"Awfu' English an' wi' a' the queer daft ways o' gentry. 'Oh, Miss
Bathgate,' a' the time. They tell me Miss Reston's considered a beauty
in London. It's no' ma idea o' beauty--a terrible lang neck an' a wee
shilpit bit face, an' sic a height! I'm fair feared for ma gasaliers.
An' forty if she's a day. But verra pleasant, ye ken. I aye think there
maun be something wrang wi' folk that's as pleasant as a' that--owre
sweet to be wholesome, like a frostit tattie! ... The maid's ca'ed Miss
Mawson. She speaks even on. The wumman's a fair clatter-vengeance, an' I
dinna ken the one-hauf she says. I think the puir thing's _defeecient_!"




CHAPTER IV

" ... Ruth, all heart and tenderness
Who wept, like Chaucer's Prioress,
When Dash was smitten:
Who blushed before the mildest men,
Yet waxed a very Corday when
You teased the kitten."

AUSTIN DOBSON.


Before seeking her stony couch at the end of her first day at
Priorsford, Pamela finished the letter begun in the morning to her
brother.