understand I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I
have friends of my own across the Highland line, and the sound of
that tongue comes friendly; but for your private affairs, if you
had spoken Greek, I might have had more guess at them."

She made me a little, distant curtsey. "There is no harm done,"
said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more
agreeable). "A cat may look at a king."

"I do not mean to offend," said I. "I have no skill of city
manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of
Edinburgh. Take me for a country lad--it's what I am; and I would
rather I told you than you found it out."

"Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be
speaking to each other on the causeway," she replied. "But if you
are landward {2} bred it will be different. I am as landward as
yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther
from my home."

"It is not yet a week since I passed the line," said I. "Less than
a week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder."

"Balwhither?" she cries. "Come ye from Balwhither! The name of it
makes all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long
there, and not known some of our friends or family?"

"I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,"
I replied.