that Miss Balfour had rather suddenly outgrown her bashfulness. And

there was another thing, the difference of our speech. I had the Low
Country tongue and dwelled upon my words; she had a hill voice, spoke

with something of an English accent, only far more delightful, and was
scarce quite fit to be called a deacon in the craft of talking English

grammar; so that, for a brother and sister, we made a most uneven pair.
But the young Hollander was a heavy dog, without so much spirit in his

belly as to remark her prettiness, for which I scorned him. And as
soon as he had found a cover to our heads, he left us alone, which was

the greater service of the two.
CHAPTER XXIV - FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS

THE place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal. We
had two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimney

built out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, each
had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in

a little court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollands
architecture and a church spire upon the further side. A full set of

bells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there was
any sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers. From a tavern

hard by we had good meals sent in.
The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so. There

was little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon as
she had eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott

to have her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief's;
and had the same despatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her.

I was a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the
mud of the way upon her stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it

seemed a good few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in
Leyden, and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things.

She was unwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I
reminded her she was now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably

in the part, and we had not got to the second merchant's before she was
entirely charmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining.

It pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure.
What was more extraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it

myself; being never satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine
enough, and never weary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed,

I began to understand some little of Miss Grant's immersion in the
interest of clothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a

beautiful person to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful. The
Dutch chintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I

would be ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her.
Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call

it) that I was ashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a
set-off, I left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona

was a little braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough
lodged for me.

By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the door
with all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to read

myself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to my
bosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was her

peril. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I was
constrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear

to others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experienced
and the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I

began to think of it myself as very hazarded. I bethought me, if I had
a sister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case

too problematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so
trust Catriona in the hands of any other Christian being; the answer to

which made my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped
and had entrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should

behave in it with scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her
bread and shelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no

retreat. Besides I was her host and her protector; and the more
irregularly I had fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if

I should profit by the same to forward even the most honest suit; for
with the opportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would

have suffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair.
I saw I must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too

much so neither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the
character of a suitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible

agreeably, in that of host. It was plain I should require a great deal
of tact and conduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had

rushed in where angels might have feared to tread, and there was no way
out of that position save by behaving right while I was in it. I made

a set of rules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to
observe them, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a

study-book in law. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed
from these grave considerations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into

an effervescency of pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on
air that I turned homeward. As I thought that name of home, and

recalled the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls, my
heart beat upon my bosom.

My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obvious
and affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the new

clothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expression
well; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to

be admired. I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to
have choked upon the words.

"Well," she said, "if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, see
what I have done with our two chambers." And she showed me the place

all very finely swept, and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.
I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt.

"Catriona," said I, "I am very much displeased with you, and you must
never again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rule

while we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am both
the man and the elder; and I give you that for my command."

She dropped me one of her curtseys; which were extraordinarytaking.
"If you will be cross," said she, "I must be making pretty manners at

you, Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch
upon all there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very cross

either, because now I have not anyone else."
This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blot

out all the good effect of my last speech. In this direction progress
was more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at the

sight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becks
and looks, my heart was altogether melted. We made our meal with

infinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled into
one, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.

In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame word
of excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a

substantial, instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr.
Heineccius, in which I was to do a great deal reading these next few

days, and often very glad that I had no one to question me of what I
read. Methought she bit her lip at me a little, and that cut me.

Indeed it left her whollysolitary, the more as she was very little of
a reader, and had never a book. But what was I to do?

So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.
I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for

rage and repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was
nearly perished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The

thought of her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear
me as I walked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must

continue to practise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put
me beside my reason. I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis: