“But wha was she like, Andrew?” said the old woman. “Was she like auld Janet that was drowned in the burn forenaint? or that auld witch that your maister hanged for stealing his pet lamb? or was she like----” “Are you sure she was na like _me_, Andrew?” said Effie, looking archly in his face. “You--pshaw! Faith, guid mither, she was like to naebody that I ken, unless it be auld Elspeth, the cobbler’s wife, that was blamed for a’ the mischief or misfortunes o’ the kintra roun’, and was drowned at last for having ‘sense aboon the lave.’” “And how was she dressed, Andrew?” “In that horrible three-cornered hat, which may I be blinded if ever I seek to look upon again!--an’ in a lang blue apron----” “Green, Andrew!” cried Effie, twirling her own green apron round her thumb. “How you like to tease ane!” said the lover. Poor Andrew did not at all enter into his mistress’s pleasantry, for he laboured under a great depression of spirits, and never lifted his eyes from the ground. “But ye hae na tauld us what she said, lad!” said the old woman, assuming an air of deeper mystery as each question was put and answered in its turn. “Lord! what signifies it whether she said this or that! Haud your tongue, and get me some comfort; for, to speak truth, I’m vera cauld.” “Weel mayest thou be sae,” said Effie, “for indeed,” she continued, in a feigned voice, “_it was a cauld an’ an eerie night to be sae late on Anneslie Muir_.” Andrew started, and a doubt seemed to pass over his mind. He looked up at the damsel, and perceived, for the first time, that her large blue eyes were laughing at him from under the shade of a huge three-cornered hat. The next moment he hung over her in an ecstasy of gratitude, and smothered with his kisses the ridicule which she forced upon him as the penalty of his preservation. “Seven feet high, Andrew?” “My dear Effie!” “As ugly as sin?” “My darling lassie!” “And a beard?” “Na! na! now you carry the jest o’er far!” “And saxty winters?” “Saxteen springs, Effie! Dear, delightfu’, smiling springs!” “And Elspeth, the cobbler’s wife! Oh, Andrew, Andrew! I never can forgie you for the cobbler’s wife! And what say you now, Andrew--is there nae bogle on the muir?” “My dear Effie, for your sake I’ll believe in a’ the bogles in Christendie!” “That is,” said Effie, at the conclusion of a long and vehement fit of risibility, “that is, in a’ that wear ‘three-cornered hats.’” ON THE PROPOSED ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ETON.