r champion."

"I may have the greater need of her, ma'am," said I.

"Come, this is better!" says Miss Grant. "But look me fairly in the
face; am I not bonnier than she?"

"I would be the last to be denying it," said I. "There is not your
marrow in all Scotland."

"Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs
speak of the other," said she. "This is never the way to please the
ladies, Mr. Balfour."

"But, mistress," said I, "there are surely other things besides mere
beauty."

"By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,
perhaps?" she asked.

"By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the
midden in the fable book," said I. "I see the braw jewel--and I like
fine to see it too--but I have more need of the pickle corn."

"Bravissimo!" she cried. "There is a word well said at last, and I will
reward you for it with my story. That same night of your desertion I
came late from a friend's house--where I was excessively admired,
whatever you may think of it--and what should I hear but that a lass in
a tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there an hour or
better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as she sat
waiting. I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I knew her at
a look. '_Grey Eyes!_' says I to myself, but was more wise than to let
on. _You will be Miss Grant at last?_ she says, rising and looking at me
hard and pitiful. _Ay, it was true he said, you are bonny at all
events.--The way God made me, my dear_, I said, _but I would be gey and
obliged if ye could tell me what brought you here at such a time of the
night--Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk, we are both come of the blood
of the sons of Alpin.--My dear_, I replied, _I think no more of Alpin or
his sons than what I do of a kale-stock. You have a better argument in
these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was so weakminded as to
kiss her, which is what you would like to do dearly, and I wager will
never find the courage of. I say it was weakminded of me, for I knew no
more of her than the outside; but it was the wisest stroke I could have
hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been
little used with tenderness; and at that caress (though to say the
truth, it was but lightly given) her heart went out to me. I will never
betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way
she turned me round her thumb,