about it," (here Jenny looked a little down,) "just to vex me about
Cuddie."

"Poh, you silly girl," said Edith, assuming some courage, "it is all a
trick of that fellow to teaze you."

"Na, madam, it canna be that, for John Gudyill took the other dragoon
(he's an auld hard-favoured man, I wotna his name) into the cellar, and
gae him a tass o' brandy to get the news out o' him, and he said just the
same as Tam Halliday, word for word; and Mr Gudyill was in sic a rage,
that he tauld it a' ower again to us, and says the haill rebellion is
owing to the nonsense o' my Leddy and the Major, and Lord Evandale, that
begged off young Milnwood and Cuddie yesterday morning, for that, if they
had suffered, the country wad hae been quiet--and troth I am muckle o'
that opinion mysell."

This last commentary Jenny added to her tale, in resentment of her
mistress's extreme and obstinate incredulity. She was instantly alarmed,
however, by the effect which her news produced upon her young lady, an
effect rendered doubly violent by the High-church principles and
prejudices in which Miss Bellenden had been educated. Her complexion
became as pale as a corpse, her respiration so difficult that it was on
the point of altogether failing her, and her limbs so incapable of
supporting her, that she sunk, rather than sat, down upon one of the
seats in the hall, and seemed on the eve of fainting. Jenny tried cold
water, burnt feathers, cutting of laces, and all other remedies usual in
hysterical cases, but without any immediate effect.

"God forgie me! what hae I done?" said the repentant fille-de-chambre. "I
wish my tongue had been cuttit out!--Wha wad hae thought o' her taking on