cendency
have the more merit in doing that duty for nothing, which cost money in
the reign of that empress of superstition, whom Spenser, Caxon, terms in
his allegorical phrase,

--The daughter of that woman blind,
Abessa, daughter of Corecca slow--

But why talk I of these things to thee?--my poor Lovel has spoiled me,
and taught me to speak aloud when it is much the same as speaking to
myself. Where's my nephew, Hector M'Intyre?"

"He's in the parlour, sir, wi' the leddies."

"Very well," said the Antiquary, "I will betake me thither."

"Now, Monkbarns," said his sister, on his entering the parlour, "ye
maunna be angry."

"My dear uncle!" began Miss M'Intyre.

"What's the meaning of all this?" said Oldbuck, in alarm of some
impending bad news, and arguing upon the supplicating tone of the
ladies, as a fortress apprehends an attack from the very first flourish
of the trumpet which announces the summons--"what's all this?--what do you
bespeak my patience for?"

"No particular matter, I should hope, sir," said Hector, who, with his
arm in a sling, was seated at the breakfast table;--"however, whatever it
may amount to I am answerable for it, as I am for much more trouble
that I have occasioned, and for which I have little more than thanks to
offer."

"No, no! heartily welcome, heartily welcome--only let it be a warning to
you," said the Antiquary, "against your fits of anger, which is a short
madness--Ira furor brevis--but what is this new disaster?"

"My dog, sir, has unfortunately thrown down"--

"If it please Heaven, not the lachrymatory from Clochnaben!" interjected
Oldbuck.

"Indeed, uncle," said the young lady, "I am afraid--it was that which
stood upon the sideboard--the poor thing only meant to eat the pat of
fresh butter."

"In which she has fully succeeded, I presume, for I see that on the
table is salted. But that is nothing--my lachrymatory, the main pillar
of my theory on which I rested to show, in despite of the ignorant
obstinacy of Mac-Cribb, that the Romans had passed the defiles of
these mountains, and left behind them traces of their arts and arms, is
gone--annihilated--reduced to such fragments as might be the shreds of a
broken-flowerpot!

--Hector, I love thee,
But never more be officer of mine."

"Why, really, sir, I am afraid I should make a bad figure in a regiment
of your raising."

"At lea