"'Dinna touch that buik, my bonny leddy,' I cried. 'It's awfu' fu' o' dist and stoor. It'll smore ye to open the twa brods o' 't. Yer rosy goon'll be clean blaudit wi' the stew (dust) o' 't.' "She startit and luikit roon some frichtit like, and I rase an' gaed across the flure till her. And her face grew bonnier as I cam nearer till her. Her nose an' her twa eebrees jist min'd ye upo' the picturs o' the Holy Ghost comin' doon like a doo; and oot aneath ilka wing there luikit a hert o' licht--that was her twa een, that gaed throu and throu me as gin I had been a warp and they twa shuttles; and faith! they made o' my life and o' me what it is and I am. They wove the wab o' me. "Ay. They gaed oot and in, and throu and throu, and back and fore, and roon and aboot, till there wasna a nerve or a fibre o' my bein', but they had twisted it up jist as a spither does a flee afore he sooks the life oot o' 't. But that's a prolepsis." "'Are you the librarian?' said she, saft and sma', like hersel'. "'That I am, mem,' said I. 'My name's Cupples--at your service, mem.' "'I was looking, Mr Cupples,' said she, 'for some book to help me to learn Gaelic. I want very much to read Gaelic.' "'Weel, mem,' said I, 'gin it had been ony o' the Romance languages, or ony ane o' the Teutonic breed, I micht hae gien ye a lift. But I doot ye maun bide till ye gang to Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, whaur ye'll easy fa' in wi' some lang-leggit bejan that'll be prood to instruc' ye, and coont himsel' ower weel paid wi' the sicht o' yer bonny face.'