charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself. They dare not bring me

to my trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison. I
could have wished it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith

himself. Either would, I know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a
comparative stranger like yourself - "

I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly
vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him. There

were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change;
but whether it was from shame or pride - whether it was for my own sake

or Catriona's - whether it was because I thought him no fit father for
his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity

that clung about the man himself - the thing was clean beyond me. And
I was still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to

and fro, three steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had
already, by some very short replies, highly incensed, although not

finally discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the
doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.

"I have a moment's engagements," said he; "and that you may not sit
empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of

whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than
papa. This way."

He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a
frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose)

in Scotland stood together by a window.
"This is my new friend, Mr Balfour," said he, presenting me by the arm,

"David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house
for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here," says

he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my THREE BRAW
DAUCHTERS. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is

the best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to
propound honest Alan Ramsay's answer!"

Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against
this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)

brought shame into my own check. It seemed to me a citation
unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could

laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.
Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and

I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.
I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was

eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have
so long a patience with me. The aunt indeed sat close at her

embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and
especially the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a

score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It was all in
vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a

good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the
eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any

probability half as learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and
there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was

shaved that day for the first time.
The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest

took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she
was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and

singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in

the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and
ask if she knew that.

She shook her head. "I never heard a note of it," said she. "Whistle
it all through. And now once again," she added, after I had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)
instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she

played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -
"Haenae I got just the lilt of it?

Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"
"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.

And then again:
"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:

You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."
I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.
"I do not know the real name," said I. "I just call it ALAN'S AIR."

She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it DAVID'S AIR,"
said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel

played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by
it, for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so

if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it
by mine."

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why that,
Miss Grant?" I asked.

"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set
your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and
peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was

plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and
thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I

stood under some criminalsuspicion. I judged besides that the
harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up

immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the
present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and

admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found
this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this

first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I
learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the

bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart
was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with

James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with the
last. Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.

In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was
at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for

there was "GREY EYES again." The whole family trooped there at once,
and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran was in

an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked
up the close.

"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see. She is the most
beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days,

always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady."
I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid

she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber
of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps

begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from
rejecting his petitions. But even that glance set me in a better

conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies. They were
beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too,

and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much as
the others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked

easily with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids,
it was perhaps something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be

a little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt
smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me

like a baby, all with "papa's orders" written on their faces, there
were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.

Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken
man.

"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope