‘You said,’ replied Miss, half blushing, half laughing, ‘that you would lend a helping hand to me with Walkinshaw Milrookit.’ ‘Eh! Megsty me! I’m sparrow-blasted!’ exclaimed the Leddy, throwing herself back in the chair, and lifting both her hands and eyes in wonderment.--‘But thou, Beenie Walkinshaw, is a soople fairy; and so a’ the time that thy father,--as blin’ as the silly blin’ bodie that his wife gart believe her gallant’s horse was a milch cow sent frae her minny,--was wising and wyling to bring about a matrimony, or, as I should ca’t, a matter-o’-money conjugality wi’ your cousin Jamie, hae ye been linking by the dyke-sides, out o’ sight, wi’ Walky Milrookit? Weel, that beats print! Whatna novelle gied you that lesson, lassie? Hech sirs! auld as I am, but I would like to read it. Howsever, Beenie, as the ae oe’s as sib to me as the ither, I’ll be as gude as my word; and when Dirdumwhamle and your aunty, wi’ your joe, are here the day, we’ll just lay our heads thegither for a purpose o’ marriage, and let your father play the Scotch measure or shantruse, wi’ the bellows and the shank o’ the besom, to some warlock wallop o’ his auld papistical and paternostering ancestors, that hae been--Gude preserve us!--for aught I ken to the contrary, suppin’ brimstone broth wi’ the deil lang afore the time o’ Adam and Eve. Methuselah himself, I verily believe, could be naething less than half a cousin to the nine hundred and ninety-ninth Walkinshaw o’ Kittlestonheugh. Howsever, Beenie, thou’s a--thou’s a--I’ll no say what--ye little dooble cutty, to keep me in the dark, when I could hae gi’en you and Walky sae muckle convenience for courting. But, for a’ that, I’ll no be devoid o’ grace, but act the part of a kind and affectionate grandmother, as it is well known I hae ay been to a’ my bairns’ childer; only I never thought to hae had a finger in the pye o’ a Clarissy Harlot wedding.’ ‘But,’ said Robina, ‘what if my father should succeed in persuading James still to fall in with his wishes? My situation will be dreadful.’ ‘’Deed, an that come to a possibility, I ken na what’s to be done,’ replied the Leddy; ‘for ye know it will behove me to tak my ain son, your father’s part; and as I was saying, Jamie Walkinshaw being as dear to me as Walky Milrookit, I can do no less than help you to him, which need be a matter of no diffeequalty, ’cause ye hae gart your father trow that ye’re out o’ the body for Jamie; so, as I said before, ye maun just conform.’ Miss looked aghast for a moment, and exclaimed, clasping her hands, at finding the total contempt with which her grandmother seemed to consider her affections,-- ‘Heaven protect me! I am ruined and undone!’ ‘Na, if that’s the gait o’t, Beenie, I hae nothing to say, but to help to tak up the loupen-steek in your stocking wi’ as much brevity as is consistent wi’ perspicuity, as the minister o’ Port Glasgow says.’ ‘What do you mean? to what do you allude?’ cried the young lady terrified.