“How very distressing Sir Sampson’s cough is!” said the sympathising Miss Grizzy.

“Distressing, child!  No—­it’s not the least distressing.  How can a thing be distressing that does no harm?  He’s much the better of it—­it’s the only exercise he gets.”

“Oh! well, indeed, if that’s the case, it would be a thousand pities to stop it,” replied the accommodating spinster.

“No, it wouldn’t be the least pity to stop it!” returned Lady Maclaughlan, in her loud authoritative tone; “because, though it’s not distressing, it’s very disagreeable.  But it cannot be stopped—­you might as well talk of stopping the wind—­it is a cradle cough.”

“My dear Lady Maclaughlan!” screamed Sir Sampson in a shrill pipe, as he made an effort to raise himself, and rescue his cough from this aspersion; “how can you persist in saying so, when I have told you so often it proceeds entirely from a cold caught a few years ago, when I attended his Majesty at-----” Here a violent relapse carried the conclusion of the sentence along with it.

“Let him alone-don’t meddle with him,” called his lady to the assiduous nymphs who were bustling around him; “leave him to Philistine; he’s in very good hands when he is in Philistine’s.”  Then resting her chin upon the head of her stick, she resumed her scrutiny of Lady Juliana.

“You really are a pretty creature!  You’ve got a very handsome nose, and your mouth’s very well, but I don’t like your eyes; they’re too large and too light; they’re saucer eyes, and I don’t like saucer eyes.  Why ha’nt you black eyes?  You’re not a bit like your father—­I knew him very well.  Your mother was an heiress; your father married her for her money, and she married him to be a Countess; and so that’s the history of their marriage-humph.”

This well-bred harangue was delivered in an unvarying tone, and with unmoved muscles; for though the lady seldom failed of calling forth some conspicuous emotion, either of shame, mirth, or anger, on the countenances of her hearers, she had never been known to betray any correspondent feelings on her own; yet her features were finely formed, marked, and expressive; and, in spite of her ridiculous dress and eccentric manners, an air of dignity was diffused over her whole person, that screened her from the ridicule to which she must otherwise have been exposed.  Amazement at the uncouth garb and singular address of Lady Maclaughlan was seldom unmixed with terror at the stern imperious manner that accompanied all her actions.  Such were the feelings of Lady Juliana as she remained subjected to her rude gaze and impertinent remarks.

“My Lady?” squeaked Sir Sampson from forth his easy chair.

“My love?” interrogated his lady as she leant upon her stick.

“I want to be introduced to my Lady Juliana Douglas; so give me your hand,” attempting, at the same time, to emerge from the huge leathern receptacle into which he had been plunged by the care of the kind sisters.