‘I’m blithe to hear you say sae, Beenie; but it was a very natural delusion on my part, for ye ken in thir novelle and play-actoring times nobody can tell what might happen. Howsever, I’m glad it’s no waur; but ye maun alloo that it was a very suspectionable situation for you to be discovered colleaguing wi’ Walky Milrookit in sic a clandestine manner; and, therefore, I see that na better can be made o’t, but to bring a purpose o’ marriage to pass between you, as I was saying, without fashing your father about it till it’s by hand; when, after he has got his ramping and stamping over, he’ll come to himsel, and mak us a’ jocose.’ The conversation was continued with the same sort of consistency as far as the old lady was concerned, till Mrs. Milrookit and Dirdumwhamle, with their son, arrived. Young Milrookit, as we have already intimated, was, in point of personal figure, not much inferior to James; and though he certainly was attached to his cousin, Robina, with unfeigned affection, he had still so much of the leaven of his father in him, that her prospective chance of succeeding to the estate of Kittlestonheugh had undoubtedly some influence in heightening the glow of his passion. A marriage with her was as early and as ardently the chief object of his father’s ambition, as the union with his cousin Walkinshaw had been with her’s; and the hope of seeing it consummated made the old gentleman, instead of settling him in any town business, resolve to make him a farmer, that he might one day be qualified to undertake the management of the Kittlestonheugh estate. It is, therefore, unnecessary to mention, that, when Robina and her lover had retired, on being told by their grandmother they might ‘divert themselves in another room’, Dirdumwhamle engaged, with the most sympathetic alacrity, in the scheme, as he called it, to make the two affectionate young things happy. But what passed will be better told in a new chapter. CHAPTER LXXIV ‘Indeed, Leddy,’ said the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, when she told him of the detection, as she called it, of Robina’s notion of his son--‘Blood ye ken’s thicker than water; and I have na been without a thought mysel that there was something by the common o’ cousinship atween them. But hearing, as we often a’ have done, of the great instancy that my gude-brother was in for a match tweesh her and James, I could na think of making mysel an interloper. But if it’s ordaint that she prefers Walky, I’m sure I can see nae harm in you and me giving the twa young things a bit canny shove onward in the road to a blithesome bridal.’ ‘I am thinking,’ rejoined his wife, ‘that, perhaps, it might be as prudent and more friendly to wait the upshot o’ her father’s endeavours wi’ James,--for even although he should be worked into a compliancy, still there will be no marriage, and then Robina can avow her partiality for Walky.’