CHAPTER XI. ascend, While radiant summer opens all its pride, THOMSON. FROM her kind and officious, but somewhat gossipping friend, Mrs Glass, Jeanie underwent a very close catechism on their road to the Strand, where the Thistle of the good lady flourished in full glory, and, with its legend of Nemo me impune, distinguished a shop then well known to all Scot tish folks of high and low degree. "And were you sure aye to say your Grace to him?" said the good old lady; "for ane should make a distinction between MacCallummore and the bits o' southern bodies that they ca' lords here— there are as mony o' them, Jeanie, as would gar ane think they maun cost but little fash in the making-some of them I wadna trust wi' six pennies worth of black rappee― some of them I wadna gie mysell the trouble to put up a hapnyworth in brown paper for-But I hope you showed your breeding to the Duke of Argyle, for what sort of folks would he think your friends in London, if you had been lording him, and him a Duke ?" "He didna seem muckle to mind," said Jeanie; "he kenn'd that I was landward bred." "Weel, weel," answered the good lady. "His Grace kens me weel; so I am the less anxious about it. I never fill his snuff box but he says, How d'ye do, good Mrs Glass? How are all our friends in the North?' or it maybe Have ye heard from the North lately? And you may be sure, I make my best curtsey, and answer, My Lord Duke, I hope your Grace's noble Duchess, and your Grace's young ladies, are well; and I hope the snuff continues to give your Grace satisfaction. And then ye will see the people in the shop begin to look about them; and if there's a Scotsman, as there may be three or half a dozen, aff go the hats, and mony a look after him, and there goes the Prince of Scotland, God bless him. But ye have not told me yet the vory words he said t'ye." Jeanie had no intention to be quite so communicative. She had, as the reader may have observed, some of the caution and shrewdness, as well as of the simplicity of her country. She answered generally, that the Duke had received her very compassionately, and had promised to interest himself in her sister's affair, and to let her hear from him in the course of the next day, or the day after. She did not chuse to make any mention of his having desired. her to be in readiness to attend him, far less of his hint, that she should not bring her landlady. So that honest Mrs Glass was obliged to remain satisfied with the general intelligence above mentioned, after having done all she could to extract more. It may easily be conceived, that, on the next day, Joanie declined all invitations and inducements, whether of exercise or curiosity, to walk abroad, and continued to inhale the close, and somewhat professional atmosphere of Mrs Glass's small parlour. The latter flavour it owed to a certain cupboard, containing, among other articles, a few cannisters of real Havannah, which, whether from respect to the manufacture, or out of a reverend fear of the exciseman, Mrs Glass did not care to trust in the open shop below, and which communicated to the room a scent, that, however fragrant to the nostrils of the connoisseur, was not very agreeable to those of Jeanie. "Dear sirs," she said to herself, "I wonder how my cousin's silk manty, and her gowd watch, or ony thing in the world, can be worth sitting sneezing all her life in this little stifling room, and might walk on green braes if she liked." Mrs Glass was equally surprised at her cousin's reluctance to stir abroad, and her indifference to the fine sights of London. "It would always help to pass away the time," she said, "to have something to look at, though ane was in distress." But Jeanie was unpersuadable. The day after her interview with the Duke was spent in that "hope delayed, which maketh the heart sick." Minutes glided after minutes-hours fled after hours -it became too late to have any reasonable expectation of hearing from the Duke that day; yet the hope which she disowned, she could not altogether relinquish, and her heart throbbed, and her ears tingled, with every casual sound in the shop below. It was in vain. The day wore away in the anxiety of protracted and fruitless expectation. The next morning commenced in the same manner. But before noon, a well |