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