Chapter 18 - Page 2

inquisitive glance on her
young visitor, "You might make me your secretary, my lassie," she
said, "as well as the Lady Hermione. I am older, and better skilled to
advise. I live more in the world than one who shuts herself up within
four rooms, and I have the better means to assist you."

"O! no--no--no," said Margaret, eagerly, and with more earnest
sincerity than complaisance; "there are some things to which you
cannot advise me, Aunt Judith. It is a case--pardon me, my dear aunt--
a case beyond your counsel."

"I am glad on't, maiden," said Aunt Judith, somewhat angrily; "for I
think the follies of the young people of this generation would drive
mad an old brain like mine. Here you come on the viretot, through the
whole streets of London, to talk some nonsense to a lady, who scarce
sees God's sun, but when he shines on a brick wall. But I will tell
her you are here."

She went away, and shortly returned with a dry--"Miss Marget, the lady
will be glad to see you; and that's more, my young madam, than you had
a right to count upon."

Mistress Margaret hung her head in silence, too much perplexed by the
train of her own embarrassed thoughts, for attempting either to
conciliate Aunt Judith's kindness, or, which on other occasions would
have been as congenial to her own humour, to retaliate on her cross-
tempered remarks and manner. She followed Aunt Judith, therefore, in
silence and dejection, to the strong oaken door which divided the Lady
Hermione's apartments from the rest of George Heriot's spacious house.

At the door of this sanctuary it is necessary to pause, in order to
correct the reports with which Richie Moniplies had filled his
master's ear, respecting the singular appearance of that lady's
attendance at prayers, whom we now own to be by name the Lady
Hermione. Some part of these exaggerations had been communicated to
the worthy Scotsman by Jenkin Vincent, who was well experienced in the
species of wit which has been long a favourite in the city, under the
names of cross-biting, giving the dor, bamboozling, cramming, hoaxing,
humbugging, and quizzing; for which sport Richie Moniplies, with his
solemn gravity, totally unapprehensive of a joke, and his natural
propensity to the marvellous, formed an admirable subject. Farther
ornaments the tale had received from Richie himself, whose tongue,
especially when oiled with good liquor, had a considerable tendency to
amplification, and who failed not, while he retailed to his master all
the wonderful circumstances narrated by Vincent, to add to them many
conjectures of his own, which his imagination had over-hastily
converted into facts.

Yet the life which