The
next moment he was gone again, nor could I see so much as the
skirt-tail of Catriona, upon whom I naturally supposed him to be
then attending.
My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links;
whence a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid
with gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and
warded by a keeper. The way there was a little longsome; the two
younger misses affected an air of genteel weariness that damped me
cruelly, the eldest considered me with something that at times
appeared like mirth; and though I thought I did myself more justice
than the day before, it was not without some effort. Upon our
reaching the park I was launched on a bevy of eight or ten young
gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers, the rest chiefly
advocates) who crowded to attend upon these beauties; and though I
was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by
all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like to
savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without
civility, or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been
among baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both.
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