"Ou, ay!" was the reply; "he's a' that--I never see'd a genteeler young man in a' my days; and sae handsome too; sic black whiskers, an' sae broad aboot the shouthers. My certie, he's a stalworth chiel. An', as for his address; heth man, he often gies me a kiss in the mornings as he gangs oot, and promises me anither whan he comes back again. Ye needna be the least feared to sleep in the same room wi' him." "Feared!" muttered Micklewhame. "Afraid of a man with black whiskers and broad shoulders! I flatter myself I never was afraid in my life." So saying, he elevated himself on his pins to the same degree as he rose at that moment in his own estimation. Then turning to the table whereon he had deposited his hat, he seized it up, and, with a dexterous jerk, stuck it on his head, at the same time exclaiming--"You may prepare the bed for me--I'll sleep in the room with this mysterious man; and, while the tea is getting ready, I'll just take a short stroll." With these words he left the inn. Mr. Andrew Micklewhame was a middle-aged man, with a rotundity of corpus, and a bachelor to boot. In his youthful days his love for the fair sex had partaken more of a general than a particular character; and now that he had arrived at the meridian of life, his taste had grown too particular for him to choose a partner for the remainder of his days from among those unmarried ladies whom he ranked among his acquaintances. "Girls," he would say, "are not now half so pretty, nor half so domestic, as they were in my young days." Then he would enter into a long tirade against the march of intellect, usually ending with a few observations upon pianoforte playing, and cooking a beef-steak, the latter accomplishment being in his opinion--as it is in that of every well-thinking person--the greater accomplishment of the two. One lady was too young; another was too old; a third was too tall; a fourth was too small; a fifth had no money; a sixth _had_ money, but was downright ugly; a seventh was ill-tempered: in short, with every one on whom his matrimonial ideas had condescended to settle, he had some fault to find. There is no pleasing one who is predetermined not to be pleased.