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.

506 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
improvement in her appearance, that the old lady hardly knew the soiled
and disordered traveller, whose attire showed the violence she had sustained,
in the neat, clean, quiet-looking little Scotchwoman, who now stood before
her. Encouraged by such a favourable alteration in her appearance, Mrs.
Dalton ventured to invite Jeanie to partake of her dinner, and was equally
pleased with the decent propriety of her conduct during the meal.
"Thou canst read this book, canst thou, young woman?" said the old
lady, when their meal was concluded, laying her hand upon a large Bible.
"I hope sae, madam," said Jeanie, surprised at the question; " my father
wad hae wanted mony a thing, ere I had wanted that schuling."
" The better sign of him, young woman. There are men here, well to
pass in the world, would not want their share of a Leicester plover, and
that's a bag-pudding, if fasting for three hours would make all their
poor children read the Bible from end to end. Take thou the book, then,
for my eyes are something dazed, and read where thou listest-it's the only
book thou canst not happen wrong in."
Jeanie was at first tempted to turn up the parable of the good Samaritan,
but her conscience checked her, as if it were a use of Scripture, not for her
own edification, but to work upon the mind of others for the relief of her
worldly afflictions; and under this scrupulous sense of duty, she selected,
in preference, a chapter of the prophet Isaiah, and read it, notwithstanding
her northern accent and tone, with a devout propriety which greatly edified
Mrs. Dalton.
"' Ah," she said, " an all Scotchwomen were sic as thou!-but it was our
luck to get born devils of thy country, I think - every one worse than
t'other. If thou knowest of any tidy lass like thysell, that wanted a place,
and could bring a good character, and would not go laiking about to wakes
and fairs, and wore shoes and stockings all the day round - why, I'll not
say but we might find room for her at the Rectory. IHast no cousin or
sister, lass, that such an offer would suit?"
This was touching upon a sore point, but Jeanie was spared the pain of
replying by the entrance of the same man-servant she had seen before.
" Measter wishes to see the young w6man from Scotland," was Tummas's
address.
" Go to his Reverence, my dear, as fast as you can, and tell him all your
story-his Reverence is a kind man," said Mrs. Dalton. "I will fold down
the leaf, and make you a cup of tea, with some nice muffin, against you
come down, and that's what you seldom see in Scotland, girl."
" Measter's waiting for the young woman," said Tummas, impatiently.
" Well, Mr. Jack-Sauce, and what is your business to put in your oar?And how often must I tell you to call Mr. Staunton his Reverence, seeing
as he is a dignified clergyman, and not be meastering, meastering him, as
if he were a little petty squire?"
As Jeanie was now at the door, and ready to accompany Tummas, the
footman said nothing till he got into the passage, when he muttered, " There
are moe masters than one in this house, and I think we shall have a mistress too, an Dame Dalton carries it thus."
Tummas led the way through a more intricate range of passages than
Jeanie had yet threaded, and ushered her into an apartment which was
darkened by the closing of -most of the window shutters, and in which was
a bed with the curtains partly drawn.
" Here is the young woman, sir," said Turnmas.
"Very well," said a voice from the bed, but not that of his Reverence;
"be ready to answer the bell, and leave the room."
" There is some mistake," said Jeanie, confounded at finding herself in
the apartment of an invalid; " the servant told me that the minister "
-" Don't trouble yourself," said the invalid. " there is no mistake. I know
more of your affairs than my father, and I can manage them better.-Leave