The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

372 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
to us, and to our bairns, and to their very bairns' bairns? To hae been the
child of an honest man, might hae been saying something for me and mine;
but to be the sister of a 0- my God!"-With this exclamation her resolution failed, and she burst into a passionate fit of tears.
The lover used every effort to induce her to compose herself, and at length
succeeded; but she only resumed her composure to express herself with the
same positiveness as before. "No, Reuben, I'll bring disgrace hame to nae
man's hearth; my ain distresses I can bear, and I maun bear, but there is
nae occasion for buckling them oln other folk's shouthers. I will bear my
load alone-the back is made for the burden."
A lover is by charter wayward and suspicious; and Jeanie's readiness to
renounce their engagement, under pretence of zeal for his peace of mind
and respectability of character, seemed to poor Butler to form a portentous
combination with the commission of the stranger he had met with that
morning. His voice faltered as he asked, "whether nothing but a sense of
her sister's present distress occasioned her to talk in that manner?"
"And what else can do sae?" she replied with simplicity. "Is it not ten
long years since we spoke together in this way?"
" Ten years!" said Butler. " It's a long time - sufficient perhaps for a
woman to weary-"
" To weary of her auld gown," said Jeanie, " and to wish for a new ane
if she likes to-be brave, but not long enough to weary of a friend-The eye
may wish change, but the heart never."
" Never!" said Reuben, —" that's a bold promise."
" But not more bauld than true," said Jeanie, with the same quiet simplicity which attended her manner in joy and grief, in ordinary affairs, and
in those which most interested her feelings.
Butler paused, and looking at her fixedly — "I am charged," he said,
", with a message to you, Jeanie."
"Indeed! From whom? Or what can ony ane have to say to me?"
"It's from a stranger," said Butler, affecting to speak with an indifference which his voice belied - " A young man whom I met this morning
in the Park."
"Mercy!" said Jeanie, eagerly; " and what did he say?"
" That he did not see you at the hour he expected, but required you should.
meet him alone at Muschat's Cairn this night, so soon as the moon rises."
"Tell him," said Jeanie, hastily, " I shall certainly come."
" May I ask," said Butler, his suspicions increasing at the ready alacrity
of the answer, "who this man is to whom you are so willing to give the
meeting at a place and hour so uncommon?"
"Folk maun do muckle they have little will to do, in this world," replied
Jeanie.
"Granted," said her lover; " but what compels you to this? —who is this
person?. What I saw of him was not very favourable-who, or what is he?"
" I do not know," replied Jeanie, composedly.
"You do not know!" said Butler, stepping impatiently through the apartment-" You purpose to meet a young man whom you do not know, at such
a time, and in a place so lonely - you say you are compelled to do thisand yet you say you do not know the person who exercises such an influence over you!-Jeanie, what am I to think of this?"
"Think only, Reuben, that I speak truth, as if I were to answer at the
last day.-I do not ken this man-I do not even ken that I ever saw him;
and yet I must give him the meeting he asks - there's life and death upon
it."
"Will you not tell your father, or take him with you?" said Butler.
"I cannot," said Jeanie; "I have no permission."
" Will you let 7ge go with you? I will wait in the Park till nightfall, and
join you when you set out."