fathers and grandfathers, their mothers and grandmothers, and the most
sceptical were convinced at once. No man durst venture to cast the
shadow of a doubt upon such incontrovertible evidence, because to have
done so would have been to implicate their relations in the charge of
speaking beside the truth, and these, they said, "were decent,
respectable folk, and never kenned for lee'rs in their lives."

In this metropolis, and near the scene of these memorable events,
Nelly Kilgour was born--the exact date of her birth we do not pretend
to determine, though it must have been some time in the eighteenth
century--and had lived, running about, going to school, and serving
sundry of the lieges who were indwellers thereof, till she had arrived
at years of discretion--in other words, till she had seen
three-and-thirty "summers," as a poet would say, and nearly the same
number of winters, as our reader may guess. It has been said that
there are three distinct questions which a woman naturally puts to
herself at three different periods of her life. The first is--"Who
will I take?"--a most important question, no doubt; and we may
reasonably suppose that it occurs about the time when the attentions
of the other sex first awaken her to a sense of her own charms, and
she is thus ready to look upon every one who smiles on her as a lover,
and every young fellow who contemplates her face while talking to her
as anxious to become her husband. The second question, which is
scarcely less important, is--"Who will I get?" and this, we may again
suppose, begins to be repeated seriously, after she has seen the same
individual smile upon half-a-dozen damsels on the same day, and after
she has learned that it is possible for an unmarried man to
contemplate her own fair face with the deepest interest, and converse
with her on the most interesting subjects on Monday morning, and then
go and do the same to another on Tuesday evening. But the last, and
perhaps the most important, as it certainly is the most perplexing of
these questions, is--"_Will I get onybody ava?_" and this, there can
be little doubt, begins to force itself upon her attention, after the
smiles of her admirers have become so faint that they are no longer
able to climb over the nose; when, instead of talking of love, they
begin to yawn, and speak about the weather; in short, after she
becomes conscious that her charms are at a discount, and that those
who are coming up behind h