“Hope is very right,” said Lilias; “but there are gentlewomen, many of them, to whom nothing could give that singular refinement. It is not conventional grace of manner at all, either; one cannot tell what it is.” “Is that Miss Buchanan? Oh, I know her--I know her!” cried one of the Firthside boys. “She hit me once; but I think I like her for all that.” “Miss Buchanan struck you?” said his sister. “What did she do that for?” “Oh, I’ll tell you, Georgina!” said a smaller youth. “He was hitting Robbie Carlyle’s cuddie with his switch--he’s a cuddie himself--he was hitting me just before; and the young lady came up and took the switch from him and loundered him. Oh, didn’t he deserve it!” “She didna lounder me!” cried the first speaker, indignantly, forgetting in his haste that his vernacular should not be spoken before ears polite. “She only hit me once, and laughed, and asked me how I likit it. She never hurt me; and we’re good friends now.” “Is that a way to speak, Hector?” cried the young lady-sister, in dismay. “What a vulgar boy you are!” Hope with difficulty restrained a retort as to the superior elegance of our kindly Scottish tongue, when little Agnes Elliot came running forward with the nuts which William Oswald could not be induced to put into the fire for her. “This is Harry Stewart, and this is me,” said the innocent little Agnes, too young yet to have any sort of bashfulness about her juvenile sweetheart, “and if you please, Hope, will you put them in?” Hope put them in as she was requested, and Hope also placed another couple of nuts in the glowing heat of the fire, and stood watching them with much anxiety. There were a great many eager gazers about the hearth--a great many youthful fates were being determined; but Hope’s nuts were still burning merrily when the destiny of all the others had been sealed. “Who is it, Hope? who is it?” cried blythe voices on every side; but Hope closed her lips firmly and shook her head, and would not tell. “Oh, I know!” said Hector Maxwell; “it’s Hope and me--Hope’s burning herself and me!” Hope’s indignant denial was lost in the general chorus--“Hope’s burning herself and Hector Maxwell!” Hope was very much offended; she pushed the joyous Hector away, and scolded little Agnes Elliot; it was too bad; but she still stood perseveringly by the fire, watching the nuts: they were at the most dangerous stage, and there was still the risk of one starting from the side of the other. The crisis past; lovingly they subsided together into white ashes. “It’s William and Helen, Miss Maxwell,” whispered Hope, secretly clapping her hands, and Lilias was prepared for the revelation, and received it with becoming gravity. All the young faces in the room were red and glowing; they were tired of burning nuts, and Mrs Oswald’s old nurse, Tibbie, was brought in state from the kitchen to superintend and interpret the mysterious process of “dropping the egg.”