never did believe in that young woman;
I thought she was a deuced sight too clever; and when she used to go
about humbugging this one and the other with her innocent airs, I said
to myself, 'Oh, it's all very well: but _you_ know what you are about.'
Of course there was no use talking to you. I believe at one time Mrs.
Ross was considering the point whether she ought not to give you a
hint--seeing that you had met Miss White first at her house--that the
young lady was rather clever at flirtation, and that you ought to keep a
sharp lookout. But then you would only have blazed up in anger. It was
no use talking to you. And then, after all, I said that if you were so
bent on marrying her, the chances were that you would have no
difficulty, for I thought the bribe of her being called Lady Macleod
would be enough for any actress. As for this man Lemuel, no doubt he is
a very great man, as people say; but I don't know much about these
things myself; and--and--I think it is very plucky of Mrs. Ross to cut
off two of her lions at one stroke. It shows she must have taken an
uncommon liking for you. So you must cheer up, Macleod. If woman take a
fancy to you like that, you'll easily get a better wife than Miss White
would have made. Mind you, I don't go back from anything I ever said of
her. She is a handsome woman, and no mistake; and I will say that she is
the best waltzer that I ever met with in the whole course of my
life--without exception. But she's the sort of woman who, if I married
her, would want some looking after--I mean, that is my impression. The
fact is, Macleod, away there in Mull you have been brought up too much
on books and your own imagination. You were ready to believe any pretty
woman, with soft English ways, an angel. Well, you have had a twister;
but you'll come through it; and you will get to believe, after all, that
women are very good creatures just as men are very good creatures, when
you get the right sort. Come now, Macleod, pull yourself together;
Perhaps I have just as hard an opinion of her conduct towards you as you
have yourself. But you know what Tommy Moore, or some fellow like that
says--'Though she be not fair to me, what the devil care I how fair she
be?' And if I were you, I would have a drop of brandy--but not half a
tumblerful."

But neither Lieutenant Ogilvie's pert common-sense, nor his apt and
accurate quotation, nor the proffered brandy, seemed to alter much the
mood of this haggard-