What says my lord to the matter ?" "My lord would not offend the Fair Maid of Perth," said Sir Patrick; "and he knows well the purity and truth of her mind.

And yet I must needs say that, had this nursling of the doe been shrivelled, haggard, cross made, and red haired, like some Highlanders I have known, I question if the Fair Maiden of Perth would have bestowed so much zeal upon his conversion; and if Catharine had been as aged, wrinkled, and bent by years as the old woman that opened the door for me this morning, I would wager my gold spurs against a pair of Highland brogues that this wild roebuck would never have listened to a second lecture.

You laugh, glover, and Catharine blushes a blush of anger.

Let it pass, it is the way of the world." "The way in which the men of the world esteem their neighbours, my lord," answered Catharine, with some spirit.
"Nay, fair saint, forgive a jest," said the knight; "and thou, Simon, tell us how this tale ended--with Conachar's escape to the Highlands, I suppose ?" "With his return thither," said the glover.

"There was, for some two or three years, a fellow about Perth, a sort of messenger, who came and went under divers pretences, but was, in fact, the means of communication between Gilchrist MacIan and his son, young Conachar, or, as he is now called, Hector.