She is particularly good when, in fear and trembling, she teases her imposing father.
"I expect," says Colonel Mannering, "that you will pay to this young lady that attention which is due to misfortune and virtue." "Certainly, sir.
Is my future friend red-haired ?" Miss Mannering is very capable of listening to Brown's flageolet from the balcony, but not of accompanying Brown, should he desire it, in the boat.

As for Brown himself, he is one of Sir Walter's usual young men,--"brave, handsome, not too clever,"-- the despair of their humorous creator.

"Once you come to forty year," as Thackeray sings, "then you'll know that a lad is an ass;" and Scott had come to that age, and perhaps entertained that theory of a jeune premier when he wrote "Guy Mannering." In that novel, as always, he was most himself when dealing either with homely Scottish characters of everyday life, with exaggerated types of humorous absurdity, and with wildly adventurous banditti, who appealed to the old strain of the Border reiver in his blood.

The wandering plot of "Guy Mannering" enabled him to introduce examples of all these sorts.

The good-humoured, dull, dawdling Ellangowan, a laird half dwindled to a yeoman, is a sketch absolutely accurate, and wonderfully touched with pathos.