sand, the trees meeting overhead, some of them trimmed, some pleached,
and the whole place beautified with alleys and arbours. Here I left
Catriona, and went forward by myself to find my correspondent. There I
drew on my credit, and asked to be recommended to some decent, retired
lodging. My baggage not being yet arrived, I told him I supposed I
should require his caution with the people of the house; and explained
that, my sister being come for a while to keep house with me, I should
be wanting two chambers. This was all very well; but the trouble was
that Mr. Balfour in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a
great deal of particulars, and never a word of any sister in the case. I
could see my Dutchman was extremely suspicious; and viewing me over the
rims of a great pair of spectacles--he was a poor, frail body, and
reminded me of an infirm rabbit--he began to question me close.

Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale (thinks I), suppose he
invite my sister to his house, and that I bring her. I shall have a fine
ravelled pirn to unwind, and may end by disgracing both the lassie and
myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to him my sister's
character. She was of a bashful disposition, it appeared, and so
extremely fearful of meeting strangers that I had left her at that
moment sitting in a public place alone. And then, being launched upon
the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the rest of the world in the
same circumstance, and plunge in deeper than was any service; adding
some altogether needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health and
retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I awoke to a sense of
my behaviour, and was turned to one blush.

The old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a
willingness to be quit of me. But he was first of all a man of business;
and knowing that my money was good enough, however it might be with my