“It’s no use trying, ma’am,” said he. “Let me be as good as gold and I would never get credit for it from your sex, that must always fancy that a handsome face never goes but with a handsome heart.” She rose with an air of vexation to leave him, very red below her mask; the last dance was on the point of ending, the dowagers were coming in with their Paisley plaids on their shoulders. “I would never hurt any person’s feelings by allusion to his personal appearance,” she said, as she was turning away. “I am sure of it, ma’am,” said he; “you are most considerate.” CHAPTER II. THE FIRE. MACDONALD and his cousin Jock walked to their lodging in Halkerston’s Wynd without a lanthorn. The watch cried, “Twal o’clock, twal o’clock, and a perishin’ cauld nicht”; they could hear the splash of his shoes in the puddles of the lane although they could not see him. The town now rose above the haar that brooded in the swampy hollow underneath the citadel; the rain was gone, the stars were clear, the wind moaned in the lanes and whistled on the steep. It was like as they were in some wizard fortress cut from rock, walking in mirk ravines, the enormous houses dizzy overhanging them, the closes running to the plains on either hand in sombre gashes. Before them went sedans and swinging lanterns and flambeaux that left in their wake an odour of tow and rosin not in its way unpleasant. “Yon was a dubious prank upon the lady,” said Macdonald, and his cousin laughed uproariously. “Upon my word, Donald,” said he, “I could not for the life of me resist it. I declare it was better than a play; I have paid good money for worse at a play.” “And still and on a roguish thing,” said Macdonald, hastening his step. “You were aye the rogue, Jaunty Jock.” “And you were aye the dullard, Dismal Dan,” retorted the other in no bad humour at the accusation. “To be dull is, maybe, worse. You had the opportunity—I risked that—to betray me if you liked.” “You knew very well I would not do that.” “Well, I thought not, and if you did not take the chance to clear yourself when you got it, there’s no one but yourself to blame. Here was madam—quite romantical about the Highlands, as I found at our first country dance, and languishing to see this Barrisdale that she has heard from some one—(who the devil knows? that beats me)—was to be at Lady Charlotte’s ball. ‘I’m sorry to say he’s my own cousin,’ says I—‘a Hielan cousin, it does not count when rogues are in the family.’ ‘You must point him out to me,’ said she. I gave her three guesses to pick out the likeliest in the room, and she took you at the first shot.” “A most discerning young person!” said Macdonald. “She knew your history like a sennachie, lad, and rogue as she made you, I believe she would have forgiven you all but for that nose of yours.” “Oh, damn my nose!” cried Macdonald. “It’s not so very different from the common type of noses.”