prepared--but Effie's wit! that would never
have entered into her imagination, being ignorant how exactly raillery in
the higher rank resembles flippancy among their inferiors.

"She has been the ruling belle--the blazing star--the universal toast of
the winter," said the Duke; "and is really the most beautiful creature
that was seen at court upon the birth-day."

The birthday! and at court!--Jeanie was annihilated, remembering well her
own presentation, all its extraordinary circumstances, and particularly
the cause of it.

"I mention this lady particularly to you, Mrs. Butler," said the Duke,
"because she has something in the sound of her voice, and cast of her
countenance, that reminded me of you--not when you look so pale
though--you have over-fatigued yourself--you must pledge me in a glass
of wine."

She did so, and Butler observed, "It was dangerous flattery in his Grace
to tell a poor minister's wife that she was like a court-beauty."

"Oho, Mr. Butler," said the Duke, "I find you are growing jealous; but
it's rather too late in the day, for you know how long I have admired
your wife. But seriously, there is betwixt them one of those inexplicable
likenesses which we see in countenances, that do not otherwise resemble
each other."

"The perilous part of the compliment has flown off," thought Mr. Butler.

His wife, feeling the awkwardness of silence, forced herself to say,
"That, perhaps, the lady might be her countrywoman, and the language
might have made some resemblance."

"You are quite right," replied the Duke. "She is a Scotch-woman, and
speaks with a Scotch accent, and now and then a provincial word drops out
so prettily, that it is quite Doric, Mr. Butler."

"I should have thought," said the clergyman, "that would have sounded
vulgar in the great city."

"Not at all," replied the Duke; "you must suppose it is not the broad
coarse Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, or in the
Gorbals. This lady has been very little in Scotland, in fact she was
educated in a convent abroad, and speaks that pure court-Scotch, which
was common in my younger days; but it is so generally disused now, that
it sounds like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern
_patois._"

Notwithstanding her anxiety, Jeanie could not help admiring within
herself, how the most correct judges of life and manners can be imposed
on by their own preconceptions, while the Duke proceeded thus: "She is of
the u