"Puir lad. What's the trouble?" (solemnly and tenderly.)

"Ennui!" (rather piteously.)

"Yawn-we? I never heerd tell o't."

"Oh, you lucky girl," burst out he; "but the doctor has undertaken to
cure me; in one thing you could assist me, if I am not presuming too far
on our short acquaintance. I am to relieve one poor distressed person
every day, but I mustn't do two. Is not that a bore?"

"Gie's your hand, gie's your hand. I'm vexed for ca'ing you daft. Hech!
what a saft hand ye hae. Jean, I'm saying, come here, feel this."

Jean, who had run in, took the viscount's hand from Christie.

"It never wroucht any," explained Jean. "And he has bonny hair," said
Christie, just touching his locks on the other side.

"He's a bonny lad," said Jean, inspecting him scientifically, and
pointblank.

"Ay, is he," said the other. "Aweel, there's Jess Rutherford, a widdy,
wi' four bairns, ye meicht do waur than ware your siller on her."

"Five pounds to begin?" inquired his lordship.

"Five pund! Are ye made o' siller? Ten schell'n!"