But nothing could be more brilliant than the loveliness of Annie. Tall, full, and graceful, in all the bloom of twenty, and radiant with health, white satin, and diamonds, she excited the admiration of her companions, while little Lilian touched their hearts. There were many fair girls present, who, like mistress Laurie, had in their manners a considerable dash of Parisian coquetry, which is always excessively attractive to beaux, though a timid and retiring girl, like Lilian, is sure, in the end, to prove the most loveable and devoted.
At that time, the tone of society in Edinburgh was very different from what it had been during the rampant reign of Presbyterianism, and equally so from that which characterized it twenty years afterwards, when the gloom, depression, and humiliation of the country, and the empty desolation of the capital "communicated to the manners and fashions of society a stiff reserve, precise moral carriage, and a species of decorum amounting to moroseness." At the period of our narrative, it was very different. The recent residence of foreign ambassadors and influence of a court, the existence of a parliament—(for centralization, that grand curse of Scotland, was then unknown)—the long intercourse with France, in the armies of which all younger sons and cavaliers of good family took a turn of service, had communicated a lightness to the manners of the aristocracy, very different indeed from the "moroseness" which succeeded the Revolution, and still more so that great national paralysis, the Union, which was so long a source of regret to our grandfathers.
Walter longed to change the commonplace tenor of the conversation, mentioned in the last chapter, and endeavoured gradually to broach the sentiments that lay nearest his heart; but he either wanted tact, or the figures of the dance put him out, or a crowded room was not quite the place for it. The young lady too was somewhat reserved; she remembered the affair of the glove, and thought it quite necessary to be so.
"So you will not go with me to-morrow to see this old witch burned?" said he.
Lilian shuddered.
"Ah, how could you think of it?"
"Lady Mary of Charteris is going—all the Earl of Dumfries' windows are occupied, but I think I could procure you a seat somewhere, overlooking the Castle-hill."
"I would not go for the wealth of the Indies. Oh, is it not said that she confessed some horrible things?"
"As you would have done, fair Lilian, if questioned in the same manner."
"And what did she reveal?"