cultivated; but her morals had been greatly neglected in her youth,

and she would waste her precious time in the long winter nights,
playing at the cards with her visitors; in the which thriftless and

sinful pastime, she was at great pains to instruct Kate Malcolm,
which I was grieved to understand. What, however, I most misliked

in her ladyship, was a lightness and juvenility of behaviour
altogether unbecoming her years; for she was far past three-score,

having been long married without children. Her son, the soldier
officer, came so late, that it was thought she would have been taken

up as an evidence in the Douglas cause. She was, to be sure,
crippled with the rheumatics, and no doubt the time hung heavy on

her hands; but the best friends of recreation and sport must allow,
that an old woman, sitting whole hours jingling with that paralytic

chattel a spinnet, was not a natural object! What, then, could be
said for her singing Italian songs, and getting all the newest from

Vauxhall in London, a boxful at a time, with new novel-books, and
trinkum-trankum flowers and feathers, and sweetmeats, sent to her by

a lady of the blood royal of Paris? As for the music, she was at
great pains to instruct Kate, which, with the other things she

taught, were sufficient, as my lady said herself, to qualify poor
Kate for a duchess or a governess, in either of which capacities,

her ladyship assured Mrs Malcolm, she would do honour to her
instructor, meaning her own self; but I must come to the point anent

the affair.
One evening, early in the month of January, as I was sitting by

myself in my closet studying the Scots Magazine, which I well
remember the new number had come but that very night, Mrs Balwhidder

being at the time busy with the lasses in the kitchen, and
superintending, as her custom was, for she was a clever woman, a

great wool-spinning we then had, both little wheel and meikle wheel,
for stockings and blankets--sitting, as I was saying, in the study,

with the fire well gathered up, for a night's reflection, a
prodigious knocking came to the door, by which the book was almost

startled out of my hand, and all the wheels in the house were
silenced at once. This was her ladyship's flunkey, to beg me to go

to her, whom he described as in a state of desperation.
Christianity required that I should obey the summons; so, with what

haste I could, thinking that perhaps, as she had been low-spirited
for some time about the young laird's going to the Indies, she might

have got a cast of grace, and been wakened in despair to the state
of darkness in which she had so long lived, I made as few steps of

the road between the manse and her house as it was in my ability to
do.

On reaching the door, I found a great light in the house--candles
burning up stairs and down stairs, and a sough of something

extraordinar going on. I went into the dining-room, where her
ladyship was wont to sit; but she was not there--only Kate Malcolm

all alone, busily picking bits of paper from the carpet. When she
looked up, I saw that her eyes were red with weeping, and I was

alarmed, and said, "Katy, my dear, I hope there is no danger?" Upon
which the poor lassie rose, and, flinging herself in a chair,

covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly.
"What is the old fool doing with the wench?" cried a sharp angry

voice from the drawing-room--"why does not he come to me?" It was
the voice of Lady Macadam herself, and she meant me. So I went to

her; but, oh! she was in a far different state from what I had
hoped. The pride of this world had got the upper hand of her, and

was playing dreadful antics with understanding. There was she,
painted like a Jezebel, with gum-flowers on her head, as was her

custom every afternoon, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and
in her hand she held a letter. "Sir," said she, as I came into the

room, "I want you to go instantly to that young fellow, your clerk,
(meaning Mr Lorimore, the schoolmaster, who was likewisesession-

clerk and precentor,) and tell him I will give him a couple of
hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay, and undertake to

procure him a living from some of my friends."
"Softly, my lady, you must first tell me the meaning of all this

haste of kindness," said I, in my calm methodical manner. At the
which she began to cry and sob, like a petted bairn, and to bewail

her ruin, and the dishonour of her family. I was surprised, and
beginning to be confounded; at length out it came. The flunkey had

that night brought two London letters from the Irville post, and
Kate Malcolm being out of the way when he came home, he took them

both in to her ladyship on the silver server, as was his custom; and
her ladyship, not jealousing that Kate could have a correspondence

with London, thought both the letters were for herself, for they
were franked; so, as it happened, she opened the one that was for

Kate, and this, too, from the young laird, her own son. She could
not believe her eyes when she saw the first words in his hand of

write; and she read, and she better read, till she read all the
letter, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling were

trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had
passed between them. She, therefore, tore it in pieces, and sent

for me, and screamed for Kate; in short, went, as it were, off at
the head, and was neither to bind nor to hold on account of this

intrigue, as she, in her wrath, stigmatised the innocent gallanting
of poor Kate and the young laird.

I listened in patience to all she had to say anent the discovery,
and offered her the very best advice; but she derided my judgment;

and because I would not speak outright to Mr Lorimore, and get him
to marry Kate off hand, she bade me good-night with an air, and sent

for him herself. He, however, was on the brink of marriage with his
present worthy helpmate, and declined her ladyship's proposals,

which angered her still more. But although there was surely a great
lack of discretion in all this, and her ladyship was entirely

overcome with her passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow
her to quit the house with me, but made her sup with her as usual

that night, calling her sometimes a perfidious baggage, and at other
times, forgetting her delirium, speaking to her as kindly as ever.

At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship into her bed, (this she
told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and when Lady Macadam,

as was her wont, bent to kiss her for good-night, she suddenly
recollected "the intrigue," and gave Kate such a slap on the side of

the head, as quite dislocated for a time the intellects of the poor
young lassie. Next morning, Kate was solemnly advised never to

write again to the laird, while the lady wrote him a letter, which,
she said, would be as good as a birch to the breech of the boy.

Nothing, therefore, for some time, indeed, throughout the year, came
of the matter; but her ladyship, when Mrs Balwhidder soon after

called on her, said that I was a nose-of-wax, and that she never
would speak to me again, which surely was not a polite thing to say

to Mrs Balwhidder, my second wife.
This stramash was the first time I had interposed in the family

concerns of my people; for it was against my nature to make or
meddle with private actions saving only such as in course of nature

came before the session; but I was not satisfied with the principles
of Lady Macadam, and I began to be weary about Kate Malcolm's

situation with her ladyship, whose ways of thinking I saw were not
to be depended on, especially in those things wherein her pride and

vanity were concerned. But the time ran on--the butterflies and the
blossoms were succeeded by the leaves and the fruit, and nothing of

a particular nature farther molested the general tranquillity of
this year; about the end of which, there came on a sudden frost,

after a tack of wet weather. The roads were just a sheet of ice,
like a frozen river; insomuch that the coal-carts could not work;

and one of our cows, (Mrs Balwhidder said, after the accident, it
was our best; but it was not so much thought of before,) fell in