he Scotch Thistle choke the Hanoverian Horse."

"I wish I binna among the Whigs," she said.

"And whare wad ye be sae weel?" retorted he.

"They murdered Dundee's son at Glasgow."

"There was nae great skaith," he replied; "but ye maun drink my
toast in a glass of this cauld punch, if ye be a true Jacobite."

"Aweel, aweel," said the Lady Pitlyal; "as my auld friend Lady
Christian Bruce was wont to say, 'The best way to get the better
of temptation is just to yield to it;'" and as she nodded to the
toast and emptied the glass, Holmehead swore
exultingly--"_Faith, she's true!_"

Supper passed over, and the carriages were announced. The Lady
Pitlyal took her leave with Mrs. Gillies.

Next day the town rang with the heiress of Pitlyal. Mr. W. Clerk
said he had never met with such an extraordinary old lady, "for
not only is she amusing herself, but my brother John is like to
expire, when I relate her stories at second-hand."

He talked of nothing else for a week after, but the heiress, and
the flea, and the rent-roll, and the old turreted house of
Pitlyal, till at last his friends thought it would be right to
undeceive him; but that was not so easily done, for when the
Lord Chief-Commissioner Adam hinted that it might be Miss
Stirling, he said that was impossible, for Miss Stirling was
sitting by the old lady the whole of the evening.

Here is a bit of Sir Walter--

Turning to Sir Walter, "I am sure you had our laird in your e'e
when you drew the character of Monkbarns."

"No," replied Sir Walter, "but I had in my eye a very old and
respected friend of my own, and one with whom, I daresay you,
Mrs. Arbuthnott, were acquainted--the late Mr. George Constable
of Wallace, near Dundee."

"I kenned him weel," said Mrs. Arbuthnott, "and his twa sisters
that lived wi' him, Jean and Christian, and I've been in the
blue-chamber of his _Hospitium_; but I think," she continued,
"our laird is the likest to Monkbarns o' the twa. He's at the
Antiquarian Society the night, presenting a great curiosity that
was found in a quarry of mica slate in the hill at the back of
Balwylie. He's sair taken up about it, and puzzled to think what
substance it may be; but James Dalgetty, wha's never at a loss
either for the name or the nature of onything under the sun,
says it's just Noa