st and hostess, who had
invited so large a party before getting a shorter and better road made
between the Well and Shaws-Castle.

"It would have been so easy to repair the path by the Buck-stane!"

And this was all the thanks which Mr. Mowbray received for an
entertainment which had cost him so much trouble and expense, and had
been looked forward to by the good society at the Well with such
impatient expectation.

"It was an unco pleasant show," said the good-natured Mrs. Blower, "only
it was a pity it was sae tediousome; and there was surely an awfu' waste
of gauze and muslin."

But so well had Dr. Quackleben improved his numerous opportunities, that
the good lady was much reconciled to affairs in general, by the prospect
of coughs, rheumatisms, and other maladies acquired upon the occasion,
which were likely to afford that learned gentleman, in whose prosperity
she much interested herself, a very profitable harvest.

Mowbray, somewhat addicted to the service of Bacchus, did not find
himself freed, by the secession of so large a proportion of the company,
from the service of the jolly god, although, upon the present occasion,
he could well have dispensed with his orgies. Neither the song, nor the
pun, nor the jest, had any power to kindle his heavy spirit, mortified
as he was by the event of his party being so different from the
brilliant consummation which he had anticipated. The guests, stanch boon
companions, suffered not, however, their party to flag for want of the
landlord's participation, but continued to drink bottle after bottle,
with as little regard for Mr. Mowbray's grave looks, as if they had been
carousing at the Mowbray Arms, instead of the Mowbray mansion-house.
Midnight at length released him, when, with an unsteady step, he sought
his own apartment; cursing himself and his companions, consigning his
own person with all dispatch to his bed, and bequeathing those of the
company to as many mosses and quagmires, as could be found betwixt
Shaws-Castle and St. Ronan's Well.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PROPOSAL.

Oh! you would be a vestal maid, I warrant,
The bride of Heaven--Come--we may shake your purpose;
For here I bring in hand a jolly suitor
Hath ta'en degrees in the seven sciences
That ladies love best--He is young and noble,
Handsome and valiant, gay, and rich, and liberal.

_The Nun._

The morning after a debauch is usually one of reflection, even to the
most d