 Duchess's
jealousy.«
    »I think your Majesty,« replied the Duke, smiling in his turn, »will allow
my taste may be a pledge for me on that score.«
    »Then, though she has not much the air d'une grande dame, I suppose she is
some thirtieth cousin in the terrible chapter of Scottish genealogy?«
    »No, madam,« said the Duke; »but I wish some of my nearer relations had half
her worth, honesty, and affection.«
    »Her name must be Campbell, at least?« said Queen Caroline.
    »No, madam; her name is not quite so distinguished, if I may be permitted to
say so,« answered the Duke.
    »Ah! but she comes from Inverary or Argyleshire?« said the Sovereign.
    »She has never been farther north in her life than Edinburgh, madam.«
    »Then my conjectures are all ended,« said the Queen, »and your Grace must
yourself take the trouble to explain the affair of your protégée.«
    With that precision and easy brevity which is only acquired by habitually
conversing in the higher ranks of society, and which is the diametrical opposite
of that protracted style of disquisition,
 
Which squires call potter, and which men call prose,
 
the Duke explained the singular law under which Effie Deans had received
sentence of death, and detailed the affectionate exertions which Jeanie had made
in behalf of a sister, for whose sake she was willing to sacrifice all but truth
and conscience.
    Queen Caroline listened with attention; she was rather fond, it must be
remembered, of an argument, and soon found matter in what the Duke told her for
raising difficulties to his request.
    »It appears to me, my Lord,« she replied, »that this is a severe law. But
still it is adopted upon good grounds, I am bound to suppose, as the law of the
country, and the girl has been convicted under it. The very presumptions which
the law construes into a positive proof of guilt exist in her case; and all that
your Grace has said concerning the possibility of her innocence may be a very
good argument for annulling the Act of Parliament, but cannot, while it stands
good, be admitted in favour of any individual convicted upon the statute.«
    The Duke saw and avoided the snare, for he was conscious, that, by replying
to the argument, he must have been inevitably led to a discussion, in the course
of which the Queen was likely to be hardened in her own opinion, until she
became obliged
