Fiction > Book editions > New York, 1893 - David Balfour

308 DAVID BALFOUR
lie was a poor, frail body, and reminded me of an infirm
rabbit — he began to question me close.
Here I fell in a panic. Suppose he accept my tale
(thinks I), suppose he invite my sister to his house,
and that I bring her. I shall have a fine ravelled pirn
to unwind, and may end by disgracing botli the lassie
and myself. Thereupon I began hastily to expound to
him my sister's character. She was of a bashful dis-
position, it appeared, and so extremely fearful of meet-
ing strangers that I had left her at that moment sitting
in a public place alone. And then, being launched
upon the stream of falsehood, I must do like all the
rest of the world in the same circumstance, and plunge
in deeper than was any service ; adding some altogether
needless particulars of Miss Balfour's ill-health and
retirement during childhood. In the midst of which I
awoke to a sense of my behaviour, and was turned to
one blush.
The old gentleman v/as not so much deceived but
what he discovered a willingness to be quit of me.
But he was first of all a man of business ; and knowing
that my money was good enough, however it might
be with my conduct, he was so far obliging as to send
his son to be my guide and cantion in the matter of a
lodging. This implied my presenting of the young
man to Catriona. The poor, pretty child was much
recovered with resting, looked and behaved to perfec-
tion, and took my arm and gave me the name of