"What think you o' Margery, my housemaid?" says Mrs Heslop, archly—"I think she would make you a guid wife."
Had I been convicted o' the theft o' a silver spoon, I could not have felt more confused than I did at this moment—I found the very perspiration, Richard, oozing out in large drops from every pore o' my frame; while Mr Heslop, in the midst o' my embarrassment, chimed in—
"You forget, dear, that James must have a learned lady—one who has attained the tongues.—What say you, Mr Brown, to a bluestocking?"
"White lamb's-wool, sir, or blue jacey, are both alike to me," says I, laughing at his drollery. "I'm no particular to a shade."
Another loud laugh from the minister and his wife followed up this sally, and, at the same minute, the parlour-door opened, and in capered Margery, with an ash-bucketful o' coals, to mend the fire. Mrs Heslop, at the same time, went out, and left the minister and me owre our second tumbler. I thought I never saw Margery look half so interesting as she did that night; and I was so passionately struck with her appearance, that, without minding the presence o' the minister, I leaned back on my chair, and, taking the glass o' spirits into my hand, and looking owre my left shouther—
"My service to you, Margery," says I, and drank it off.
"I daresay the man's gyte!" says Margery, staring me in the face like an idiot, as she gaed tittering out o' the room.
I was not to be beaten in any such way, however; and on the afternoon o' the following Sabbath, I contrived, when the kirk scaled, to get into the loaning before Margery, and sauntering till her and her neighbour overtook me, I turned round just as they were passing my side, and, says I, keeping up with them at the same time—
"Here's a braw afternoon, lassies."
"It's a' that," says her neighbour.