“My good young man,” said she, “there you go! If there's to be any friendship between you and Clementina Walkinshaw, understand there must be a different key from that. You are not only learning your French, but you are learning, it would seem, the manners of the nation. It was that made me wonder if you could be the man I took you for the first day you were in this room and I found I could make you greet with a Scots sang, and tell me honestly about a lass you had a notion of and her no' me. That last's the great stroke of honesty in any man, and let me tell you there are some women who would not relish it. But you are in a company here so ready with the tongue of flattery that I doubt each word they utter, and that's droll enough in me that loves my fellow creatures, and used to think the very best of every one of them. If I doubt them now I doubt them with a sore enough heart, I'll warrant you. Oh! am I not sorry that my man of Mearns should be put in the reverence of such creatures as Clancarty and Thurot, and all that gang of worldlings? I do not suppose I could make you understand it, Mr. Paul Greig, but I feel motherly to you, and to see my son--this great giant fellow who kens the town of Glasgow and dwelt in Mearns where I had May milk, and speaks wi' the fine Scots tongue like mysel' when his heart is true--to see him the boon comrade with folks perhaps good enough for Clementina Walkinshaw but lacking a particle of principle, is a sight to sorrow me.” “And is it for that you seek to get me away with the priest?” I asked, surprised at all this, and a little resenting the suggestion of youth implied in her feeling like a mother to me. Her face was lit, her movement free and beautiful; something in her fascinated me. She dropped in a chair and pushed the hair from her ears with a hand like milk, and laughed. “Now how could you guess?” said she. “Am I no' the careful mother of you to put you in the hands o' the clergy? I doubt this play-acting rhetorician of a man from Dixmunde is no great improvement on the rest of your company when all's said and done, but you'll be none the worse for seeing the world at his costs, and being in other company than Clancarty's and Thurot's and Roscommon's. He told me to-day you were going with him, and I was glad that I had been of that little service to you.” “Then it seems you think so little of my company as to be willing enough to be rid of me at the earliest opportunity,” I said, honestly somewhat piqued at her readiness to clear me out of Dunkerque. She looked at me oddly. “Havers, Mr. Greig!” said she, “just havers!”