‘The best o’ men, Jamie,’ said the Leddy, sympathisingly, ‘are no perfect, and your grandfather, I’ll ne’er maintain, was na a no mere man--so anent the disinheritance, there was ay something I could na weel understand; for, although I had got an inkling o’ the law frae my father, who was a deacon at a plea--as a’ the Lords in Embro’ could testificate, still there was a because in that act of sederunt and session, the whilk, in my opinion, required an interlocutor frae the Lord Ordinary to expiscate and expone, and, no doubt, had your grandfather been spare’t, there would hae been a rectification.--But, waes me, the Lord took him to himsel; in the very hour when Mr. Keelevin, the lawyer, was doun on his knees reading a scantling o’ a new last will and settlement.--Eh! Jamie, that was a moving sight,--before I could get a pen, to put in your dying grandfather’s hand, to sign the paper, he took his departal to a better world, where, we are taught to hope, there are neither lawyers nor laws.’ ‘But if my uncle will not make a settlement on Robina, what will you do?’ said Walkinshaw, laughing. ‘Haud your tongue, and dinna terrify folk wi’ ony sic impossibility!’ exclaimed the Leddy--‘Poor man, he has something else to think o’ at present. Is na your aunty brought nigh unto the gates o’ death? Would ye expek him to be thinking o’ marriage settlements and wedding banquets, when death’s so busy in his dwelling? Ye’re an unfeeling creature, Jamie--But the army’s the best place for sic graceless getts. Whan do ye begin to spend your half-crown out o’ saxpence a day? And is Nell Frizel to carry your knapsack? Weel, I ay thought she was a cannonading character, and I’ll be none surprised o’ her fighting the French or the Yanky Doodles belyve, wi’ a stone in the foot of a stocking, for I am most creditably informed, that that’s the conduct o’ the soldier’s wives in the field o’ battle.’ It was never very easy to follow the Leddy, when she was on what the sailors call one of her jawing tacks; and Walkinshaw, who always enjoyed her company most when she was in that humour, felt little disposed to interrupt her. In order, however, to set her off in a new direction, he said,--‘But, when I get my appointment, I hope you’ll give me something to buy a sword, which is the true bride o’ a soldier.’ ‘And a poor tocher he gets wi’ her,’ said the Leddy;--‘wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores, to make up a pack for beggary. No doubt, howsever, but I maun break the back o’ a guinea for you.’ ‘Nay, I expect you’ll give your old friend, Robin Carrick, a forenoon’s call. I’ll not be satisfied if you don’t.’ ‘Well, if e’er I heard sic a stand-and-deliver-like speech since ever I was born,’--exclaimed his grandmother. ‘Did I think, when I used to send the impudent smytcher, wi’ my haining o’ twa-three pounds to the bank, that he was contriving to commit sic a highway robbery on me at last?’