethought me, if I had a
sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case too
problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so trust
Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being: the answer to which
made my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped, and
had entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should behave in
it with scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her bread and
shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no retreat.
Besides, I was her host and her protector; and the more irregularly I
had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if I should profit
by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for with the
opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would have
suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair. I saw
I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too much so
neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the character of a
suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible agreeably, in
that of host. It was plain I should require a great deal of tact and
conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had rushed in where
angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way out of that
position save by behaving right while I was in it. I made a set of rules
for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to observe them, and
as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study-book in law. This
being all that I could think of, I relaxed from these grave
considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an effervescency
of pleasing spirit