"I will take up the defence of your reputation," she said. "You may

leave it in my hands."
And with that she withdrew out of the library.

CHAPTER XX - I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
FOR about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's

family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education

was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied
the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to

the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with
notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an

apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my
Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far

from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an
address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned

to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in
a room as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were

all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as
where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among

the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with another, no
doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of

modest air that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.
The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my

habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I
cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;

and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,
could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a

wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention
as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The

eldest daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal
friends, and our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we

took in common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the
house of Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was

that we three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice
afterwards maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual

affairs permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness
of the exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad

weather, my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were
strangers, and speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally

on. Then it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the
time that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the COVENANT,

wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my
adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later

on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell
a trifle more at length.

We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early

in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an
proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up

bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the
old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!

"There is my home," said I; "and my family."
"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.

What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth

again his face was dark.
"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie," says he,

turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.
"I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth, during

his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy
with plantations, parterres, and a terrace - much as I have since

carried out in fact.
Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good

welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.
Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my

affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and
expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my

fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor
took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself

very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for the
young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her

sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use it
had: for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on

him to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the
alehouse. This was her own thought, for she had been taken with my

account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself. We
found her once more alone - indeed, I believe her father wrought all

day in the fields - and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and
the beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.

"Is this all the welcome I am to get?" said I, holding out my hand.
"And have you no more memory of old friends?"

"Keep me! wha's this of it?" she cried, and then, "God's truth, it's
the tautit laddie!"

"The very same," says
"Mony's the time I've thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I

to see in your braws," she cried. "Though I kent ye were come to your
ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye for

with a' my heart."
"There," said Miss Grant to me, "run out by with ye, like a guid bairn.

I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it's her and me that are
to crack."

I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth
I observed two things - that her eyes were reddened, and a silver

brooch was gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.
"I never saw you so well adorned," said I.

"O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!" said she, and was more than
usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.

About candlelight we came home from this excursion.
For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona - my Miss Grant

remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.
At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in

the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in
her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of

a smile continuallybitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed
like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the room, had

soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least)
with nothing intended on my side. I was like Christian in the slough -

the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I became
involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal of

passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and I
must down upon my knees for pardon.

The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. "I have said
nothing you can properly object to," said I, "and as for my knees, that

is an attitude I keep for God."
"And as a goddess I am to be served!" she cried, shaking her brown

locks at me and with a bright colour. "Every man that comes within
waft of my petticoats shall use me so!"

"I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion's sake, although I
vow I know not why," I replied. "But for these play-acting postures,

you can go to others."
"O Davie!" she said. "Not if I was to beg you?"

I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say
a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or me
to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and the

stain, if there be any, rests with yourself." And at that I kneeled