"By your leave, no," said Meg; "there is the lassie Miss Clara, that keeps house for the Laird, if it can be ca'd keeping house, for he is almost aye down at the Well yonder--so a sma' kitchen serves them at the Shaws." "Miss Clara will have but a dull time of it there during her brother's absence?" said the stranger. "Out no!--he has her aften jinketing about, and back and forward, wi' a' the fine flichtering fools that come yonder; and clapping palms wi' them, and linking at their dances and daffings. I wuss nae ill come o't, but it's a shame her father's daughter should keep company wi' a' that scauff and raff of physic-students, and writers' prentices, and bagmen, and siclike trash as are down at the Well yonder." "You are severe, Mrs. Dods," replied the guest. "No doubt Miss Clara's conduct deserves all sort of freedom." "I am saying naething against her conduct," said the dame; "and there's nae ground to say onything that I ken of--But I wad hae like draw to like, Maister Francie. I never quarrelled the ball that the gentry used to hae at my bit house a gude wheen years bygane--when they came, the auld folk in their coaches, wi' lang-tailed black horses, and a wheen galliard gallants on their hunting horses, and mony a decent leddy behind her ain goodman, and mony a bonny smirking lassie on her pownie, and wha sae happy as they--And what for no? And then there was the farmers' ball, wi' the tight lads of yeomen with the bran new blues and the buckskins--These were decent meetings--but then they were a' ae man's bairns that were at them, ilk ane kend ilk other--they danced farmers wi' farmers' daughters, at the tane, and gentles wi' gentle blood, at the t'other, unless maybe when some of the gentlemen of the Killnakelty Club would gie me a round of the floor mysell, in the way of daffing and fun, and me no able to flyte on them for laughing--I am sure I never grudged these innocent pleasures, although it has cost me maybe a week's redding up, before I got the better of the confusion." "But, dame," said Tyrrel, "this ceremonial would be a little hard upon strangers like myself, for how were we to find partners in these family parties of yours?" "Never you fash your thumb about that, Maister Francie," returned the landlady, with a knowing wink.--"Every Jack will find a Jill, gang the world as it may--and, at the warst o't, better hae some fashery in finding a partner for the night, than get yoked with ane that you may not be able to shake off the morn." "And does that sometimes happen?" asked the stranger.