His lordship then explained that, understanding there were worthy people
in distress, he was in hopes he might be permitted to assist them, and
that she must blame a neighbor of hers if he had broken in upon her too
abruptly with this object. He then, with a blush, hinted at ten
shillings, which he begged she would consider as merely an installment,
until he could learn the precise nature of her embarrassments, and the
best way of placing means at her disposal.

The widow heard all this with a lackluster mind.

For many years her life had been unsuccessful labor; if anything had ever
come to her, it had always been a misfortune; her incidents had been
thorns--her events, daggers.

She could not realize a human angel coming to her relief, and she did not
realize it, and she worked away at her net.

At this, Flucker, to whom his lordship's speech appeared monstrously weak
and pointless, drew nigh, and gave the widow, in her ear, his version,
namely, his sister's embellished. It was briefly this: That the gentleman
was a daft lord from England, who had come with the bank in his breeks,
to remove poverty from Scotland, beginning with her. "Sae speak loud
aneuch, and ye'll no want siller," was his polite corollary.

His lordship rose, laid a card on a chair, begged her to make use of him,
et cetera; he then, recalling the oracular prescription, said, "Do me the
favor to apply to me for any little sum you have a use for, and, in
return, I will beg of you (if it does not bore you too much) to make me
acquainted with any little troubles you may have encountered in the
course of your life."