"I think not," he replied, humbly. "A lady of rank would scarcely be so treated in the house of her friends, and besides," he added, with the mendacity of a man in love. "You drank so little—not more than a gallon altogether."
Marian's countenance assumed a look of genuine relief.
"They would hardly dare to play so scurvy a trick on the daughter of Lord Howard de Winstanley. And, although I have heard dark tales of what was done to Amy Robsart—thou dost know Amy, the daughter of Sir John Robsart of Cumnor Hall?"
"I have heard of her," replied Macfarren, and, his self-possession returning, he added, boldly, "through Sir Walter Scott of Abbotsford."
"Of what shire, pr'ythee?" asked Marian.
Macfarren had not practiced law at the New York bar for twenty years without being able to extricate himself from a tight place. He really could not recall for the moment what county in Scotland held Abbotsford, but he replied, at a venture:
"In Perthshire. Have you never heard of Melrose Abbey, near Jedburgh?"
Marian shook her head and glanced at Macfarren with something like scorn in her clear eyes.
"I belike me not of the Scotch. It is a false and treacherous race, they say. They come to England and tell us they have noble castles and stately manor-houses in Scotland, and, forsooth, they are nothing more than hovels and swineherds' cottages. The Abbotsford of which Sir Walter told thee is like enough a huntsman's lodge."