Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she has marked down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to the Bonnie Lassie’s house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and stayed. She rented a room from the Angel of Death (“Boggs Kills Bugs” is the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr’s apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked at me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes.
“The Bonnie Lassie sent you,” said I.
She nodded.
“You’ve come here to live—Heaven only knows why—but we’re glad to see you. And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.’ Didn’t she?”
Barbran sat down and smiled at me.
“Having sought information,” I pursued, “on my own account, I learn that you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does it feel to revel in millions?”
“Romantic,” said she.
“Of course you have designs upon us.”
“Yes.”
“Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?”