ay of St. Ronan's?--ha--eh--I know--that is--I did know the
family."

"Here they are going to give a masquerade, a _bal pare_, private
theatricals, I think, and what not," handing him the card.

"I saw something of this a fortnight ago," said Mr. Cargill; "indeed, I
either had a ticket myself, or I saw such a one as that."

"Are you sure you did not attend the party, Doctor?" said the Nabob.

"Who attend? I? you are jesting, Mr. Touchwood."

"But are you quite positive?" demanded Mr. Touchwood, who had observed,
to his infinite amusement, that the learned and abstracted scholar was
so conscious of his own peculiarities, as never to be very sure on any
such subject.

"Positive!" he repeated with embarrassment; "my memory is so wretched
that I never like to be positive--but had I done any thing so far out of
my usual way, I must have remembered it, one would think--and--I _am_
positive I was not there."

"Neither could you, Doctor," said the Nabob, laughing at the process by
which his friend reasoned himself into confidence, "for it did not take
place--it was adjourned, and this is the second invitation--there will
be one for you, as you had a card to the former.--Come, Doctor, you must
go--you and I will go together--I as an Imaum--I can say my Bismillah
with any Hadgi of them all--You as a cardinal, or what you like best."

"Who, I?--it is unbecoming my station, Mr. Touchwood," said the
clergyman--"a folly altogether inconsistent with my habits."

"All the better--you shall change your habits."

"You had better gang up and see them, Mr. Cargill," said Mrs. Dods; "for
it's maybe the last sight ye may see of Miss Mowbray--they say she is to
be married and off to England ane of thae odd-come-shortlies, wi' some
of the gowks about the Waal down-by."

"Married!" said the clergyman; "it is impossible!"

"But where's the impossibility, Mr. Cargill, when ye see folk marry
every day, and buckle them yoursell into the bargain?--Maybe ye think
the puir lassie has a bee in her bannet; but ye ken yoursell if naebody
but wise folk were to marry, the warld wad be ill peopled. I think it's
the wise folk that keep single, like yoursell and me, Mr. Cargill.--Gude
guide us!--are ye weel?--will ye taste a drap o' something?"

"Sniff at my ottar of roses," said Mr. Touchwood; "the scent would
revive the dead--why, what in the devil's name is the meaning of
this?--you were quite well just now."

"A sudden qualm," said Mr. Car