de to
sleep."

So saying, she tripped along the floor of the apartment with a light,
though hesitating, step; and a cheek crimsoned at her own purpose; and
gliding to the chair of the sleeper, dropped a kiss upon his lips as
light as if a rose leaf had fallen on them. The slumbers must have been
slight which such a touch could dispel, and the dreams of the sleeper
must needs have been connected with the cause of the interruption,
since Henry, instantly starting up, caught the maiden in his arms, and
attempted to return in ecstasy the salute which had broken his repose.
But Catharine struggled in his embrace; and as her efforts implied
alarmed modesty rather than maidenly coyness, her bashful lover suffered
her to escape a grasp from which twenty times her strength could not
have extricated her.

"Nay, be not angry, good Henry," said Catharine, in the kindest tone, to
her surprised lover. "I have paid my vows to St. Valentine, to show how
I value the mate which he has sent me for the year. Let but my father
be present, and I will not dare to refuse thee the revenge you may claim
for a broken sleep."

"Let not that be a hinderance," said the old glover, rushing in ecstasy
into the room; "to her, smith--to her: strike while the iron is hot, and
teach her what it is not to let sleeping dogs lie still."

Thus encouraged, Henry, though perhaps with less alarming vivacity,
again seized the blushing maiden in his arms, who submitted with a
tolerable grace to receive repayment of her salute, a dozen times
repeated, and with an energy very different from that which had provoked
such severe retaliation. At length she again extricated herself from
her lover's arms, and, as if frightened and repenting what she had done,
threw herself into a seat, and covered her face with her hands.

"Cheer up, thou silly girl," said her father, "and be not ashamed that
thou hast made the two happiest men in Perth, since thy old father is
one of them. Never was kiss so well bestowed, and meet it is that it
should be suitably returned. Look up, my darling! look up, and let me
see thee give but one smile. By my honest word, the sun that now rises
over our fair city shows no sight that can give me greater pleasure.
What," he continued, in a jocose tone, "thou thoughtst thou hadst Jamie
Keddie's ring, and couldst walk invisible? but not so, my fairy of the
dawning. Just as I was about to rise, I heard thy chamber door open, and
watched thee downst