You got a note from me ?" she asked.
"I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference," said I, "and it was kindly thought upon." "It must have prodigiously surprised you," said she.

"But let us begin with the beginning.

You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park?
I have the less cause to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging as to introduce me to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude." "I fear I was sadly pedantical," said I, overcome with confusion at the memory.

"You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society of ladies." "I will say the less about the grammar then," she replied.

"But how came you to desert your charge?
'He has thrown her out, overboard, his ain dear Annie!'" she hummed; "and his ain dear Annie and her two sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a string of green geese! It seems you returned to my papa's, where you showed yourself excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind than bonny lasses." Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady's eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.
"You take a pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful.