a mess of womankind have been about it--Dressings, quotha?--and who is to
dress my wig?--But I suppose Jenny will undertake"--continued the old
bachelor, looking at himself in the glass--"to make it somewhat decent.
And now let us set to breakfast--with what appetite we may. Well may I
say to Hector, as Sir Isaac Newton did to his dog Diamond, when the
animal (I detest dogs) flung down the taper among calculations which had
occupied the philosopher for twenty years, and consumed the whole mass of
materials--Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast
done!"

"I assure you, sir," replied his niece, "my brother is quite sensible of
the rashness of his own behaviour, and allows that Mr. Lovel behaved very
handsomely."

"And much good that will do, when he has frightened the lad out of the
country! I tell thee, Mary, Hector's understanding, and far more that of
feminity, is inadequate to comprehend the extent of the loss which he has
occasioned to the present age and to posterity--_aureum quidem opus_--a
poem on such a subject, with notes illustrative of all that is clear, and
all that is dark, and all that is neither dark nor clear, but hovers in
dusky twilight in the region of Caledonian antiquities. I would have made
the Celtic panegyrists look about them. Fingal, as they conceitedly term
Fin-Mac-Coul, should have disappeared before my search, rolling himself
in his cloud like the spirit of Loda. Such an opportunity can hardly
again occur to an ancient and grey-haired man; and to see it lost by the
madcap spleen of a hot-headed boy! But I submit--Heaven's will be done!"

Thus continued the Antiquary to _maunder,_ as his sister expressed it,
during the whole time of breakfast, while, despite of sugar and honey,
and all the comforts of a Scottish morning tea-table, his reflections