“Well, I thought not, and if you did not take the chance to clear yourself when you got it, there’s no one but yourself to blame. Here was madam—quite romantical about the Highlands, as I found at our first country dance, and languishing to see this Barrisdale that she has heard from some one—(who the devil knows? that beats me)—was to be at Lady Charlotte’s ball. ‘I’m sorry to say he’s my own cousin,’ says I—‘a Hielan cousin, it does not count when rogues are in the family.’ ‘You must point him out to me,’ said she. I gave her three guesses to pick out the likeliest in the room, and she took you at the first shot.”
“A most discerning young person!” said Macdonald.
“She knew your history like a sennachie, lad, and rogue as she made you, I believe she would have forgiven you all but for that nose of yours.”
“Oh, damn my nose!” cried Macdonald. “It’s not so very different from the common type of noses.”
“Just that! just that! not very different, but still a little skew. Lord! man, you cannot expect to have all the graces as well as all the virtues. Madam picked you out at all events, and I was not in the key to contradict her. She paid you (or was it me?) the compliment of saying you were not at all like her idea of a man with the repute of Barrisdale.”
“Very likely! Indeed, I could guess she was more put out at that than at finding herself speaking to a scamp who laughed at his own misdeeds. You made a false move; Jock, had you admitted you were the man, she would not have been greatly mortified. In any case, she thought to improve the occasion with advice. She told me to be good!”
Barrisdale could hardly speak for laughing. “You kept up the play at any rate,” said he, “for when I saw her to her chair, ‘Yon’s an awful man, your cousin,’ said she. What do you think of her?”
“Something of a simpleton, something of a sentimentalist, and a very bonny face forbye to judge by her chin—that was all of it I saw.”
“She kept too tight a mask for even me to see her face. Man, ye’ve missed her chief charm—she has twa thousand a year of her own. I had it from herself, so you see I’m pretty far ben. With half a chance I could make a runaway match of it; I’m sure I took her fancy.”
“Tuts! Jock. I thought you had enough of runaway matches; take care she has not got a brother,” said Macdonald.