“Lord! what signifies it whether she said this or that! Haud your tongue, and get me some comfort; for, to speak truth, I’m vera cauld.”
“Weel mayest thou be sae,” said Effie, “for indeed,” she continued, in a feigned voice, “it was a cauld an’ an eerie night to be sae late on Anneslie Muir.”
Andrew started, and a doubt seemed to pass over his mind. He looked up at the damsel, and perceived, for the first time, that her large blue eyes were laughing at him from under the shade of a huge three-cornered hat. The next moment he hung over her in an ecstasy of gratitude, and smothered with his kisses the ridicule which she forced upon him as the penalty of his preservation.
“Seven feet high, Andrew?”
“My dear Effie!”
“As ugly as sin?”
“My darling lassie!”
“And a beard?”
“Na! na! now you carry the jest o’er far!”
“And saxty winters?”