captain
was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were
smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill,
and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed
nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed the
man's place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the
pretty maid-servant's labour by waiting on empty cups and
bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so dignified a
manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to
attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played for
threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds;
and yet, in all his attention to strangers, he had an eye on his
suffering daughter--for suffering I was sure she was, though to many
eyes she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play
cards; but she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her coming, had
been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked
piano, which I think had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang
"Jock of Hazeldean" a little out of tune; but we were none of us
musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing
to be so.

It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a
little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's
unguarded admission (apropos of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,
her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns
tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough--for the Honourable
Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and
what would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room
with a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we
all agreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the information, and assure
Miss Pole she could easily get her identical Shetland wool required,
"through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any
one in Edinboro'." It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,
and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music;
so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.

When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a
quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, talking
over tricks; but by and by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.

"Have you seen