woman, and speaks
with a Scotch accent, and now and then a provincial word drops out so prettily,
that it is quite Doric, Mr. Butler.«
    »I should have thought,« said the clergyman, »that would have sounded vulgar
in the great city.«
    »Not at all,« replied the Duke; »you must suppose it is not the broad coarse
Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, or in the Gorbals. This lady
has been very little in Scotland, in fact she was educated in a convent abroad,
and speaks that pure court-Scotch, which was common in my younger days; but it
is so generally disused now, that it sounds like a different dialect, entirely
distinct from our modern patois.«
    Notwithstanding her anxiety, Jeanie could not help admiring within herself,
how the most correct judges of life and manners can be imposed on by their own
preconceptions, while the Duke proceeded thus: »She is of the unfortunate house
of Winton, I believe; but, being bred abroad, she had missed the opportunity of
learning her own pedigree, and was obliged to me for informing her, that she
must certainly come of the Setons of Windygoul. I wish you could have seen how
prettily she blushed at her own ignorance. Amidst her noble and elegant manners,
there is now and then a little touch of bashfulness and conventual rusticity, if
I may call it so, that makes her quite enchanting. You see at once the rose that
had bloomed untouched amid the chaste precincts of the cloister, Mr. Butler.«
    True to the hint, Mr. Butler failed not to start with his
 
»Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,« etc.,
 
while his wife could hardly persuade herself that all this was spoken of Effie
Deans, and by so competent a judge as the Duke of Argyle; and had she been
acquainted with Catullus, would have thought the fortunes of her sister had
reversed the whole passage.
    She was, however, determined to obtain some indemnification for the anxious
feelings of the moment, by gaining all the intelligence she could; and therefore
ventured to make some inquiry about the husband of the lady his Grace admired so
much.
    »He is very rich,« replied the Duke; »of an ancient family, and has good
manners: but he is far from being such a general favourite as his wife. Some
people say he can be very pleasant - I never saw him so; but should rather judge
him reserved, and gloomy, and capricious. He was very wild in his youth
