Some persons to whom she had been introduced recommended her going to the opera as one of the sights worthy the attention of a stranger.

The good lady, full of the greatness of her situation as wife of the provost, and knowing the sensation her appearance in public occasioned when in her own city, and supposing that a little excitement would accompany her with the London public, rather declined, under the modest plea, "Fat for should I gang to the opera, just to creat a confeesion ?" An aunt of mine, who knew Aberdeen well, used to tell a traditionary story of two Aberdonian ladies, who by their insinuations against each other, finely illustrated the force of the dialect then in common use.

They had both of them been very attentive to a sick lady in declining health, and on her death each had felt a distrust of the perfect disinterestedness of the other's attention.

This created more than a coolness between them, and the bad feeling came out on their passing in the street.

The one insinuated her suspicions of unfair dealing with the property of the deceased by ejaculating, as the other passed her, "Henny pig[81] and green tea," to which the other retorted, in the same spirit, "Silk coat and negligee[82]." Aberdonian pronunciation produced on one occasion a curious equivoque between the minister and a mother of a family with whom he was conversing in a pastoral way.