"Because," said she, roguishly, with half-closed eyes, "you twist all one's speeches into compliments so readily and bluntly, and so quite unlike our douce Scots' gallants (who always let slip the opportunity while they are making up their minds), that you quite remind me of Monsieur Minuette, who came here with the Duke of York. Ah, you remember him, with his long sword--how like a grasshopper on a pin he looked; and he tried stoutly with his frightful rigadoon and the bretagne, to put our good old Scottish dances into the shade, and so out of fashion. And yet Aunt Grizel says that, to see the Lady Anne (she that is now princess of Denmark), so tall and stately, and Claverhouse, so graceful and courtly, dancing the Italian vault-step, enraptured every body. O, it it was quite a sight.--But there jangles the house-bell, and now let us hie to breakfast." Once more she placed her hand in Walter's, and they returned to the chamber of dais, where Lady Bruntisfield, no longer disguised in the humble attire of a cottar, but in all her pristine splendour of perfumed brocade, and starched magnificence of point lace and puffed locks frizzled up like a tower on her stately head, welcomed Walter with a courtesy of King Charles the First's days, and kissed her grandniece. After a long and solemn grace, the repast began. The most substantial breakfast of these degenerate days would dwindle into insignificance when compared with that which loaded the long oaken table of Bruntisfield House. In the centre smoked a vast urn of coffee, surrounded by diminutive cups of dark-blue china, flanked on the right by a side of mutton roasted, on the left by a gigantic capon; a dish of wild ducks balanced another of trout, both being furnished by the adjacent loch; broiled haddocks, pickled salmon, kippered herrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and barley-cakes; wheaten loaves and crystal cups of honey were also there; but chief above all towered a vast tankard of spiced ale; beside it stood a long-necked bottle of strong waters to whet the appetite, lest through the eyes it should fairly become satisfied by the mere sight of so many edibles.