ed by having a legacy bequeathed to him of two
shares in the Ayr bank. His hopes on the present occasion are founded on
a very distant relationship, upon his sitting in the same pew with the
deceased every Sunday, and upon his playing at cribbage with her
regularly on the Saturday evenings, taking great care never to come off a
winner. That other coarse-looking man, wearing his own greasy hair tied
in a leathern cue more greasy still, is a tobacconist, a relation of Mrs.
Bertram's mother, who, having a good stock in trade when the colonial war
broke out, trebled the price of his commodity to all the world, Mrs.
Bertram alone excepted, whose tortoise-shell snuff-box was weekly filled
with the best rappee at the old prices, because the maid brought it to
the shop with Mrs. Bertram's respects to her cousin Mr. Quid. That young
fellow, who has not had the decency to put off his boots and buckskins,
might have stood as forward as most of them in the graces of the old
lady, who loved to look upon a comely young man; but it is thought he has
forfeited the moment of fortune by sometimes neglecting her tea-table
when solemnly invited, sometimes appearing there when he had been dining
with blyther company, twice treading upon her cat's tail, and once
affronting her parrot.

To Mannering the most interesting of the group was the poor girl who had
been a sort of humble companion of the deceased, as a subject upon whom
she could at all times expectorate her bad humour. She was for form's
sake dragged into the room by the deceased's favourite female attendant,
where, shrinking into a>corner as soon as possible, she saw with wonder
and affright the intrusive researches of the strangers amongst those
recesses to which from childhood she had looked with awful veneration.
This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by all the competitors,
honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her
a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and
diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present
who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been
her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious
tyranny was forgotten at the moment, while the tears followed each other
fast down the cheeks of her frightened and friendless dependent. 'There's
ower muckle saut water there, Drumquag,' said the tobacconist to the
ex-proprietor, 'to bode ither folk muck