“Bravissimo!” she cried. “There is a word well said at last, and I will reward you for it with my story. That same night of your desertion I came late from a friend’s house—where I was excessively admired, whatever you may think of it—and what should I hear but that a lass in a tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there an hour or better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as she sat waiting. I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I knew her at a look. ‘_Grey Eyes_!’ says I to myself, but was more wise than to let on. _You will be Miss Grant at last_? she says, rising and looking at me hard and pitiful. _Ay_, _it was true he said_, _you are bonny at all events_.—_The way God made me_, _my dear_, I said, _but I would be gey and obliged if you could tell me what brought you here at such a time of the night_.—_Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk_, _we are both come of the blood of the sons of Alpin_.—_My dear_, I replied, _I think no more of Alpin or his sons than what I do of a kalestock_. _You have a better argument in these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it was weak-minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it was the wisest stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her heart went out to me. I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb, because it is the same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine lass! She is as clean as hill well water.” “She is e’en’t!” I cried. “Well, then, she told me her concerns,” pursued Miss Grant, “and in what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had found herself after you was gone away. _And then I minded at long last_, says she, _that we were kinswomen_, _and that Mr. David should have given you the name of the bonniest of the bonny_, _and I was thinking to myself_ ‘_If she is so bonny she will be good at all events_’; _and I took up my foot soles out of that_. That was when I forgave yourself, Mr. Davie. When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron: by all marks, if ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from; and now it appeared you had given me some notice in the by-going, and was so kind as to comment on my attractions! From that hour you may date our friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the Latin grammar.”