brought me here to mak’ a fule o’me!’ I did attempt to hand round the tea and toast, when, wi’ downright confusion, I let a cup fall on Miss Murray’s gown.  I could have died wi’ shame.  ‘Never mind—­never mind, sir!’ said she; ‘there is no harm done;’ and she spoke sae proper and sae kindly, I was in love wi’ her very voice.  But when I got time to observe her face, it was a perfect picture; and through the hale night after, I could do naething but look at and think o’ Miss Murray.

“‘Man,’ says I to the flesher the next time I saw him, ’wha was yon Miss Murray?’ ‘No match for a Grassmarket dealer, Davy,’ says he.  ’I was thinkin’ that,’ says I; ‘but I wad like to be acquainted wi’ her.’  ’Ye shall be that,’ says he; and, after that, there was seldom a month passed that I was in Edinburgh but I saw Miss Murray.  But as to courtin’, that was out o’ the question.

“A short time after this, a relation o’ my mither’s, wha had been a merchant in London, dee’d, and it was said we were his nearest heirs; and that as he had left nae will, if we applied, we would get the property, which was worth about five thousand pounds.  Weel, three or four years passed awa, and we heard something about the lawsuit, but naething about the money.  I was vexed for having onything to say to it.  I thought it was only wasting a candle to chase a will-o’-the-wisp.  About the time I speak o’, my mither had turned very frail.  I saw there was a wastin’ awa o’ nature, and she wadna be lang beside me.  The day before her death, she took my hand, and ‘Davy,’ says she to me—­’Davy,’ poor body, she repeated (I think I hear her yet)—­’it wad been a great comfort to me if I had seen ye settled wi’ a decent partner before I dee’d; but it’s no to be.’

“Weel, as I was saying, my mither dee’d, and I found the house very dowie without her.  It wad be about three months after her death—­I had been at Whitsunbank; and when I cam’ hame, the servant lassie put a letter into my hands; and ‘Maister,’ says she, ’there’s a letter—­can it be for you, think ye?’ It was directed, ’David Stuart, Esquire (nae less), for——­, by Coldstream.’  So I opened the seal, and, to my surprise and astonishment, I found it was frae the man o’ business I had employed in London, stating that I had won the law-plea, and that I might get the money whene’er I wanted it.  I sent for the siller the very next post.  Now, ye see, I was sick and tired o’ being a bachelor.  I had lang wished to be settled in a comfortable matrimonial way—­that is, frae e’er I had seen Miss Murray.  But, ye see, while I was a drover, I was very little at hame—­indeed I was waur than an Arawbian—­and had very little peace or comfort either, and I thought it was nae use takin’ a wife until something better might cast up.  But this wasna the only reason.  There wasna a woman on earth that I thought I could live happy wi’ but Miss Murray, and she belanged to a genteel family:  whether she had ony siller