of Provost Brown--a
Campbell and a Gael, but burdened by accident with a Lowland-sounding
cognomen. He had the whole flat to himself--half-a-dozen snug apartments
with windows facing the street or the sea as he wanted. I was just at
the head of the first flight when out of a door came a girl, and I clean
forgot all about the widow's flask of French brandy.

Little more than twelve years syne the Provost's daughter had been a
child at the grammar-school, whose one annoyance in life was that the
dominie called her Betsy instead of Betty, her real own name: here she
was, in the flat of her father's house in Inneraora town, a full-grown
woman, who gave me check in my stride and set my face flaming. I took
in her whole appearance at one glance--a way we have in foreign armies.
Between my toe on the last step of the stair and the landing I read
the picture: a well-bred woman, from her carriage, the neatness of her
apparel, the composure of her pause to let me bye in the narrow passage
to the next stair; not very tall (I have ever had a preference for
such as come no higher than neck and oxter); very dark brown hair, eyes
sparkling, a face rather pale than ruddy, soft skinned, full of a keen
nervousness.

In this matter of a woman's eyes--if I may quit the thread of my
history--I am a trifle fastidious, and I make bold to say that
the finest eyes in the world are those of the Highland girls of
Argile--burgh or landward--the best bred and gentlest of them, I mean:
There is in them a full and melting friendliness, a mixture to my
sometimes notion of poetry and of calm--a memory, as I've thought
before, of the deep misty glens and their sights and secrets. I have
seen more of the warm heart and merriment in a simple Loch Finne girl's
eyes than in all the faces of all the grand dames ever I looked on,
Lowland or foreign.

What pleased me first and foremost about this girl Betty, daughter
of Provost Brown, were her eyes, then, that showed, even in yon dusky
passage, a humoursome interest in young Elrigmore in a kilt coming
up-stairs swinging on a finger the key of Lucky Fraser's garret. She
hung back doubtfully, though she knew me (I could see) for her old
school-fellow and sometime boy-lover, but I saw something of a welcome
in the blush at her face, and I gave her no time to chill to me.

"Betty lass, 'tis you," said I, putting out a hand and shaking her
soft fingers. "What think you of my ceremony in calling at the earliest