_Ch._ Whether a blessing conferred with one’s latest breath is a superior article to one conferred in robust health we need not stop to inquire. I decline, as I said before, to admit you to my confidence on any terms whatever. Begone! (_Exit BELVAWNEY._) Dismiss from my thoughts the only woman I ever loved! Have no more to say to the tree upon which the fruit of my heart is growing! No, Belvawney, I cannot cut off my tree as if it were gas or water. I do not treat women like that. Some men do, but I don’t. I am not that sort of man. I respect women; I love women. They are good; they are pure; they are beautiful; at least, many of them are. _Enter MAGGIE from cottage: he is much fascinated._ This one, for example, is very beautiful indeed! _Mag._ If ye’ll just walk in, sir, ye’ll find a bannock and a pan o’ parritch waitin’ for ye on the table. _Ch._ This is one of the loveliest women I ever met in the whole course of my life! _Mag._ (_aside_). What’s he glowerin’ at? (_Aloud._) Oh, sir, ye mean no harm to the poor Lowland lassie? _Ch._ Pardon me; it’s very foolish. I can’t account for it--but I am arrested, fascinated. _Mag._ Oh, gude sir, what’s fascinated ye? _Ch._ I don’t know; there is something about you that exercises a most remarkable influence over me; it seems to weave a kind of enchantment around me. I can’t think what it is. You are a good girl, I am sure. None but a good girl could so powerfully affect me. You _are_ a good girl, are you not? _Mag._ I am a varra gude girl indeed, sir. _Ch._ I was quite sure of it. (_Gets his arm round her waist._) _Mag._ I am a much better girl than nineteen out of twenty in these pairts. And they are all gude girls too. _Ch._ My darling! (_Kisses her._) _Mag._ Oh, kind sir, what’s that for? _Ch._ It is your reward for being a good girl. _Mag._ Oh, sir, I did na look for sic a recompense; you are varra varra kind to puir little Maggie Macfarlane. _Ch._ I cannot think what it is about you that fascinates me so remarkably. _Mag._ Maybe it’s my beauty. _Ch._ Maybe it is. It is quite possible that it may be, as you say, your beauty. _Mag._ I am remarkably pretty, and I’ve a varra neat figure. _Ch._ There is a natural modesty in this guileless appreciation of your own perfection that is, to me, infinitely more charming than the affected ignorance of an artificial town-bred beauty. _Mag._ Oh, sir, can I close my een to the picture that my looking-glass holds up to me twenty times a day? We see the rose on the tree, and we say that it is fair; we see the silver moon sailing in the braw blue heavens, and we say that she is bright; we see the brawling stream purling over the smooth stanes i’ the burn, and we say that it is beautiful; and shall we close our een to the fairest of nature’s works--a pure and beautiful woman? Why, sir, it wad just be base ingratitude! No, it’s best to tell the truth about a’ things: I am a varra, varra, beautiful girl!