ted table or warmed my
bed for me with a devil of a brass warming-pan, fully larger than
herself; and as she was no less pert than she was pretty, she may be
said to have given rather better than she took. I cannot tell why
(unless it were for the sake of her saucy eyes), but I made her my
confidante, told her I was attached to a young lady in Scotland, and
received the encouragement of her sympathy, mingled and connected with a
fair amount of rustic wit. While I slept the down-mail stopped for
supper; it chanced that one of the passengers left behind a copy of the
_Edinburgh Courant_, and the next morning my pretty chambermaid set the
paper before me at breakfast, with the remark that there was some news
from my lady-love. I took it eagerly, hoping to find some further word
of our escape, in which I was disappointed; and I was about to lay it
down, when my eye fell on a paragraph immediately concerning me. Faa was
in hospital, grievously sick, and warrants were out for the arrest of
Sim and Candlish. These two men had shown themselves very loyal to me.
This trouble emerging, the least I could do was to be guided by a
similar loyalty to them. Suppose my visit to my uncle crowned with some
success, and my finances re-established, I determined I should
immediately return to Edinburgh, put their case in the hands of a good
lawyer, and await events. So my mind was very lightly made up to what
proved a mighty serious matter. Candlish and Sim were all very well in
their way, and I do sincerely trust I should have been at some pains to
help them, had there been nothing else. But in truth my heart and my
eyes were set on quite another matter, and I received the news of their
tribulation almost with joy. There is never a bad wind that blows where
we want to go, and you may be sure there was nothing unwelcome in a
circumstance that carried me back to Edinburgh and Flora. From that hour
I began to indulge myself with the making of imaginary scenes and
interviews, in which I confounded the aunt, flattered Ronald, and now in
the witty, now in the sentimental manner, declared my love and received
the assurance of its return. By means of this exercise my resolution
daily grew stronger, until at last I had piled together such a mass of
obstinacy as it would have taken a cataclysm of nature to subvert.

"Yes," said I to the chambermaid, "here is news of my lady-love indeed,
and very good news too."

All that day, in the teeth of a keen