But had I read it I could scarce have seen more clear
in her designs. Maybe I was COUNTRYFEED; at least, I was not so
much so as she thought; and it was even to my homespun wits, that
she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a
beardless boy that was something of a laird in Lothian.
"Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine," says she.
"Run and tell the lasses."
And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains
to flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a
banter, still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should
rather uplift me in my own opinion. When Catriona returned, the
design became if possible more obvious; and she showed off the
girl's advantages like a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed
that she should think me so obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was
being innocently made a show of, and then I could have beaten the
old carline wife with a cudgel; and now, that perhaps these two had
set their heads together to entrap me, and at that I sat and
gloomed betwixt them like the very image of ill-will.
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