The ladies were correspondingly gratified, not only with the success of their design, but in addition with Balcairnie’s somewhat quaint and naïve but altogether becoming deference and gallantry. An engagement to visit him was entered into on the spot. All this agreeable social intercourse had nothing whatever to do with old friendship and its obligations--on the contrary. Balcairnie, as he looked and listened, more and more enchanted by the bright face and womanly eloquence of Primrose Ramsay, in the revulsion of his feelings, was conscious of an increasing temptation to undervalue and decry Peggy’s charms and Drumsheugh’s taste, which the fickle man had been applauding to the skies hardly three hours before. Balcairnie no longer called Primrose ‘a shilpet sparroy.’ Where had his eyes or his ears been when he made that invidious comparison? She was like the lady wren in her dainty proportions as she flitted here and there with such light grace, and such deftness of hand in everything she did, whether she helped Mrs. Forsyth to dispense the dishes of tea, or showed Dr. Forsyth the impressions of seals the ladies had taken in his absence, or arranged the counters on the card-table. She was like his mother’s favourite white hen, which always looked so dainty and spotless beside the other hens, that discriminating people grew disgusted with their flaunting yellow or red necks relieved against their brown or black backs. She was like the white calf, which his father had held to be so lucky. No pet lamb could have been so canty as this orphan lassie showed herself. She was an orphan lassie, though she was also a lady who had danced at the hunt balls into which Balcairnie might not intrude. But when Primrose was farther called upon to lend her aid to the hilarity of the evening by singing for Balcairnie’s benefit, and when she sang her romantic ditty of ‘Huntingtower,’ Balcairnie, struck by the unintentional coincidence, swayed by more than one powerful influence, and penetrated to his melted heart, took a swift and bold resolution which was neither time-serving nor personal. CHAPTER VIII. PEGGY’S FRIENDS. The woman who sang ‘Huntingtower’ as Primrose Ramsay sang it could neither be hard-hearted nor narrow-minded, Balcairnie said to himself, and he acted on the speech.