Mr. Threeper began to whisper to our friend Gabriel, and occasionally to look, with an afflicted glance, towards the Leddy.
Mr. Queerie resumed,—
‘Your situation, I perceive, has been for some time very unhappy—but, I suppose, were Mr. Walkinshaw to make you a reasonable compensation for the trouble you take in managing his house, you would have no objections still to continue with him.’
‘Oh! to be surely,’ said the Leddy;—‘only it would need to be something worth while; and my gude-dochter and her family would require to be obligated to gang hame.’
‘Certainly, what you say, Madam, is very reasonable,’ rejoined Mr. Queerie;—‘and I have no doubt that the Court perceives that a great part of your distress, from the idiotry of your son, arises from his having brought in the lady alluded to and her family.’
‘It has come a’ frae that,’ replied the witness, unconscious of the force of what she was saying;—‘for, ’cepting his unnaturality to me about them, his idiocety is very harmless.’
‘Perhaps not worse than formerly?’
A look from George at this crisis put her on her guard; and she instantly replied, as if eager to redeem the effects of what she had just said,—
‘’Deed, Sir, it’s no right to let him continue in the rule and power o’ the property; for nobody can tell what he may commit.’
At this juncture, Mr. Queerie, perceiving her wariness, sat down; and the Reverend Dr. Denholm being called by Mr. Threeper, stated, in answer to the usual question,—