The lady toyed with her fan; her eyes, mischievous and profound as wells and of the hue of plums, sparkled through the holes in her mask. “Oh la! and you divine at it, I declare! Our Edinburgh belles, then, do not tempt you, Mr Macdonald? But I daresay you will think them quite good enough for our Edinburgh beaux; now, did you ever in your life see such gawks?” Macdonald rubbed his chin. “On the contrary,” said he, “I was just thinking them uncommon spruce and handsome.” “You are very tolerant; have you any other virtues to be aired?” said the lady with a smile that puzzled him. “There’s still another dance, I see; her ladyship is fairly in the key to-night; you’ll have time to tell me all of them seriatim, missing out the lesser ones _brevitatis causa_.” “H’m!” thought he; “her father’s in the law,” and wondered who she was. “I could tell you all of them in the time it would take to dance a step of the Highland Fling,” said he. “Faith, there’s modesty! Item, Mr Macdonald?” and she sat back in her chair, her hoops bulged out in front of her like the bastion of a fort. He counted them on his fingers humorously. “Item, the tolerance you have given me credit for, though you have no example of it as yet, madam; item, an honest liking for my fellows, even the scamps of them; item, a habit of aye paying my way; item—” his forefinger hovered dubiously over the other hand, but never lighted on another virtue. “I declare to you I have got to the end of my list and the man has not yet finished the tuning of his fiddle,” he said, laughing in a way so pleasant it almost made amends for his unhappy nose. He had taken a seat beside her, she tapped him with her fan upon the knees with an air of the superior that struck him as a little droll, and, looking straight in his face, said in an affected Scots, as if to take the sting from the words: “A’ very fine, Maister Macdonald, a’ very fine! What have ye given me here but twa-three virtues that come—except maybe the last—so easy to maist folk they’re nae mair to your credit than that you should sup kail wi’ a spoon?” “A poor show, I confess it, ma’am; if you want a list of more brilliant virtues, you should try my worthy cousin, your last partner,” he replied. “Do you tell me that—Barrisdale?” said the lady, burring her “r’s” with a gusto to make him certain she had no dubiety regarding his identity. He could not hide a little start of surprise, for he thought the secret of his cousin and himself being in Edinburgh was known to but two men there, Lord Duthie and Mackee. “You’re the daughter of Lord Duthie,” said he, remembering her law Latinity.