‘Jamie’s a well-favoured, manly chield, with a good heart, though he may have a thick head,’ considered Primrose, not without reluctance; ‘but I doubt his Peggy stood in her own light for all that. If I am not mistaken, the yeoman is worth double the laird.’ Her penetration saw at once, against her will, that Balcairnie was the bigger, better man of the two. But by the time the party had repaired to the drawing-room, and the ladies were exerting themselves with their interested object in helping to entertain Balcairnie, a remarkable reversal of his opinion took place, while her verdict remained unchanged. As the conversation was craftily turned to ornithology generally, he became deeply impressed by Primrose’s lively intelligence in expounding these plates in the bird-book, which so delighted him, and by her wonderful acquaintance with the looks and habits of those fowls of the air with which he himself was most familiar. ‘The leddy-lass kens as muckle about craws and doos and laverocks as I do, though I have followed the ploo, and set girns for them, when I should have thocht she would have been sitting with her feet on the fender, or at a window fanning herself, ganting over a nouvelle and holding a yapping lap-dog on her knee.’ Mrs. Forsyth made a dead set at him with the feather tippets. He looked at them, laughed with surprised pleasure, and ventured to touch them shyly with his great brown hand in a sort of marvelling, fearful, wholly large-hearted admiration. He glanced round at the tambour frames, the open spinnet, the books which might be nouvelles, but which must be so much better reading than he had imagined when they did not incapacitate the readers for all this ability and industry, and for a practical appreciation of the bird-book. It is to be doubted that Balcairnie applied to Primrose and Mrs. Forsyth a homely, if emphatic, classification and commendation, which at the same time meant a great deal from his mouth and that of Robbie Burns--‘clever hizzies!’ he said to himself. Balcairnie remembered Peggy with a rueful sense of contrast. Poor lass! she could not be half so useful now at Drumsheugh. She could not divert herself in all these charming fashions. Poor Drumsheugh had, indeed, thrown himself away. How could he have been so blind and besotted? It made au odds when a man kenned little better. Of course, Balcairnie would be right glad to be allowed to be of any use to the ladies. The guinea-fowls were at their service, living or dead, and he thought he could put them in the way of some moor-hens and wild ducks. If Mrs. Forsyth and her friend would not object to honour his bachelor-house by their presence, if they could put up with the poor accommodation of a farm-house, perhaps the doctor would bring them out to see what they could find at Balcairnie, where the cherries were nearly ripe and curds and cream were always to be had for the taking.