His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of a slovenly maid-servant, with a cotton handkerchief tied round her head, and an uncleaned sauce-pan in her hand.

“Eh, Maister Bishopriggs,” cried the girl, “here’s a braw young leddy speerin’ for ye by yer ain name at the door.”

“A leddy?” repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous disgust.  “Ye donnert ne’er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, ’sponsible man like me, wi’ sic a Cyprian overture as that?  What d’ye tak’ me for?  Mark Antony that lost the world for love (the mair fule he!)? or Don Jovanny that counted his concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself?  Awa’ wi’ ye to yer pots and pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent ye go spin!”

Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside from the doorway, and Bishopriggs, thunder-struck, saw Anne Silvester standing in her place.

“You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you,” said Anne, looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the passage staring at her in stolid amazement.

“My ain sister’s child!” cried Bishopriggs, lying with his customary readiness.  “Go yer ways, Maggie.  The bonny lassie’s my ain kith and kin.  The tongue o’ scandal, I trow, has naething to say against that.—­Lord save us and guide us!” he added In another tone, as the girl closed the door on them, “what brings ye here?”

“I have something to say to you.  I am not very well; I must wait a little first.  Give me a chair.”

Bishopriggs obeyed in silence.  His one available eye rested on Anne, as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspicious attention.  “I’m wanting to know one thing,” he said.  “By what meeraiculous means, young madam, do ye happen to ha’ fund yer way to this inn?”

Anne told him how her inquiries had been made and what the result had been, plainly and frankly.  The clouded face of Bishopriggs began to clear again.

“Hech! hech!” he exclaimed, recovering all his native impudence, “I hae had occasion to remark already, to anither leddy than yersel’, that it’s seemply mairvelous hoo a man’s ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o’ ours.  I hae dune a gude deed by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and here’s a’ Pairth ringing wi the report o’ it; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs sae weel known that ony stranger has only to ask, and find him.  Understand, I beseech ye, that it’s no hand o’ mine that pets this new feather in my cap.  As a gude Calvinist, my saul’s clear o’ the smallest figment o’ belief in Warks.  When I look at my ain celeebrity I joost ask, as the Psawmist asked before me, ’Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ It seems ye’ve something to say to me,” he added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne’s visit.  “Is it humanly possible that ye can ha’ come a’ the way to Pairth for naething but that?”

The expression of suspicion began to show itself again in his face.  Concealing as she best might the disgust that he inspired in her, Anne stated her errand in the most direct manner, and in the fewest possible words.