Of course, it was not for Mrs. Hedderwick to say the laird nay. It was for her to thank him from a lowly, thankful heart for not merely doing justly by her daughter, but for being minded to endow her with his favour and with her share of his portion of the world’s goods, which many people would reckon far beyond her deserts. A glimpse of Balcairnie and the horses as they walked up and down the road, which the old woman saw through the bole of a window at the head of her bed, completed the dazzling of any sense Mrs. Hedderwick possessed. She described the scene afterwards as too splendid for this world--like a verse of the Bible, or a line of an ‘auld ballant.’ It was as when ‘Abraham’s servant baud the lassie munt and ride wi’ him to be the wife of his maister’s son. To be sure the horses were camels then, whatever the odds. It was as when the auld knicht crossed the sea to bring the king o’ Norrowa’s dochter ower the faem to be his queen, and then the nags were boats--whilk it was a mercy they were not here, lest the cobbles had coupet wi’ her Peggy among the prood waves, as gude Sir Patrick Spens’s ship sank down, in forty fathoms deep. Whatever, it was a maist fine ferlie for Drumsheugh to come wooing and speering for her dochter at a puir body like her, and for Balcairnie--with whose mither, worthy woman, she hersel had been a servant lass for three year afore she and Simon Hedderwick yoked thegither--to sit or stand at her door wi’ the beasts in braid daylicht, in the sicht of the whole Cotton, as gin she were the leddy and Balcairnie the serving-man.’